Wisconsin 'drill instructors' key at BIO boot camp

CHICAGO -- An entrepreneurial "boot camp" at the 2010 BIO International Convention featured a number of Wisconsin instructors who offered insights on what it takes to move a company from idea to profit.

The UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations was one of two regional hosts for BIO's annual bootcamp, which involved about 60 entrepreneurs over parts of two days. Leading panels or serving as panelists were Charles Hoslet, managing director of OCR; Allen Dines, assistant director of OCR; Paul Weiss of Venture Investors LLC in Madison; Laura Strong of Quintessence Biosciences in Madison; Paul Radspinner of Madison's FluGen; and Loren Peterson of Zystor Therapeutics in Milwaukee. Dan Broderick, formerly of Mason Wells in Milwaukee and now of Missouri's Prolog Ventures, was also an instructor.

Hoslet said the bootcamp involved about 30 instructors and engaged entrepreneurs in a "soup-to-nuts" review of technology assessment, intellectual property protection, regulatory planning, building a management team and capitalizing early stage companies.