CONNECT Announces Most Innovative New Product (MIP) Award Winners

December 2, 2004

SAN DIEGO (December 2, 2004) - CONNECT, UC San Diego's program in technology and entrepreneurship, today announced the winners for the 17th annual CONNECT Most Innovative New Product (MIP) Awards, reinforcing the region's reputation for supporting emerging technologies and encouraging creative product development.

The winners, announced at a luncheon at the Marriott Hotel & Marina, were chosen from a field of 19 finalists by a distinguished panel of judges representing leaders from San Diego's technology and life science communities.

The 2004 MIP Award winners are:

Hardware:
Tarari, Inc. - Tarari RAX Content Processor (RAX-CP) - the fastest product available for processing XML messages and documents, it implements RAX in hardware to accelerate XPath expressions to query an XML document.

Software:
BidShift, Inc. - BidShift v2.1 - Primarily helping to address the current nursing shortage in healthcare, an innovative HCM software tool with an auction-based, shift bidding application to assist hospital administrators to optimize their staffing processes to attract and retain staff and ultimately increase the quality of patient care.

Telecommunications:
Entropic Communications - c.LINK-270 - a communications semiconductor and software product that enables room-to-room networking at 270Mbps without any changes to existing home wiring.

Life Science:
Ophthonix, Inc. - Z-View Aberrometer & iZon Wavefront-Guided Lenses - a transformational wavefront measurement instrument designed especially for the dispensing eye care practitioner to measure a patient's unique optical fingerprint and achieve a patient's refraction and lead to non-surgical vision optimization.

General Technology:
LIFE-SAFER, INC. -- The Personal Retriever - a patented "Rapid Recovery" system device designed to overcome seven performance deficiencies inherant in traditional drowning rescue tools by raising the effectiveness of the on-scene responder and reducing the level of risk.

Biotechnology R&D:
TargeGen - TG100-115 - a small molecule intravenous drug which reduces tissue damage to the heart following a heart attack by suppressing unwanted biochemical damage.

In addition, the Bill Otterson Award, recognizing a San Diego-based company whose product has demonstrated a significant impact on society, was presented to Pfizer for Viracept, a protease inhibitor to treat patients with HIV and the first therapeutic product from a San Diego biotechnology company to be approved by the FDA. Accepting the award on behalf of Pfizer was Siegfried Reich, Vice President and Head of Viral Ophthalmic Diseases Therapeutic Zone at Pfizer, and one of the inventors of Viracept while at Agouron Pharmaceuticals (Agouron became a Pfizer company through the acquisition of Warmer-Lambert by Pfizer in 2000.)

The Gray Cary Award for Technology Innovation was awarded to Jim Berglund, General Partner of Enterprise Partners. This award is given to the individual(s) in San Diego who, through business activities and community involvement, have encouraged innovation and diversity of thought, supporting the advancement of San Diego entrepreneurs.

"The 2004 class of finalists and winners truly sets a new standard for achievement and entrepreneurship," said Duane Roth, Executive Director of CONNECT. "These companies fuel our region's success and are the reason why we are positioned at the forefront of innovation in the technology and life science industries."

Since 1988, the CONNECT MIP Awards program has served as a benchmark for predicting the region's most successful emerging technologies. From early stage biotechnology companies to the first products generated by the region's telecommunications boom, the awards program has been an indicator of the industries and technologies that have fueled the San Diego economy.

Winners were selected based on their ability to demonstrate the technology's innovation, technological advancement, and its potential for commercial success. The distinguished judges for this year's awards included:

  • Joe Bear—Executive Director, William J. von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement
  • Roger Bohn—Associate Professor of Management, UCSD Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
  • Barbara Bry—CEO, Voice of San Diego
  • Michael Busselen—SVP and Senior Partner / General Manager, Fleishman-Hillard International Communications
  • Dr. Kenneth Chien—Director, UCSD Institute of Molecular Medicine
  • Hank Cunningham—Director, Community and Econ. Dvlp., City of San Diego
  • Richard Doutre Jones—Vice President and General Manager, Bay City Television
  • Dr. Sanford Ehrlich—Exec. Director, SDSU Entrepreneurial Management Ctr.
  • CAPT Tim Flynn—Commanding Officer, SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego
  • Louis G. Kelly—Chairman, Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology
  • Robert Kibble—Managing Partner, Mission Ventures
  • Dr. Jeffrey Kirsch—Executive Director, Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
  • Kim Koro—SVP QUALCOMM, Inc., President, QUALCOMM Government Technologies
  • Vicki Marion—President, CEO and Director, Viadux
  • Ken Olson—Private Investor
  • Dr. Alan Paau—Assistant Vice Chancellor, UCSD Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Services
  • Culver G. "Cub" Parker—Member, Tech Coast Angels; Retired Commercial Banker
  • Peter Preuss—President and Founder, The Preuss Foundation, Inc.
  • Ramesh Rao—UCSD Division Director, California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Cal-(IT)2
  • Dr. Ivor Royston—Managing Member, Forward Ventures
  • Bob Slapin—Executive Director, San Diego Software Industry Council
  • Marco Thompson—CTO, Wind River Services
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