If venture capital investment in the Mid-Atlantic could be compared to a person's pulse it would be sporadic and strong. While there isn't a steady amount of venture capital flowing into the area which spans from New York to the Carolinas, the amount that is present is strong and the area has the potential to see even more growth in funding, according to an analyst at Quaker BioVentures (Philadelphia).

"Historically there haven't been a lot of venture capitalists in the area," Matthew Reike, a founding principal of Quaker BioVentures told Medical Device Daily. "But I think that that has changed in the last five to eight years. We still believe there's some strong innovation here in the region."

Reike was Principal at PA Early Stage, a venture capital fund investing in early stage life science and IT companies. He also created start-up companies based on Penn faculty inventions at the University Of Pennsylvania Center for Technology Transfer (Philadelphia).

He said that the companies are there, it's just a matter of getting other venture capitalist to pay attention to the area.

"Our hope at Quaker is that there would be an increase in med-tech entrepreneurs," he said. "As part of that piece we would like to see more venture capital firms come in and fund some of these up and coming companies. Right now we fund only a handful each year, but we would like it if other venture capital firms would come so that the snow ball effect can start taking place."

Also another issue is getting colleges, universities and other academic institutions to be more successful in spinning out companies.

"I think the raw material and talent exists in the Mid-Atlantic, but we could certainly improve on the amount of companies that are spun out of our universities," he said. "Some of the moneys that our schools receive from the National Institute of Health are incredible but we aren't seeing a [proportionate amount] of businesses spin out from these institutions."

This in turn makes the pot potentially smaller for investment.

But there is no denying that venture capital opportunities exist in the area. This year Avid Radiopharmaceuticals (Philadelphia) was reported to have raised the most venture capital money in the region with $34.5 million for the development of its Alzheimer's disease imaging compound.

Quaker has also had some successful investments as well in the medical device and diagnostics sector with Optherion (New Haven Connecticut), Precision Therapeutics (Pittsburgh) and Tear Science (Morrsiville, North Carolina).

But such strong investments are few and don't happen as often.

The common belief that part of the reason for the lack of venture capitalist funding companies in the region, is that other areas have become the go-to spots for innovation, such as the San Francisco Bay area, which for years led the nation in med-tech innovation and venture capital funding.

Even the Midwest has grown to a substantial size taking away much attention from the San Francisco Bay area. In 2007 investments toppled slightly past the $1 billion mark according to data provided to MDD from BioEnterprise (Cleveland) a consortium that is designed to support the growth of bioscience companies in the Midwest (Medical Device Daily, July, 23, 2008).

Ohio itself had nearly $84 million in investments by the first half of 2008. The only state with higher investments in the Midwest was Minnesota, which stood at $106.4 million, BioEnterprise's report shows.

To capture moneys from these areas organizations like the Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership (Atlanta) have formed to promote the med-tech industry and in their respective sectors. The idea of such organizations is to brand their life sciences corridor sections and perhaps foster innovation and bring in even more companies to the area.

It's a goal that coincides with Quaker and its plans to get more venture capital firms involved in the Mid-Atlantic.

"I don't think there's a hurdle for companies in the Mid-Atlantic to get investments over companies in the Bay area," Reike told MDD. "I'm a firm believer that great companies no matter where they are located will find capital."