e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Tinroad]

UCSD Connect today announced the finalists for the 15th annual Connect Most Innovative New Product Awards, offering a glimpse of the emerging technologies and industries expected to shape San Diego's economic landscape.

Products highlighted by this year's cast of nominees ranged from homeland security innovations and compact digital music players, to protein antibodies to help fight the common cold. The 21 finalists were selected from almost 130 entries, far surpassing the previous MIP record.

While the MIP award's mission is to honor top new products, Connect realizes that many of the breakthrough discoveries in the life sciences arena take years to come through the regulatory process to market. As a result, in recognition of the success of San Diego's biotech/life sciences community and number of products in the R&D phase, Connect added the Biotechnology Research and Development category.

The Connect MIP Awards Luncheon will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 11 at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina.

"Even with the challenging economic environment, the list of 2002 finalists is a testimony to the fact that San Diego continues to be a hotbed of technology and life science innovation," says Fred Cutler, executive director of Connect. "The addition of our new biotechnology category recognizes the strength and importance of the future technologies that will come out of the San Diego region."

The 2002 MIP Award finalists are:

Hardware:

AERONEX, Inc. - Micro INFINITY Gas Purification System - A system that removes gaseous contaminants such as dioxide, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide from process gases.

e.Digital Corporation - MXP 100 - A sleek, high-quality, extremely compact digital music player and voice recorder with the portability and durability for use in almost any environment.

SABIA, Inc. - SABIA Model P-3000 - An instrument for real-time analysis of the composition of industrial materials, such as coal and cement.

Software:

Akonix Systems Inc. - Akonix L7 - Software which provides a unique automatic safety net for intravenous medication error-prevention, by focusing on error management at the critical point of infusion delivery to the patient.

ALARIS Medical Systems, Inc. - GuardrailsSafety Software - A perimeter security gateway that detects and controls rogue protocols at the network edge.

Entropia, Inc. - DCGrid - Allows an organization to execute its compute-intensive applications and analyses more rapidly, more accurately, and more creatively, by allowing existing PC resources to become an integrated high performance computing resource.

Telecommunications:

AirFiber, Inc. - HFR - Wirelessly connects buildings with high capacity communications services, eliminating the last mile telecommunications problem that renders a majority of buildings without fiber-like telecommunications.

Ethertronics - DualNet MPCI Internal Antenna Module - Designed for mini-PCI cards, the DualNet antenna module leaves the PC Card expansion slot vacant for other applications.

Hughes Network Systems - Regional BGAN - A user terminal that works on THURAYA and future Inmarsat Satellites and provides 144kbps user rates in both directions.

Life Sciences:

Gen-Probe Incorporated - Procleix HIV-1/HCV Assay - An amplified nucleic acid test used by blood banks to achieve earlier detection of both HIV and hepatitis C in one test.

IDEC Pharmaceuticals - Zevalin - A therapeutic regimen for the treatment of relapsed or refractory low grade, follicular, or transformed B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Invitrogen - ZOOM IPG Runner - Provides a faster, cheaper, simpler and more accessible method of unraveling the complete protein makeup of the cell.

General Technology:

American Technology Corp. - HyperSonic Sound - A proprietary, ultrasonic-to-audio, parametric loudspeaker.

Solar Solutions LLC - AquaPak - An inexpensive, flexible plastic container designed for the transport, storage and solar pasteurization of water.

Verance Corp. - ConfirMedia - A revolutionary broadcast data service that gives subscribers the means to independently verify actual airplay of designated advertising across all major U.S. television, cable and radio networks and all major stations within the top 100 U.S. media markets.

Biotechnology R&D:

Diversa Corp. - Protein Therapeutics / Antibody Program - Technologies to improve protein therapeutics and to generate novel antibodies.

MitoKor, Inc. - MitoProteomics - Technologies to access and profile the mitochondrial proteome and to identify proteins with potential commercial importance as novel drug targets or diagnostic markers.

Perlan Therapeutics, Inc. - ColdSol - A bioengineered antibody fusion protein to be used as a nasal spray for prevention and treatment of the common cold.

Technology R&D:

Maxima CorpX. - Long Wave Infra-Red Free Space Optics - An optical wireless communication system that offers much lower atmospheric losses in fog and other atmospheric obscurants, and is cost-efficient and practical to apply in commercial communications systems.

Qalert - Qalert Mobile System - A self-activating emergency alert system for the protection of law-enforcement, firefighters, or security guards.

UCSD, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Explosive-detecting nanowires A simple, fast, and inexpensive sensor to detect trace amounts of explosives.

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