UC Entrepreneurship Professor On Hand for NASDAQ Opening Bell Ceremony

Submitted: 8/10/2009 8:55:47 AM

• On July 31, 2009, University of Cincinnati College of Business entrepreneurship professor joined Global Moot Corp winners Novophage Therapeutics, an MBA new venture team, to ring The Opening Bell (SM) to start trading on the NASDAQ.


University of Cincinnati College of Business entrepreneurship professor, Dr. Charles H. Matthews, was on hand for the opening bell to start trading on the NASDAQ Friday July 31, 2009. He was there to support an MBA new venture team from Boston University and MIT that hopes to significantly slow the onset of antibiotic resistance. Novophage Therapeutics had the honor of opening the NASDAQ trading day after they claimed the grand prize at the 26th annual Global Moot Corp Competition held at the University of Texas at Austin on Saturday, May 9, 2009. Novophage Therapeutics beat out 39 teams from top MBA programs around the world to claim the Global Champion prize.

Dr. Matthews founded and directs the UC Spirit of Enterprise Graduate Business Plan Competition, the winner of which receives the CINCOM Systems Spirit of Enterprise Champion $10,000 award and an automatic bid to Moot Corp. “Moot Corp is the ‘Super Bowl' of business plan competitions and as a Moot Corp qualifying competition, is an honor to be able to support these students as they begin their entrepreneurial journey,” commented Dr. Matthews.

“Hopefully the next time we are back here, it will be for Novophage to be listed on the NASDAQ” added Michael Koeris, one of Novophage Therapeutics' co-founders.

Novophage Therapeutics is introducing a new biological therapy that slows the onset of antibiotic resistance and increases the efficacy of current antibiotics. The company plans to offer efficacious treatments for highly antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, allowing infectious disease doctors to better manage the fight against multidrug-resistant strains through co-administration of engineered bacteriophages with current clinical standards of care. Team members include Timothy Lu, Tanguy Chau, Michael Koeris and Ann DeWitt.

About the Moot Corp Program:

Begun at the University of Texas at Austin by MBA students in 1984, the Moot Corp Competition is the oldest new venture competition in the world. The competition provides graduate students with a chance to simulate the real world process of raising venture capital. Each May, teams from around the world come to Austin to compete in "the Super Bowl of world business plan competition."

About NASDAQ OMX:

The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. is the world's largest exchange company. It delivers trading, exchange technology and public company services across six continents, with over 3,900 listed companies. NASDAQ OMX Group offers multiple capital raising solutions to companies around the globe, including its U.S. listings market; NASDAQ OMX Nordic, NASDAQ OMX Baltic, including First North; and the U.S. 144A sector. The company offers trading across multiple asset classes including equities, derivatives, debt, commodities, structured products and ETFs.

NASDAQ OMX Group technology supports the operations of over 70 exchanges, clearing organizations and central securities depositories in more than 50 countries. NASDAQ OMX Nordic and NASDAQ OMX Baltic are not legal entities but describe the common offering from NASDAQ OMX Group exchanges in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius.

About the UC Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research and the Spirit of Enterprise MBA Business Plan Competition:

Founded in the University of Cincinnati College of Business in 1997 by Professor Charles H. Matthews, the Center for Entrepreneurship Education & Research vision is to provide a state-of-the-art entrepreneurship curriculum and research base not only for potential student entrepreneurs and scholars, but also for people in the many organizations that interact with small, entrepreneurial and family-owned businesses on a daily basis. Its mission focuses on removing barriers and creating gateways for entrepreneurs, especially student entrepreneurs. The University of Cincinnati has been consistently ranked as one of the top 50 programs for entrepreneurship in the United States by Success magazine and one of the top 100 programs in the United States by Entrepreneur Magazine, and ranked number 21 in the 2008 Princeton Review of top Undergraduate Entrepreneurship programs in the U.S.

The 2010 UC Spirit of Enterprise Graduate Business Plan Competition will take place in February 2010, with 20 of the nation's best teams presenting their start-up venture concepts at Cincom Systems' World Headquarters. Prizes total more than $20,000 in cash. The competition is only possible in part from the outstanding support from Cincom, a 40-year-old international software firm headquartered in Cincinnati founded in 1968 by UC alum Mr. Tom Nies. Cincom has been the host of the competition from the beginning and writes the check for the $10,000 grand prize. Financial sponsorship is also provided by other Cincinnati-based companies, such as Meridian Bioscience and CincyTech.

• Printer-Friendly Version    • E-mail this information to a friend