Category: Business Development

HIMSS 2019: Solutions combine cutting-edge technology with government policy

Posted on by Jim Jordan

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a truly transformative event. The Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society, or HIMSS, held their global Health IT conference, where more than 45,000 healthcare professionals attended.

Tech leaders and industry executives networked with government policy makers, healthcare providers, and payors to discuss the future of healthcare. As expected, the results were eye-opening, and I would like to share them with you.

But before we talk about healthcare’s future, we need to take a step back and review the past to understand the significance of recent developments.

Shortly after the end of World War II, employers introduced the concept of health insurance as a perk to entice workers in an increasingly tight job market. Quickly, the practice took hold, and employer-sponsored, private health insurance became the norm in the United States.

The number of individuals covered by health insurance continued to grow significantly, but another issue had been thrust into the spotlight: Older and poorer Americans, without the benefit of employer-sponsored health insurance, were left out of the system. With the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, senior citizens and those in lower-income brackets were provided a lifeline, but the cost of healthcare in the United States had skyrocketed.

And while healthcare costs continued to rise at a greater pace than the U.S. GDP, there were still many people who did not have access to affordable healthcare. The introduction of COBRA and other measures in the 1980s helped to bring some Americans back into the system, but the issue still persisted. And as Baby Boomers continued to age, healthcare costs began spiraling out of control.

In 2010, the issues of healthcare access and rising costs were addressed with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The number of uninsured Americans decreased from 44 million in 2008 to 11 million in 2011. And with more people in the insurance pool, a value-based reimbursement system, and other measures designed to rein in costs, the decades-long growth in healthcare spending had finally begun to slow.

But while the ACA has improved access to healthcare and slowed the growth rate of actual cost, it has also limited choices for many Americans who are unable to see providers who are not within their insurance networks. This lack of competition will inevitably inhibit the best value being delivered by the system.

So this is where we are today. At the HIMSS Conference, we discussed recently proposed legislation and many ideas that will help tackle some of the pressing healthcare issues we are now facing. A few of the ideas presented include:

  • A dedicated focus on improving core outcomes, including access to affordable healthcare, reduced healthcare costs, and improved quality.
  • A shift in our current healthcare model. Through newly proposed legislation, there is an effort to convert our current provider-and-payor-centered healthcare system to a patient-centered model.
  • This new consumer-centered model will allow patients to have access and electronic portability of their medical records across the care continuum.
  • Providing this interoperability will lead to consistency across health IT systems, better communication among healthcare providers, and greater patient control over healthcare data.
  • Interoperability will also allow the capture of social determinants of health (lifestyle factors), which are now recognized as being equally as important as genetic information. This will give health providers a more complete picture of a patient’s health status, leading to better, more cost effective diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.
  • Leveraging cutting-edge technology to enhance outcomes. This will lead to greater healthcare access, more patient involvement in their own care, and the alleviation of our growing shortage of healthcare providers.

After speaking with healthcare, technology, and government leaders, one conclusion has become crystal clear: Healthcare problems cannot be solved in silos. The only way we can address our pressing challenges is by developing a holistic solution that combines cutting-edge technology with government policy. Only when these two forces work together will we be able to make meaningful changes in our healthcare system. It will require a combined effort of lawmakers, health IT companies, healthcare providers, payors, and patients to adopt new practices and new mindsets, and tackle our challenges once and for all.

I believe that the HIMSS Conference was a powerful step in the right direction, and I remain excited about the future of healthcare.

Using Public Disclosures to Prevent Competitive Patents

Posted on by Alan West

When does disclosing a secret actually help the secret-keeper?  In the world of patents and patent protection, it can be a key strategy.

Most entrepreneurs understand that an invention must be truly novel to receive a patent.  According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov), an invention cannot be one that has been previously “patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.”

As an example, I once worked at a company that acquired a medical device patent from a physician.  The resulting product achieved rapid market penetration, and the physician inventor received substantial royalty payments – until a competitor discovered that the inventor had described the concept to a group of physicians during a Grand Rounds at a small hospital a few days before he had filed the patent.  As a result, the patent was invalidated, the competitor began marketing a look-alike product, and the company and inventor had to deal with the rather nasty legal business of all the royalties that had been paid.

You have to be especially cautious to not disclose a patentable idea to anyone before filing a patent, unless your audience has signed non-disclosure agreements in advance.  Otherwise, it is considered to be a “public disclosure,” even if it is to one person.

You can, however, use such public disclosures to your advantage.  Let’s say you are a start-up company with a patent covering your first product.  A common defensive patent strategy is to file additional patents covering improvements and line-extensions to your original patent – a tactic known as the “picket fence.”  In this way you create a “fence” surrounding your product, making it much more difficult for competitors to get around your patent.

These new patents are all subservient to your core patent in that they are offshoots of the original and cannot be independently practiced.  As a start-up company, however, you may not have the cash to file all these new applications.  A well-financed competitor, on the other hand, may decide to file patents covering improvements to your product as an offensive strategy.

By filing enhancements to your original patent, they can create bargaining chips to use with you to negotiate a cross license, giving them the right to your original patent in exchange for you to use their patents covering product improvements.  It is a common and effective strategy, but it’s crucial to realize that it can also undermine your company’s competitive advantage.

A simple way to avoid becoming fenced in by a competitor in this way is to publish a description of the improvement in a paper or on your website.  If you are not going to file a patent on the improvement, publicly disclose the idea so no one else can patent it.  In that case your product would still be protected by your core patent.

The Intellectual Property Pyramid Assessment©, a workbook published by the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, will soon be available to order on Amazon. To sign up to get more details please email info@plsg.com.

SBIR Road Tour Comes to Town

Posted on by Jim Osborn

Back in March I blogged about — and sang the praises of — the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and its companion STTR program. Together, those Federal programs provide nearly $2.5B of non-dilutive grant funding annually to technology start-ups and other small businesses. As I pointed out, there’s a regional “SBIR deficit,” meaning that while Pittsburgh’s universities are doing well at garnering Federal research dollars, the region is falling short when it comes to capturing funding from the SBIR programs. Collectively, we are leaving over $10M of NIH SBIR funding on the table, funding that can be acquired with some work.

Some entrepreneurs I’ve talked to are unconvinced that SBIR grants are for them. For instance, they say, “I don’t know enough about them.” Well, on June 19th in the heart of Oakland, your crash-course in all things SBIR awaits. Several state and regional entrepreneur support organizations have teamed up to bring the Federal government’s “SBIR Road Tour” to Pittsburgh. No fewer than 14 representatives of agencies including DHS, DOD, DOE, NSF, NIH, NASA, and USDA will be here to explain their programs and describe them in detail. Through panel discussions, they’ll also share insider information like common mistakes made by proposers and how to better align your business to SBIR topics. Most importantly, you’ll have the chance to have one-on-one meetings with these SBIR program officers.

Other entrepreneurs have told me, “SBIR’s are hard to win.” I point out that there are several counterexamples. But if you still don’t believe me, in one of the afternoon sessions, you’ll get to hear from several local entrepreneurs who have been very successful with the SBIR program: four companies that collectively have received over 50 grants totaling nearly $25M. Maybe better still, the other session will be a panel discussion among people who have actually reviewed SBIR proposals on behalf of the government. If anyone understands how the game is won, they do.

A third complaint that I hear often is, “I’ll have to write a proposal to the government.” Hmmm. Very rarely do we get anything without asking, and just about every funder requires a proposal. True, an SBIR proposal has specific format and content requirements, but they actually aren’t much different than what an angel, VC, or institutional investor would need. My initial rebuttal to the complaint is every company has (or needs) strategies, plans, and roadmaps, and it’s from that body of thinking that all proposals are and can be derived. Further, assistance with SBIR proposal preparation is available.

An important source of that help is none other than Pennsylvania’s Innovation Partnership, aka, the organization that is bringing the SBIR Road Tour to Pittsburgh. IPart’s programs include micro-vouchers for “buying” proposal development assistance from seasoned SBIR veterans, as well as pre-submission reviews of draft SBIR proposals. IPart’s new website www.innovationpartnership.net also has links to SBIR program solicitations from all of the Federal agencies.

You can register – and should soon, because space is limited and the seats are going fast – for the SBIR Road Tour in Pittsburgh at innovationpartnership.net/event/sbir-road-tour-coming-to-pittsburgh-pa/. The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and just about every regional entrepreneurial assistance organization will be on hand.

SBIR Road Tour – – See you there.

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Challenges and Opportunities in Treating Cognitive Disorders

Posted on by Hank Safferstein

By Hank Safferstein, Ph.D., J.D.
PLSG Executive In Residence

Cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s dementia, are devastating and will put an increasing strain on our healthcare system as the population ages. As of February 2016, there were approximately 174 drugs in clinical development, with only 5 marketed therapeutics. This disparity, in large part, is due to difficulties demonstrating efficacy in clinical trials.

Efficacy can be difficult to demonstrate for two primary reasons. First, Alzheimer’s patients likely comprise a heterogeneous population where the disease can stem from disparate pathologies. Patients are segmented primarily on the presentation of symptoms. This is important because two patients with similar symptoms may have dysfunction in different pathways, meaning a therapeutic may work for one patient but not the other. When an investigational new drug is given to a specific patient population, it provides more power to a clinical trial. Second, traditional outcome measures are centered around cognition, a relatively “soft” and imprecise clinical endpoint. Cognition is considered “soft” because it naturally changes from morning to evening, from day to day, and between individuals. Additionally, patients in both the placebo and drug groups learn these cognitive tasks over the course of a clinical trial. Identification of factors that consistently report the severity of the disease across time and individuals will also provide more power to a clinical trial.

Identification of Alzheimer’s specific biomarkers can bridge these challenges. Biomarkers can provide important information on the presence and progression of the disease. An ideal biomarker can effectively link a drug’s mechanism of action to its intended effects on disease pathways. Therefore, instead of relying solely on cognitive function, drug efficacy can be based on changes in expression of molecular biomarkers. Likewise, these biomarkers can be used to segment the population based on the presence or expression of specific biomarkers instead of subjective measures of symptoms. Failure rates in Alzheimer’s clinical trials could be reduced significantly if patients were segmented based on molecular profiling.

Our challenge, to both clearly measure outcomes and segment patient populations, boils down to a core need to identify specific biomarkers of these diseases. Plasma, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and imaging (MRI, PET) biomarkers have the potential to improve diagnosis, stratify or otherwise segment patients, and provide measures on which to track disease progression and the effects of therapeutic and lifestyle interventions. There is a real need for the successful translation of biomarker data generated through the use of mass spectrometry, immunoassays, and imaging into patient endophenotypes. Researchers believe this will happen, but the question remains: Will regulatory agencies accept biomarkers as clinical endpoints?

The PLSG continues to conduct outreach and engage in direct involvement with life sciences innovators working to better understand and treat these cognitive disorders.

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From Analytics to Action – Part II

Posted on by Alicia Varughese

In Part I of this two-part series, we noted that the rise of data analytics in the business of health care represents important changes in roles and responsibilities.  This includes the fact that more physicians and clinicians – because of their prior experience in analyzing data – are finding themselves moving up to the executive suites of their organizations.

The graphic above shows few examples of how Big Data and the need to implement a value-based care approach have been key drivers in the creation of these new roles. Out of these, the roles of Chief Strategic Officer and Chief Data Officer are seen to rely heavily on data analytics. A general description of each role follows:

Chief Strategic Officer – This might also be referred to as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).  Some of the primary responsibilities include improving performance management systems, imparting the CEO’s vision to the clinical team and staff, overseeing business and corporate development, leading market research and integration.  An example of this new role currently in action is David Cannady, Chief Strategy Officer of Mercy Health, Ohio’s largest non-profit healthcare system.

Chief Data Officer – Alternate names for this role include Chief Data (Analytics) Officer (CDO) or Chief Health Information Officer (CHIO).  This role focuses on providing a centralized control of data management, leveraging analytical tools, tackling issues of interoperability, and harnessing data to strategize population health initiatives and improve patient outcomes.

Some current leaders performing in this role are: John Pyhtila, Ph.D., Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Partners HealthCare, a Boston-based non-profit hospital and physicians network; and Terri Steinberg, MD, MBA, Chief Health Information Officer and VP Population Health Informatics for Christiana Care Health System, a Delaware-based private, non-profit hospital network.

Bringing analytics to action continues to present challenges and opportunities within the health care system, including changes within senior management roles and responsibilities.  As the health care industry continues its march toward a value-based, consumer-driven approach, data analytics and strategic decision-making will go hand-in-hand.  At the same time, the influence of other industry C-suite models will continue to be felt within health care leadership.

The PLSG remains connected to the growing impact of data analytics affecting health care and the life sciences.  Reach out to us to learn more.

From Analytics to Action – Part I

Posted on by Alicia Varughese

As healthcare organizations shift to a value-based care approach, more clinicians, physicians, and nurses can expect to be armed with easy-to-use, self-service analytics.

The common denominator promises to be enormous amounts of data. But simply gathering data makes up only half of the equation. The other half requires careful analytics, performing quality evaluation and interpretation of that data, to drive key decisions across the organization.

Progressive change in healthcare will include moving toward this heavily data-driven decision-making process. This is where we see the role of data analytics come into play. But this is not only limited to the point of care. Another major impact of data analytics we can see happening is the change in the current C-suite structure in provider organizations.

With the shift from a fee-for-service model to a value-based model, hospitals consolidate and form larger systems, making hospitals no longer the focal point of streamlining operations. As such, senior management will need to possess the skills of a thought-leader and data-driven decision maker moving forward.

That means that while organizations have access to data, the next most important step is to read this data, analyze it, and then define metrics and strategies to drive better quality of care and patient outcomes. In other words, leaders should be able to translate these analytics into action. Also, expect more physicians and clinicians to move up to C-suite roles, based on their experience and ability to understand and analyze data as a means to provide quality care, as required by the Affordable Care Act.

By utilizing the power of data analytics and innovative technologies, larger health care organizations are adapting to bring technologies to the targeted population around them, rather than driving patients into hospitals. Leaders in this approach, marked by implementing population health management initiatives, include Kaiser Permanente and the establishment of virtual hospitals that is being done at Intermountain Healthcare.

PLSG remains plugged into these data analytics trends as part of our mission. In Part II of this series, we will examine some of the new C-suite roles being created to accommodate the rise in data analytics in health care.

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SBIR/STTR: Where Do You Fit?

Posted on by Jim Osborn

In my most recent blog for PLSG, I described the value – both in the short-term for immediate funding and in the long-term for potentially gaining access to Federal sources of capital – of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the companion Small business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) programs.

These Congressionally mandated programs require all agencies that fund R&D to set aside 3.5% of their extra-mural research budgets for companies that have fewer than 500 employees. And we are in the thick of the application season right now for the National Institutes of Health, which among hundreds of topics, is looking to fund the hot area of Health IT.

For instance, NIH’s current call for entrepreneurial applications includes a topic titled, “Population Health Data Using Blockchain Technology,” as one of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) areas of interest.

The CDC is also interested in “Improving Platforms for Data Linkage in Drug Overdose Prevention,” which it describes as “the creation of new platforms, algorithms, or software packages to allow for linkage of data in the area of drug overdose prevention. Such technologies will allow public health practitioners to link injury-related health, behavioral health, and law enforcement data to strengthen drug monitoring surveillance by public health departments.”

NIH points out that technology for technology’s sake is rarely sufficient, stating “Software developers must attend to privacy concerns associated with these data systems (e.g., protected health and law enforcement data). Software must be user-friendly, and accompanied by guidance for states and localities to use the platform or algorithm.”

Likewise, the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering is interested in telehealth technology, emphasizing development that includes usability and addresses real-world deployment considerations. So, a word to pure algorithm developers: Hook up with interaction designers, technical writers, cybersecurity experts and, yes, lawyers, to craft an appropriately well-rounded development approach.

The CDC is even interested in funding adaptive driving technologies that will reduce or prevent the injuries that result from automobile crashes, acknowledging the long-standing realization – not unlike the advent of seat belts – that this is very much a public health issue.

The CDC is also seeking technologies to address concussions, specifically tools that parents can use to monitor, record, and report post-traumatic brain injury symptoms.

The National Institute on Aging, which, at last check, had the 7th largest budget among NIH’s institutes and centers, is interested in a wide variety of mainstream Health Information Technologies, including health databases, tools for data sharing, and big data analytics. NIA is also interested in AI and machine learning approaches to early diagnosis of age-related illnesses.

Further, NIA wants systems that integrate Health IT to wearable and prosthetic-embedded sensors for a variety of applications that include gait analysis and diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.

As a final example, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which has the 4th largest budget within NIH, has a whole Division of Biomedical Technology, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology.

Those are among topics listed in the current call’s Appendix that contains topics for which Phase 1 and Phase 2 budgets are allowed to exceed $225,000 and $1.5 million, respectively. Because it contains those and other potentially especially lucrative opportunities, we always strongly encourage companies to scan the Appendix first. We also echo NIH’s strong encouragement to contact Program Officers early and often to discuss alignment before preparing grant applications.

For guidance and assistance in accessing and completing SBIR/STTR grant applications, visit https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-18-123.html. The next deadline is April 5 – still plenty of time, but not much to waste.

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Playing Startup Leapfrog

Posted on by Jim Osborn

Say, Mr. or Ms. Life Sciences Entrepreneur – How does a direct path to Federal funding sound? A means of gaining capital to accelerate technology development? A way to leapfrog your way to product commercialization?

Sound good? You bet it does. That’s why, if you’re a startup or other small life sciences business and you aren’t plugged into the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, you’re missing out big time.

SBIR and the companion Small business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) programs have Congressionally mandated requirements of all agencies that fund R&D to set aside 3.5% of their extra-mural research budgets for companies that have fewer than 500 employees.

Agencies that participate (and their recent SBIR/STTR allocations) include the National Science Foundation at more than $200 million, the National Institutes of Health at more than $900 million, and the Department of Defense at more than $1 billion. For entrepreneurs and start-up companies, SBIR and STTR offer the chance to plug directly into these sources of Federal funding.

The recent Brookings Institution report, Capturing the Next Economy: Pittsburgh’s Rise as a Global Innovation City, points out that our region is experiencing what we at PLSG call an “SBIR deficit,” stating, “[regional] pre-seed and other startup support activities are insufficient to meet the needs of the city’s deep bench of research entrepreneurs, and the gap is only growing as Pitt and CMU increase their translational research capacity.”

Our own more detailed analysis of the SBIR deficit indicates that the region is leaving about $13 million a year of grants from NIH and NSF on the table. That equates to regional startups missing out on roughly 30 seed-stage grants (at $150,000 each) and 10 early stage grants (at between $750,000 and $1 million each).

And please note the word “grants.” These are not loans or investments expecting a payback or share of equity. That also means the funding to your company is non-dilutive. And this region is not capitalizing on this available capital in anywhere near the potential that exists.

NIH’s current call (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-18-574.html) includes literally hundreds of topics spanning dozens of institutes, centers, and divisions. We are especially pleased to see that it includes a number of topics related to Health IT, one of the Pittsburgh region’s most promising areas of life sciences start-up company proliferation and growth. Indeed, it reflects opportunities in all of the hottest Health IT markets and the most contemporary of technologies.

If you are SBIR-savvy, you already know that a single SBIR thread of R&D can provide nearly $5 million of funding for your start-up (combined Phases I, II and II-b). If you didn’t know that, now you do.

One thing you may not know is that they’ve changed some rules of engagement, including a new policy on clinical trials and a new process for submitting applications called FORMS-E. Details are in https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-18-123.html. The next deadline is April 5 – still plenty of time, but not much to waste.

My next blog will describe some specific areas of opportunity for local entrepreneurs interested in pursuing SBIR and STTR grants.

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The IP Pyramid™ – How to Create a Comprehensive IP Strategy

Posted on by Alan West

The IP Pyramid™ – How to Create a Comprehensive IP Strategy
By Alan West, Resident Entrepreneur, PLSG

Companies routinely write comprehensive business plans to communicate their commercialization strategy, including detailed sections describing product development, manufacturing, marketing and sales, and financial projections. Naturally, such business plans help clarify the company’s objectives, organization, and strategies for future growth and a competitive vision.

Rarely, however, does a company draft a similar strategic plan for its Intellectual Property (IP). Instead, most simply offer a paragraph or two within their business plan listing a portfolio of pending and issued patents. This is entirely proper, of course. Patents, after all, represent an important asset that enables a company to create a competitive advantage, maintain premium product pricing, participate unencumbered in a market, and raise working capital. The need for patent protection is especially critical for life sciences companies, which are complex due to their very nature and the many regulations that govern them.

That said, patents represent only one part of a company’s IP. That single umbrella descriptor also includes trade secrets, processing methods, manufacturing fixtures, copyrights, and industrial layouts and designs – all parts of the IP picture that should be included in a company’s inventory. Equally important is how the company plans to respond to shifting market dynamics, pricing pressures, new technologies, expiring patents, and emerging companies.

Like a business plan, a comprehensive IP strategy communicates to investors, business partners, and employees the company’s current and future plans to maintain its competitive advantage. It is much more than a simple listing of patents.

Product drift represents another variable that can generate unwelcome surprises for early-stage companies. Often a patent is filed well before the product’s design has been completed. But product design is an iterative process, and the final product realized may not be adequately protected by the company’s patents. Such ‘drift’ can occur not only during the design process but also afterward during scale-up activities, cost improvements, and changes to the product’s packaging. In this case, it is critical to map every aspect of the final product’s specifications against each of the patent claims to ensure coverage.

The PLSG can help companies anticipate, alleviate, and even avoid the IP-related variables that can slow down or detour the journey to successful commercialization. The IP Pyramid™ Assessment – a novel method for analyzing a company’s IP and creating a comprehensive strategy – was first developed by Jim Jordan and introduced in his book: Innovation, Commercialization and Start-ups in Life Sciences. A subsequent workbook based thereon is now in development that not only considers current competitors and markets, but also anticipates shifting market dynamics, new competitive products, and innovative ways a company can maintain a strong competitive position and premium pricing.

Such a comprehensive analysis, strategy, and inventory can add significantly to early valuations for start-up companies and can ensure stockholders that larger companies will continue to maintain their technological and competitive edge. Please contact me, or Jim Jordan, to learn more about how we can help your organization.

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Cyber Security

Posted on by Jim Jordan

After hours, and a person no one recognized sat in the conference room of Medrobotics, a Boston-based medical device company’s offices.  And not just any conference room, but one reserved for vendors in the lobby and a single door away from the company’s secure area.  Plus, it looked like he had three laptop computers going at the same time.

Best of all, the company CEO, while on his way out the door for the evening, was the one who spotted the mystery man.

Police were summoned immediately, the intruder arrested and turned over to the FBI.  But how much damage had been done?  Turns out the uninvited visitor was allegedly conducting industrial espionage on behalf of a foreign-based entity, working to steal trade secrets about Medrobotics’ highly valuable IP and technology that it of course wants to protect.  The alleged spy now awaits trial in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

How 007 can you get, right?  If elements of this tale sound implausible, that’s understandable.  How brazen must you be to show up in person, in full view of anyone, and just start mining for information illegally?  This story can’t be true, right?

But oh yes, it is 100 percent true.  The alleged spy entered the U.S. via Canada to lessen the chances of being detected and detained at Customs.  The CEO from Medrobotics told the FBI that companies from overseas had been attempting to infiltrate the company for about 10 years.  The extent to which those intent on stealing cyber information can be alarming and chilling – and the resulting damage even more so, should they succeed.

All of which makes cyber security such an essential concern and should make it a top priority.  No one is immune.  Everyone, from the most major presence to the smallest startup, needs effective protection and recovery systems in place.  Now.  Today.

Mark Bursic, Founder and President of Critical Syntax, has worked developing and securing sites for more than 13 years. As a cyber security expert, Bursic has seen first hand the hacking attempts targeted at both high-profile and low-traffic web sites.  His expertise in understanding the weak spots, how hackers go about exploiting them, and most important, preventing that from happening, promises to bring a greater understanding and appreciation for cyber security strategies and techniques.  Specifically, Bursic will be giving concrete advice on how to protect WordPress sites.

To learn how to protect your organization and its vital information, register for our next Life Sciences B2B Speakers Series on cyber security, scheduled for 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 21, at PLSG’s offices, 2425 Sydney Street on the South Side.

 

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