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The 4th edition of the Orphan Drugs Summit, Northern Europe’s premier orphan drugs conference, will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark this September.

As the conference approaches it is becoming more obvious that collaboration is one of the most important driving forces in the development of orphan drugs. The Orphan Drugs Summit will focus on how to build relationships on multiple levels, highlight how to access partnership parallel advice, and will also outline how stakeholders can benefit from collaboration to develop stronger clinical trials.

Supernus Pharmaceuticals of Rockville has sold certain royalty and milestone rights to a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension for $30 million to HealthCare Royalty Partners of Stamford, Conn.

The agreement relates to the commercialization of Orenitram Extended-Release Tablets by Supernus’ partner, United Therapeutics of Silver Spring. Supernus will retain full ownership of the royalty rights after a certain threshold has been reached, according to a company news release.

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association for life science and technology, today announced that it has opened a new satellite office at the University of Maryland BioPark in Baltimore. By expanding its reach, TCM will be able to collaborate closely with industry leaders located in the Greater Baltimore area and more effectively bring together the state’s technology and life sciences sectors.

“With members, such as Johns Hopkins University, Verizon, HP, Howard Community College and Semmes, Bowen & Semmes P.C., located in the Baltimore metropolitan area, we saw a need to build a stronger presence,” said Phil Schiff, TCM’s CEO. “TCM is excited to have the opportunity to work more closely with the wide variety of innovative companies and entrepreneurs in Baltimore, and provide them with important resources they need closer to home.”

Johns Hopkins University is expected to receive almost $6.4 million from the federal health department for a support program for people with dementia. The award, worth up to $6.38 million, is part of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Health Care Innovation Awards.

The award is contingent on final administrative approval by the federal health department.

Two private equity firms announced the formation of a $26.6 million fund that will focus exclusively on the aging marketplace and companies within it.

Chicago-based Ziegler and Ohio-based Link-age Ventures announced the close of the Longevity Fund, which aims to address a number of key issues affecting seniors. Among them: coordination of care, chronic disease management, reducing hospitalizations and re-admissions, disease prevention and wellness, aging and government funded programs and public health issues, according to the companies.

Maryland has one of the Top 10 best-buy colleges and universities, according to the 2015 edition of Fisk’s Guide to Colleges.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County ranked No. 9 out of 44 schools in the U.S., United Kingdom and Canada.

The Frederick Innovative Technology Center Inc. is looking for business leaders to volunteer for its board of directors.

Preference will be given to those in private industry in the fields of life sciences, advance technology, finance, marketing and entrepreneur. The board meets the fourth Monday of each month. 

Happy 10th anniversary to the National Institutes of Health’s Common Fund! It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade since I joined then-NIH Director Elias Zerhouni at the National Press Club to launch this trans-NIH effort to catalyze innovation and speed progress across many fields of biomedical research.

Allow me to take this opportunity to share just a bit of the history and a few of the many achievements of this bold new approach to the support of science.

Healthcare Interactive Inc. — which sells Web-based software for companies to monitor medical costs in real time — has raised $8 million in funding.

The Series A funding in the Glenwood, Maryland-based company came from Grotech Ventures, which has more than $1.3 billion under management, and Harbert Venture Partners, an emerging growth-stage investor with $200 million under management.