Economies and businesses change and evolve over time. Those that fail to innovate often struggle to achieve sustainability and growth.

In 1955, the largest 500 U.S. companies by revenue were listed in the inaugural Fortune 500. Today, less than 12 percent of the companies included in the original list remains. The remaining 88 percent of those original companies have gone out of business, been acquired or merged, or have fallen off the list.

Just like any business that fails to innovate, states face the same challenge: innovate or get left behind.

“Innovation is crucial in creating economic prosperity and long-term growth not just in Utah, but in places across…America,” said Lieutenant Governor Spencer J. Cox at the 2018 SSTI Annual Conference, the country’s largest technology-based economic conference.

Scientists have found that a portion of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, the world’s largest ice shelf and an important contributor to future global sea level rise, is melting 10 times faster than the rest of the shelf, according to a new studypublished in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The melting, the scientists say, is being driven by warm, ice-free ocean surface waters heated by the sun. As E&E News reports, while the process sounds simple, it is one that hasn’t been well-documented or studied until now. Most research has focused instead on the influence of deep-sea currents on Antarctic melting, rather than surface water.

Image: https://scienceblog.com

Car crashes, battle wounds, and surgeries can leave people with gaping holes in soft tissue that are often too large for their bodies to repair. Now, researchers have developed a nanofiber-reinforced injectable gel that can rebuild missing muscle and connective tissues by serving as a scaffold and recruiting the body’s wound-healing cells. So far, the team has tested the material only in rats and rabbits. But if it performs as well in humans, it could give reconstructive surgeons a fast and easy way to help patients regenerate lost tissues without scarring or deformity.

Image: A new injectable gel could help repair damaged soft tissues. LI ET AL./SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE

The 3rd hour of TODAY looks at the Virginia-based biotech company Aperiomics, which says it has technology that could shake up health care and find answers for the millions of people living with chronic and undetected illnesses.

Across the centuries, each generation has interpreted Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), finding him to be remarkably modern. At the 500th anniversary of his death (May 2, 2019) we can consider Leonardo’s meaning in our era. Our fundamental nature as human beings has not changed in 500 years, but our environment has transformed at an extraordinary rate, along with our perspectives on his accomplishments—and our own.

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP and GreyB report on industry focused #patent trends show which states are the most innovative. Top states are #Massachusetts #California #Washington are the top 3. #Ohio made it into the top tier. Ventech Ventures is focused on an #intellectualproperty led strategy and partnering with #dataanalytics #healthcare focused #universities. JobsOhio Columbus 2020 Columbus Partnership

Image: https://www.linkedin.com

With healthcare under extreme commercial and political pressure, the doctor-patient relationship is at a low point — and risks further deterioration. But digital technologies promise to revolutionize the daily delivery of care. Renowned digital medicine pioneer Dr. Eric Topol and Azeem Azhar discuss what this could mean for medical professionals, patients, and national healthcare systems.

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) announced five winners of its "Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!" competition who will each receive $50,000 in grant funding and access to the consortium's first-of-its-kind "Pediatric Device Innovator Accelerator Program" led by MedTech Innovator. A panel of expert judges from business, healthcare, regulatory and legal sectors selected the winners based on the clinical significance and commercial feasibility of their medical devices for children. The competition focused solely on advancing care in pediatric orthopedics and spine, a sector that the FDA identified as an emerging underserved specialty which lacks innovation.

Minnesota-based health system Mayo Clinic selected six auspicious digital health startups for its MedTech Accelerator — a joint venture with Arizona State University for companies that raised at least $500,000 in seed funding rounds.

The accelerator aids early stage medical device and healthcare tech startups raring to polish their products and bring them to commercial success.

Image: https://www.businessinsider.com

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman hopes to bring creative problem solving to city government.

Kriseman launched an Entrepreneur-in-Residence program Wednesday to work with local entrepreneurs.

The two-year pilot project will position one local entrepreneur as a liaison between city government and the entrepreneurial community.

Reuben Pressmen, CEO of Presence, will serve as the city’s first volunteer Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Presence is a data-driven education enhancement firm.

Image: http://floridapolitics.com

When we think about organizing precarious “gig” workers, the task seems biblical. The workers may be ready, or not, but the spirit and the flesh are weak. We all bemoan the rise of gig workers. Low pay, few hours, no benefits are some of them, worsened by the uncertainty of a position where you can only work to deliver something being demanded by consumers at a premium you are powerless to control. App companies misclassify workers as independent contractors rather than employees in order to pass on all of the maintenance and capital costs, aside from web work and marketing, to the workers, avoiding the personnel benefit and equipment costs that are routine and inescapable for regular employers. Worker conditions seem to cry out for a union, but unions have to be wary at answering the call no matter how loud.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

The biotech industry is seeing a massive increase in the amount of funding available to early-stage research. At Bio Europe Spring, we spoke to Nerida Scott, VP of New Ventures and Transactions at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, to learn more about what’s behind it.

In the last five years, the total invested in seed and Series A fundraisings of biotech companies has doubled to reach over €3Bn per year. A particularly big difference can be seen within the European biotech ecosystem.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK  – The newly published document, “2018: Evidence and Opportunity: Impact of Life Sciences in North Carolina,” is a fascinating story of transformation for a state that once held the unfortunate reputation as the second-poorest in the nation.

It marks the 10th anniversary of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s contract with TEConomy Partners to track and evaluate the state’s life science landscape.

Bottom line: the nation’s 10-year escape from the Great Recession has produced an even greater run for North Carolina’s life science sector:

Image: https://www.wraltechwire.com

No matter how hard you try to create a supportive and fulfilling workplace, the day will come when you find out that a valued employee is thinking of leaving or has already accepted an offer outside the firm. What you do at that moment — whether you decide to convince the person to stay or let them go gracefully — matters not just to that specific situation but to your organization for years to come.

CHICAGO, April 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Angel Capital Association (ACA), the world's leading professional association for angel investors, announced the winners of national awards at the 2019 ACA Summit taking place in Chicago.  Winners include Kansas City's Marianne Hudson for the angel who has advanced the field of angel investing and Joylux, a Seattle startup, as the most innovative company funded by ACA members. 

In many countries around the world, a longer working week does not necessarily result in higher levels of productivity. According to the OECD, workers in Mexico, South Korea and Greece have some of the longest annual shifts on the planet, averaging 2,257, 2,024 and 2,018 hours per year respectively in 2015. When it comes to labor productivity in all three countries, however, the story is very different indeed. In 2017, GDP per hour worked across the total economy amounted to just $21.6 in Mexico, $37 in South Korea and $38.9 in Greece.

Last week ended with another Friday night blitz of biotech S-1s as a fresh wave of new offerings forms to crash into Nasdaq. Entering the Wall Street spotlight now is one transatlantic operation that is out to develop a new class of meds, a Dallas biotech with a Phase III kidney cancer drug and a startup that in-licensed its lead drug from Novartis.

They are all oncology focused, highlighting the big money that continues to pour into all things cancer related.

LinkedIn just released its list of the top 50 companies to work for in the United States. As always, the list is a veritable who’s who of unicorn enterprises that are making a difference in the world — and in the lives of their thousands of employees.

The list is based on data gathered from the LinkedIn’s 546-plus million users.

This extensive ranking is based on four major factors: interest in the company, engagement with employees, job demand, and employee retention.

SAN FRANCISCO — The startup incubator Y Combinator plans to fund more early-stage drug makers, with a partnership designed to bring academic spinouts developing small-molecule drugs into its famed accelerator program. And in a Silicon Valley twist, the compounds it’s backing will often be recommended by an algorithm.

Canada’s top universities and research institutes spent $5.7 billion on research and development (R&D), but generated less than $75 million from licensing their innovations in 2017. That’s an average return on investment of 1.3 per cent, according to the latest report from AUTM, which monitors commercialization from academic research in Canada. Institutions filed 687 patents, down from 790 in 2016 and the fewest since 2008.

Image: University of Saskatchewan campus. - University of Saskatchewan