Healthcare >> CEO Interviews >> April 15, 2005
MICHAEL L. WEINER - CEO of Biophan Technologies began his career at
Xerox Corporation in 1975, where he served in a variety of capacities in
sales and marketing, including manager of software market expansion and
manager of sales compensation planning. In 1982, he received the
President's Award, the top honor at Xerox for an invention benefiting a
major product line. In 1985, Weiner founded Microlytics, a Xerox spin-
off company which developed technology from the Xerox Palo Alto Research
Center into a suite of products, including the award winning Word Finder
thesaurus, with licenses out to over 150 companies, including Apple,
Microsoft, and Sony. Microlytics was acquired by a merger with a public
company in 1990, which Weiner then headed up through 1993. In January,
1993 Weiner co-founded TextWise, a company developing natural language
search technologies for the intelligence community. In 1995, Weiner co-
founded and served as CEO of Manning & Napier Information Services
searches, and other services, for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
and many large corporations, and which subsequently acquired TextWise.
He held this position until January of 1999. MNIS remains private, and
has generated several spin-off companies (Talavara and IP.COM). TextWise
won the Department of Commerce Tibbet's Award for SBIR research in 1998.
In February, 1999, Weiner founded Technology Innovations, LLC, to
develop intellectual property assets. In August, 2000, Technology
Innovations created a subsidiary, Biomed Solutions, LLC, to pursue
biomedical and nanotechnology opportunities, investing in embryonic-to-
seed stage innovations which generate new ventures and/or licenses.
These companies are holding companies for intellectual property assets
and equities in other ventures. Weiner has been CEO of Biophan
Technologies, Inc. since co-founding the company in December, 2000, with
Wilson Greatbatch, P.E., the inventor of the first successful
implantable cardiac pacemaker, which Greatbatch licensed to Medtronic in
1960. Biophan's primary mission is to develop and commercially exploit
technologies for providing competitive advantage to biomedical device
companies, including technology for enabling biomedical devices to be
safe and compatible with MRI diagnostics. Biophan spun out of Biomed
Solutions in December, 2000, through a merger with a public company,
trading under the symbol BIPH. Biophan recently acquired a majority
interest in TE-Bio, LLC, which is developing with NASA a patented
biothermal battery for powering implantable devices based on thermal
deltas in body heat, taking advantage of advances in nanomaterials.
Weiner serves on the Boards of Biophan, Biomed Solutions, LLC,
Technology Innovations, LLC, Speech Compression Technologies, LP,
Nanoset, LLC, MYOTECH, LLC, TE-Bio, LLC, and OncoVista, Inc. These
companies, all founded or co-founded by Weiner, hold over 200 patents
pending, issued, allowed, and/or licensed in (Biophan alone currently
has 114). Weiner has been a member of the Licensing Executives Society
(LES) since 1984, and is a member of IEEE, AAAS, AFIO, and the NY
Inventor's Club. Weiner believes that society can benefit by improving
the methods by which innovation moves from idea to application and
commercialization. Profile
and a picture of the things you are doing at the present time.
Mr. Weiner: At the end of 2000, our goal was to make
