Kiger's Notebook

Mayo Clinic and TGen: More study on tumor drug

Here's a release on some possibly valuable - to cancer patients and ultimately to Mayo Clinic, TGen and Threshold Pharmaceuticals - research cooking in Scottsdale, Ariz. on Mayo's campus. It is odd that Threshold is not mentioned in the main release, but a bio of the company is listed at the end. It lists on its Web site that TH-302 is a drug it has in its pipeline:

 TGen Clinical Research Services at Scottsdale Healthcare and Mayo Clinic are testing a new drug that may offer broad potential to treat solid tumors.

Clinical trials of the drug TH-302 are being conducted at TGen Clinical Research Services at Scottsdale Healthcare, a partnership of the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Scottsdale-based Scottsdale Healthcare Corp., and at Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

Dr. Glen Weiss, Director of Thoracic Oncology at TCRS at Scottsdale Healthcare, said the new drug appears promising and may be more effective and less toxic to healthy tissues than conventional drugs.

"TH-302 is a new, novel, small molecule that is activated under a metabolic condition characteristic of cancer cells — hypoxia (lack of oxygen). The drug candidate may provide an opportunity to treat slowly dividing tumor cells within hypoxic regions that generally evade traditional chemotherapeutic agents and ultimately contribute to relapse," Dr. Weiss said.

Phase 1 and Phase 1/2 trials are underway to investigate the safety and activity of TH-302 in patients with advanced solid tumors. After evidence of tumor activity was observed in the Phase 1 trial in patients with advanced melanoma – both non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer – the study was expanded to further investigate TH-302 anti-tumor activity in these tumors. Both Phase 1 and 1/2 trials continue to enroll patients with other solid tumors. If successful, Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials will confirm the drug's effectiveness on solid tumors.

About TGen
The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is a non-profit organization dedicated to conducting groundbreaking research with life changing results. Research at TGen is focused on helping patients with diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders and diabetes. 
About Scottsdale Healthcare
Scottsdale Healthcare is a primary clinical research site for TGen. TGen Clinical Research Services (TCRS) at Scottsdale Healthcare is housed in the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare, located on the Scottsdale Healthcare Shea medical campus.
About Threshold Pharmaceuticals
Threshold is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of drugs targeting Tumor Hypoxia, the low oxygen condition found in microenvironments of most solid tumors. This approach offers broad potential to treat most solid tumors. By selectively targeting tumor cells, we are building a pipeline of drugs that hold promise to be more effective and less toxic to healthy tissues than conventional anticancer drugs. For additional information, please visit our website (www.thresholdpharm.com).

IBM insider speaks

Pick a number, any number.

IBM’s silence on its recent job cuts is spurring rampant speculation around Rochester about how many people are losing their jobs.

One laid-off software engineer with more than 30 years at the Rochester plant says the local tally could range between 500 to 1,000 workers for Tuesday’s job toll.

That would place the company in violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies making layoffs that “will result in an employment loss at the employment site during any 30-day period of 500 or more employees” to notify affected workers 60 days in advance of layoff or termination. IBM is giving employees 30 days to find new jobs within the company.

IBM has not contacted the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development about any job action of that size, says Kirsten Morrell of the state office.

“We hope they are in compliance. We hear about layoffs from a variety of sources, then we go in and try to establish a relationship with the company,” she said. That’s the stage DEED is in with IBM now.

“We just want to help dislocated workers find their new jobs,” she said. The large number of layoffs in the state this week has all of the department’s dislocated worker staff out at various companies like Target and Best Buy. 

Doug Shelton, IBM’s spokesman, who once again declined to provide layoff numbers, points out that IBM had filed a W.A.R.N. notice in New York state, even though the law does not take effect there until Sunday. That filing was for 274 workers to be laid off effective April 27.

“We did that voluntarily. Why would we do that there and try to avoid it here? It doesn’t make sense,” he said. 

So how does IBM respond to the implied charges that it might be breaking a federal law with the Minnesota layoffs?

“I’d love to see the data,” said

The software engineer, who is seeking another job within IBM and wishes to remain anonymous, does not have proof to back up his estimates.

But he does have the packet that IBM gave to laid-off workers from the Systems and Technology Group. It lists information about 1,209 people who lost their jobs not just in Rochester, but in the group company-wide.

It has no names, but does list job titles and employee ages. The ages range from 28 to 70.

Why come forward even anonymously to discuss IBM when it means risking at least his severance package and any future job at Big Blue?

“I think sunshine is the best disinfectant,” he said referencing the company keeping people in the dark about layoff numbers.” If somebody is hiding something then that is suspicious.”

A second generation IBMer who hired on right out of college, he is now in his 50s. He says this is not the same company he started with.

“When hired, you were told if you followed the rules, you would never… ever lose your job,” he said. “We had songs in the morning. We drank the Kool-Aid. There was an IBM song.”

With all of the rolling layoffs in the past several days, what is the atmosphere on the IBM campus?

People are keeping their heads down and their mouths shut, said the former software engineer.

“A couple of personal friends have talked to me quietly as if my wife died. You know like ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I wish there was something I could do’ and then that was it.”

Home Fed Bank CEO resigns, new pres. named

Mike McNeil, the leader of Home Federal Bank for the past 11 years, resigned Thursday. He was President, CEO and Director of Home Federal and the bank's holding company HMN Financial, Inc.

The bank's board has named  Bradley C. Krehbiel as president of Home Federal Savings Bank.

The change of leadership has nothing to do with bank performance or the major loss due to the Tom Petters fraud case, says the bank.

I'll have more on this soon.

Muve is ready to Gruve

Remember Muve?

That's the company founded by Dr. James Levine that he won the Minnesota Cup start-up company award with a couple years ago.

Now the Twin Cities firm has its widget - the Gruve - ready to take orders. The Gruve tracks how many calories you are burning with all of your movements. You use it with a subscription service to track your progress and help you become more healthy.

Here's some from the note I got about the product:

Wanted to give you a heads up that we are now taking individual orders for the Gruve Solution.  We are also giving away a FREE copy of the new book Move A Little, Lose A Lot by Dr. James Levine with each order.

The Gruve, developed at Mayo Clinic, costs $100 and you need to buy a one year - $300 - or two year - $460 - subscription.

From the Web site:

The Gruve Solution includes the following:
  Gruve - Your personalized, real time activity monitor
  Gruve Online - The online resource which stores your data and provides education, motivation and support
  Gruve Guide - The 12 week program that teaches and leads you toward a healthier, active lifestyle

And here's the description of company:

Business Description: Muve, Inc. was formed in 2007 with the goal of reversing the obesity epidemic in the United States and globally. Muve's mission is to deliver scalable, broadly available activity based weight management solutions. Muve provides the tools, technology and coaching services to help individuals lose weight. Our weight management solutions have been proven successful through extensive research and real-world trials. 

Product Description: We have developed the Gruve Solution™, a patent-pending weight management system that tracks energy expenditure with a wearable device, an accompanying online service and our Muvology™ consulting services. 

Market Size: An estimated 125 million Americans and 1 billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. The total U.S. weight loss market was worth an estimated $58.7 billion in 2007 with an annual growth rate of 6% projected to $68.7 billion by 2010. 

Crenlo's week and 2009 outlook

Starting a week with your two top customers — Caterpillar and John Deere — announcing 20,700 layoffs sounds rough, but Rochester’s Crenlo is still rolling ahead.

“The news they put out … was not a surprise to us,” says Crenlo President Lance Fleming. “We had already adjusted our schedule down.”

Crenlo is a contract manufacturer that makes products such as cabs from sheet metal, steel frames for construction and agricultural vehicles. It has 670 employees at two facilities in Rochester.

Caterpillar, which honored Crenlo with a quality certification over all of the company’s other cab makers worldwide, is the Rochester company’s top customer. John Deere is its second largest customer.

What do the Caterpillar and John Deere cutbacks mean for Crenlo in 2009?

“2009 will be less than we saw in 2008,” he said. 

However, “Crenlo has a significant number  of business accounts coming in the 2009 — mainly in the second half — that will help offset some of the general economic slowdown.”

When it needs to adjust its work level, Crenlo shortens its factory’s production to four days a week instead of five, Fleming said. It has also put a hiring freeze in place.

“We have not had any shop layoffs at this time,” Fleming said. “If the markets stay down permanently, we would probably have to go to something different at that point in time.”

While the news Monday was bleak, that is not the whole picture, said Crenlo’s president.

“John Deere has a mix of construction equipment and agriculture, and agriculture is doing a bit better. We do have new business from John Deere this year. We’re picking up a new model,” he said.

For Crenlo, 2009 will see the company move beyond the beleaguered construction and ag industries. A new contract will open doors into the material handling market, Fleming said.

Roch. Starbucks safe from being dumped

You have probably heard the Starbucks news this morning. The caffeinated juggernaut from the northwest is closing 300 stores – 200 in U.S. – in addition to the 600 it chopped last year.

If you are worried about your favorite 'Bucks in Rochester, I can put your latte-addled mind at ease. Here's what I put in today's paper mixed with AP's typing. Most of my short addition was cribbed from a piece I wrote in July. I never throw anything away. Heh:

Starbucks Corp. plans to slash nearly 7,000 more jobs during a new round of store closures and other cuts, the company said as it reported Wednesday that its profit dropped by more than two-thirds in its fiscal first quarter.
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Since Rochester’s only corporate-owned store — in the US Bank complex on West Circle Drive — closed last summer, Rochester should see only the froth from these changes and avoid any scalding. The tally of locally-owned counters selling Starbucks coffee is currently six.

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The cuts and changes will result in about $500 million in savings in fiscal 2009, the company said.

DoApp gets punchy

The guys at DoApp, the phone and online application software makers with two developers/founders in Rochester, are still goofing around.

And that is why they have landed a knock-out punch with their 99 cent downloadable game, Punch-O-Meter.

Punch-O-Meter, released on November, is the top paid application in the sports section of Apple's App Store.

That means more people are buying it than applications like "Where to Golf," "Sport Score," "iTrailMap 3D GPS tracking for ski and snowboard" and "Beer Pong."

Here's a description of the game from the DoApp Web site:

Step right up! Step right up, one and all! Hey tough guy. Think you've got strength? Think you've got power? Ready for an app that will really leave an impression? It's time to test your punching prowess with Punch-O-Meter by DoApp, Inc.
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Punch-o-meter is not your standard carnival game test of strength. Challenge yourself or challenge a friend. No need to have them come over to strap on the gloves; send them your punch score through text or email. When they punch back, the winner is determined and the scores are posted on the Punch-O-Meter website. Make sure you get some practice in, because this one-of-a-kind game is tough to cheat.

You get immediate feedback from your punch, a visual meter shows your numeric score, and one of more than 40 comeback phrases pops up, such as:
• Thank you, sir. May I have another?
• That's pathetic.
• Was that a punch or a door knock?
• 50 more push-ups a day might do the trick, Sparky!
• Dude, your guns are illegal!
• I am seeing stars right now.

Punch-O-Meter (POM) calculates a punch score based on multiple factors and characteristics of the punch thrown. A hard punch may be beatable by the same hard punch thrown in a straighter line. Factors that POM considers when calculating a punch are: speed of your punch, strength of your punch, and straightness of your punch.
To improve your punch, try eliminating things like the "flick" movement of the device at the end of the punch or punching through a straighter line. Long story short, punch it out and you'll figure it out.

Elk Run + $1.2M grant state

Here's an interesting tidbit from the biotech sector that rolled in last night amid reports of a Big Blue blood bath. We'll have more on this soon:

Tower Investments, LLC, owner and developer of the Elk Run master planned community and BioBusiness Park at Elk Run, today announced plans for the installation of onsite infrastructure funded in part by a $1.2 million state-sponsored grant.  Total project cost for this phase is expected to be $2.5 million.

The Bioscience Business Development Public Infrastructure Program grant, awarded to the City of Pine Island by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), will provide the necessary resources to complete improvements at the site of the BioBusiness Park.  

“This grant signals the next major step in bringing the BioBusiness Park at Elk Run from concept to reality, as we will now establish the physical foundation for this innovative bioscience development,” said Geoff Griffin, Elk Run project manager for Tower Investments, LLC. 

“We credit the City of Pine Island with securing this important grant.  Mayor Perry and his administration have been staunch advocates for biobusiness development, and we applaud both the City and the State for recognizing Elk Run’s profound potential to create jobs and encourage further economic growth throughout the region and state of Minnesota.”

The City of Pine Island expects bid solicitation for on-site infrastructure improvements to begin in mid-February, with bid awards likely to be made in mid-April 2009.  A Master Development Agreement was executed between the City of Pine Island and Tower Investments, LLC in June 2008, which provided the green light for Phase I off-site infrastructure improvements. 
 
The 

BioBusiness Park 

at Elk Run is the first step of Phase I development for the Elk Run master planned community.  The mixed-use development will include residences as well as commercial, medical and bioscience facilities. 
  

More on IBM's job ax swinging today

Here's some of what I managed to scrape up on IBM's "resource action" otherwise known as terminations:

More IBM terminations quietly seeped across the company Tuesday, covering almost 

every facility - including Rochester.

“Within North America, we did notify some employees today,” confirmed IBM Spokesman Doug Shelton.

While IBM yet again declined to discuss specific locations of numbers, Rochester IBMers who were terminated Tuesday did confirm cuts were made in the Systems and Technology Group and the Software Group. IBM had 4,400 employees here at the end of December.

Aren’t companies like IBM required by law to report mass job cuts?

“Where required by state and federal regulations, we honor and commit to making announcements about job notifications,” says Shelton.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires that companies making mass layoffs that “will result in an employment loss at the employment site during any 30-day period for 500 or more employees” notify affected workers 60 days in advance of layoff or termination.

If IBM is following the rules, then less than 500 workers lost their jobs Tuesday. But how much less is unclear.

A national group promoting unionizing IBM says workers have told them that about 1,200 employees were cut from the System and Technology Group and 193 were eliminated from the Research Division.

Also feeling the ax were the Lotus Group, certain areas of the Software Group, Human Resources and some corporate divisions, according to information collected by Lee Conrad, the national coordinator of Alliance@IBM.

How do employees feel about the company’s silence about the “resource action”?

“People don’t understand that type attitude. They want the company cutting their jobs to be open about it and to treat them as people not as resources,” he said.

IBM board OKs dividend

While IBM is not releasing any info or numbers on layoffs, here is what I got from PR guy Douglas Shelton today:

The IBM  board of directors today declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.50 per common share, payable March 10, 2009 to stockholders of record February 10, 2009. With the payment of the March 10 dividend, IBM will have paid consecutive quarterly dividends every year since 1916.
IBM also announced that its next annual meeting of stockholders will be held April 28, 2009 at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach, Florida.