I promised to update you on Innovationedge’s collaboration with Russia’s International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). As you know, we announced our partnership with InnovationPoint to work on a multi-year contract to help some of the most innovative minds in Russia –many of whom are former U.S.S.R. weapons scientists and engineers—to redirect their talents and bring new science and technology capabilities to the United States.

These scientists are highly skilled in biotechnology, agriculture, biomass, health care, nanotechnology and bioengineering. We formally launched our partnership with ISTC in Moscow last November, and have since had several opportunities to advance our mission. To date we have identified and set up meetings with key U.S. partners who could leverage the knowledge and capabilities of our Russian innovators. We’ve also developed marketing materials such as ISTC partnership brochures.

Last month, Innovationedge’s Jeff Lindsay, Director of Solution Development, traveled to Moscow for its Drug Design and Development Conference. The two-day international conference included reps from the World Health Organization, CDC, pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology businesses from Europe, the U.S. and Canada who shared their vision of novel therapeutics to combat emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and cancer.

The symposium was an opportunity for us to get an overview of the biotech work of many Russian scientists. From the perspective of commercializing technologies, most of the technologies shown represented early stage exploratory work. When a biotech company has parallel interests and sees a fit with a particular chemistry being studied, it is a chance for licensing. Some of the capabilities, such as modeling of drug properties for improved activity, may have potential to find a variety of interested partners.

We are exploring specific projects and existing technologies in these areas so that we can make our efforts to find commercial partners. Some of these projects may already have enough data developed to create interest in drug companies that may wish to further explore and develop these exciting opportunities.