share: digg facebook twitter -Sage Bionetworks, the Seattle-based nonprofit seeking to light a spark for open source biology, is gearing up for its second big annual conference, which is expected to draw more than 200 people to UC San Francisco to talk about how to pull of this ambitious task. -Versant Ventures' Beckie Robertson, a leading medical device investor, made some interesting observations at a WBBA event about four new business models for entrepreneurs seeking to survive arbitrary decisions of the FDA, and cost-based clampdowns from insurers. Seattle-based Mirador Biomedical won that vote of confidence after it earned FDA approval for a couple devices on a shoestring budget of about $1 million. -Kineta, the Seattle-based drug developer, said this week it scored a $1 million contract extension from the National Institutes of Health to mine existing databases to find new molecular targets and drug candidates.