What is true is that we’ve just been selected to create an identity and establish a Web presence for Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti-born biotech startup, DeNovo Sciences. (Now that’s our skill set.)

DeNovo Sciences has been getting a lot attention recently because they’re on the path towards being able to detect and capture cancer cells in the bloodstream before they find a landing site in the body and metastasize. As they say it:

We hope that this would one day lead to the holy grail of detecting cancer even before the discovery of  primary tumors.

Pretty cool, huh?

So is the fact that this local startup company is hiring a local company (us) to develop their brand with funding provided through Ann Arbor SPARK.

And this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a movement.

There’s a whole lot of high tech entrepreneurship going on with support places like SPARK, Tech Transfer, and in labs, basements and small businesses around town. We think a flood of good news for the region is about to break.

And, even though Hile Design will never be the source of a life-changing medical or technological breakthrough, we think it’s pretty cool that we get to shine a spotlight on the folks that do.

IPPES, an acronym for Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Specialists, offers a federally registered proprietary service program, IPPES ProtectEnforce, which allows companies to protect and enforce their most valuable assets: their identities or “brands.” This includes brand clearance, with comprehensive legal availability and conflict searches, as well as enhanced protection for brands, trademarks, Internet domain names, and copyrights. IPPES uniquely blends the industries of law and business to effectively offer its services to companies of all types and sizes.

Businesses, including startups and those introducing new brands or re-branding themselves, are currently facing cease-and-desist demand letters and lawsuits for unknowingly creating brand names and logos that are already in use or their competitors believe are too close to their brands. Moreover, as the Internet gets more and more populated, the amount of available domain names decrease. The problem becomes worse due to the existence of cyber-squatters—people and companies that register domain names and then charge exorbitant prices to sell them to companies that should have rightfully owned them in the first place. Along with brand development, design, and web development services, Hile Design is now offering a unique way to overcome these challenges.

By partnering with IPPES, Hile Design will offer clients what other advertising agencies do not—a way to not only create a brand but to legally own and protect it. Hile Design is always looking to add more value to their services and this new partnership with IPPES will provide additional industry-leading services and “peace of mind” for present and future clients.

Llamasoft is a leading supply chain software firm and an active investor in technology development. Just in the past year, Llamasoft has doubled its workforce and expanded its client base to a global scale, taking on clients such as Ford, General Electric, Target and Intell. Llamasoft’s software enables clients to manage supply chain costs as a whole instead of in individual pieces.

Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. is the leading developer of patient-specific, expanded multicellular therapies for the treatment of severe, chronic cardiovascular diseases.

The company’s proprietary cell-processing technology enables the manufacture of ixmyelocel-T, a patient-specific multicellular therapy extracted from a patient’s own bone marrow and delivered directly to damaged tissues. Aastrom has advanced ixmyelocel-T into late-stage clinical development, including a planned Phase 3 clinical program to study patients with critical limb ischemia.

Vis-à-Vis (meaning face to face in French) is an intimate boutique spa located within walking distance of downtown Ann Arbor, offering a full range of massages, facials, body treatments and products for purchase.

Kubica, formerly known as Prime Technologies, was established in 1995 and serves customers throughout the United States and Canada. The engineering company provides software, hardware and control panel solutions to help a diverse customer base manage their manufacturing processes.

Over the past six years, Hile has provided ongoing package design services for the company. This includes assistance with presentations and sales for GKI’s clients, which include small retail outlets, convenience stores, grocery stores and “big box” chains.

Since their modest beginnings, GKI has grown into a major candy and granola manufacturer. The company currently maintains a 66,000-square-foot plant capable of producing 30,000 pounds of chocolate confections and several tons of granola a day.

Imperial Marketing is a premiere full-service sales and marketing firm with innovative core competencies in dealer development, process solutions, promotional merchandising and award recognition systems. Their clients include Chrysler, Ford, Volkswagen, GMAC, Tecumseh, Hino Trucks, Rexair, UPS and State Farm.

Based in Ann Arbor, University Islamic Financial strives to provide complete Shariah-compliant products to be the financial institution of choice for the Muslim community in the United States.

Lead Illustrator Dave Hile has completed the cover of Mystery of the Temple Court, a new book from Christian publishing company Kregel. The book is the fourth in a series of family-oriented fictional adventure stories that feature interrelated characters and correspond to sections of the Gospel account of Christ’s life. The books include Jotham’s Journey (1997), Bartholomew’s Passage (2002) and Tabitha’s Travels (2003) and are authored by Arnold Ytreeide, but the three previous books had gone out of print and the original publisher had gone out of business. However, Ytreeide’s stories remained sought after on ebay and other used book sources and grew such a dedicated following that Kregel took notice and bought the rights in 2008 to begin reissuing the series.

Kregel, based in Grand Rapids, plans to release the new Mystery of the Temple Court in the Fall of this year.

To see the other books in the series and for more information, go to http://store.kregel.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=2100.