Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. Earlier this week, the Rice Alliance held their eighth annual life science technology venture forum and as I said in the lineup, we were there meeting the leaders of these really cool innovative companies and capturing the elevator pitches. So John and I decided we would share three of our favorites. Up first is iShoe.

iShoe: Good afternoon everyone. Here's a scene from yesterday's world. Barbara,a grandmother of four, has fallen down again and this time she breaks her hip. Here's a scene from a world with iShoe. Barbara wakes up, steps on her iShoe balance scale, she checks her weight and balance for the day. The scale alerts her she's in the danger zone for falling. Barbara goes to the doctor and reports her findings, she's prescribed rehab. Barbara doesn't fall, and in a month she's back to her ok range for balance. A quarter of America's 35 million senior citizens chronically fall down, this leads to 300,000 hip fractures a year, which totals over 20 billion dollars in medical costs. Surprisingly there's still no cheap reliable diagnostic for poor balance. iShoe's $40 diagnostic scale gives you the top of the line assessment for your balance all from the comfort of your own home. Originally for NASA restaurants, were a certified space technology and we want to bring our patented technology to Barbara and to everyone. We're looking for C grant funding of $500,000 to get a market ready prototype and 3 million in series A funding to bring the scale to market. We hope you join us as iShoes is a small step for seniors and a giant leap for geriatric mobility.

John: Very good, good succinct, good opening, I can't really find anything I didn't like about the pitch, I'd like to use my checkbook to put on that iShoe to see if my check book balances.

Russ: That's a good idea. You know maybe theres other markets like the dwi/dui market

John: There you go, to see if you're drunk.

Russ: You stand up if your drunk, you just go back to bed or lay down in the car.

John: There you go.

Russ: But I just think she did a good job all the way around.

John: She did. She did.

Russ: Up next, were going to hear from Traumatec Inc.

Traumatec Inc.: Hi my name is Suzanne Richard, and I'm the CEO of Traumatec. I'm gonna give you two of Dan Smith's goals. One is to get a driver's license, two to be independent. Dan has been in and out of rehab centers and programs for the last ten years to be able to achieve those goals. Dan is one, was one of the million and a half people every year that had a traumatic brain injury. What if you could do something for those people? Therapeutic hypothermia, or deliberate cooling has been shown to be neuro-protective. Devices on the market today are not targeted therapies. They provide inefficient treatments and can introduce other problems, medical problems. Traumatec has developed a way to cool only the brain and not the whole body. We have a non-evasive device, its disposable, it's patented, and we've already registered with the FDA. We've launched our product, it is in an air transport company, it is in an EMS department, were training two hospital systems, and we're also enrolling patients in a clinical study in a level one training center. Our market size is over a billion dollars, we're looking for four million dollars for national expansion, for marketing, for the military, and for ongoing operating expenses. Please help us make a difference.

John: Good presentation, not as good as the one we just heard though, the one before that.

Russ: iShoes you thought was a better presentation.

John: yeah absolutely yeah. You can tell there's some passion there, I think there's some belief in what she's trying to accomplish, as she's trying to serve a cause greater than her own self, so I picked that up.

Russ: Well I think theres a lot of them that were like that. I mean boy you talk about improving brain injury patients it's a pretty cool thing, and we're all beginning to learn now about this thing about cooling the body when you sustain one of those injuries and targeting just the brain and cooling it sounds pretty cool.

John: You know I know a lot of hot-heads out there too that could probably use this device.

Russ: You're probably right. There's another market expansion opportunity for her or for hot-heads [laughing]

John: Hot-heads. Ok tired of that hot-head in the office, cool this brain right here, plug it in!

Russ: Ok, in our last elevator pitch we're gonna share with you in this flashback is with Vaporgenix Inc.

Vaporgenix Inc: What would you say if I told you that there could potentially be a pain drug that was one, non-narcotic, two, worked only on the part of the body where you applied it, three, relieved a variety of different types of pain, and four, was based on an active ingredient that had a long established history of safety in humans, but the IP protection of a new drug. Vaporgenix is working on just that type of drug. We're developing novel pain medications based on reformulated volatile anesthetics or VA's. Volatile Anesthetics have been used for decades to put people to sleep in general anesthesia. Stablilized, they have great potential to form a basis of a whole new category of pain medications for a few reasons. First, volatile anesthetics are effective on the peripheral nervous system so that you can target pain relief. Most pain medications such as opiates and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories work systemically. So even when pain is localized, patients get exposed to the side effects of these drugs. Secondly, volatile anesthetics effect multiple receptors, so that they can potentially relieve a variety of different types of pain, including inflammatory pain, muscular/skeletal pain, neuropathic pain. Thirdly, volatile anestheticts can be stabilized and be used to relieve pain without anesthesia sensory blockade without motor blockade. We began operations in November 2007 to develop the potential of reformulated volatile anesthetics, we licensed our technology from M.D. Anderson, raised 2 and a half million in Series A at that time. We're focused on acute pain now with topical and injectable application, and we're not currently raising money but looking to fund development with government grants. I'll skip the next key steps because I'm out of time, thank you.

John: A little verbose for my tastes.

Russ: Ok

John: And she got into all these different kinds of pain, it was painful to listen to that.

Russ: You need some of that Vaporgenix.

John: You know when we hire our reporters at the Business Journal, it's difficult to find reporters who can write short, concise stories, they're hard to find. People want short these days, they don't want some long, verbose, 'oh I'm out of time' you know, she knew she was running. Too much meandering, you know why is pain cute, I don't understand that? Have you ever seen ugly pain? Its always acute pain. And I think there's gotta be some ugliness about pain or why would you be trying to cure it?

Russ: No John, we're talking about the word acute, not a cute.

John: Oh oh, never mind.

Russ: But your comment about being verbose reminds me of the Churchill quote, he wrote that letter to I don't know who said, I wanted to write you a short letter but I just didn't have time, so here's this. You know. I've got a soft spot for anybody who is attacking pain, I love that idea, I guess that sounds pretty simple.

John: Some people love inflicting pain, I wish they had something,

Russ: those hot-heads do!

John: Yeah I know, I wish there's a pill you give somebody who liked to inflict pain

Russ: Yeah, that they would receive it

John: Yeah the video is Boomer- it'd be called the 'Boomerang'

Russ: Now you might have something there you can pitch it next year. Alright and that wraps up the flashback but I gotta tell you if you want to hear more, all thirty of the elevator pitches from the Rice Alliance are located at TheBusinessMakers.com on the flashback segment at the site. And that wraps up this morning's Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. Stay tuned for our featured guest, Will Rossellini, the president of Micro Transponder. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at TheBusinessMakers.com"