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American entrepreneurship is apparently on the decline, according to a recent article from FiveThirtyEight, but small business owners report consistently high levels of satisfaction with their choices despite the financial difficulties that they have faced.

“Americans started 27 percent fewer businesses in 2011 than they did five years earlier, according to data from the Census Bureau,” writes Ben Casselman on FiveThirtyEight. As a share of all companies, startups have been declining for more than 30 years.”

Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that United Therapeutics Corporation UTHR +0.58% has paid Supernus a $2 million milestone payment under United Therapeutics’ license agreement with Supernus. This payment was due upon the launch of Orenitram™ (treprostinil) Extended-Release Tablets for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, in the United States. Orenitram™ utilizes a Supernus patented technology platform. In addition to the launch milestone, Supernus will receive royalties on net sales of Orenitram™, and may become entitled to additional milestone payments.

“We are pleased to have played a role in helping to bring Orenitram™ to patients and their physicians as an important new therapy option,” said Jack A. Khattar, President and CEO of Supernus. “Over the life of the product, we expect to receive significant recurring royalty revenue from United Therapeutics’ commercialization of Orenitram™.”

Also this week in Pfizer-related Maryland biotech news: Gaithersburg-based GlycoMimetics Inc. collected a $15 million payment from the pharma giant stemming from its license agreement for the sickle cell anemia drug rivipansel.

GlycoMimetics in 2011 inked the Pfizer partnership, worth up to $340 million, to develop rivipansel (then just called GMI-1070) as a treatment for a complication of sickle cell disease called vaso-occlusive crisis.

The second annual InvestMaryland Challenge, an early-stage business competition of the Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development, came to an exciting close Monday evening at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, joined by DBED Secretary Dominick Murray, entrepreneurs and business leaders, applauded the winners of nearly $1 million in grants and prizes.

A health IT startup launched last year by four recent Johns Hopkins graduates and one soon-to-be JHU graduate was one of four firms to win a $100,000 top prize Monday in the InvestMaryland Challenge, a state-run competition to help promising new companies in the life sciences and high tech industries.

The competition, run by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, had 260 entries. Healthify took first place in the General Industry category, open to companies anywhere in the U.S. if they open a location in Maryland. Healthify, based in New York, beat out two other finalists—a wholesale food distribution website with a focus on local, sustainably-produced items; and an ad technology company.

Vinod Khosla, sassy VC and legendary co-founder of Sun Microsystems, has predicted the future of health.

In essence, he has said, our medical lives will become increasingly automated, with ultra-intelligent systems prescribing fine-grain recommendations to nurse us back to health. According to a newly released report, he predicts:

The Angel Capital Association (ACA) today launched a campaign to protect startups from a devastating loss of angel capital if the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) increases the financial qualifications for accredited investors.  The “Protect Angel Funding” initiative is a call to action to the startup ecosystem—from angel investors to economic development organizations and entrepreneurs – to urge regulators to preserve the definition of who qualifies as an accredited angel investor. Protecting this important investment class is critical to preserving the economic fuel it provides to startups and job creation. If changes proposed by “investor protection” organizations are enacted by the SEC, nearly 60 percent of angel investors would be eliminated.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 requires the SEC to review the definition of an accredited investor in 2014 to determine whether it should be modified “for the protection of investors, in the public interest and in light of the economy.”  Currently, an individual accredited investor is defined as someone with $1 million in net worth excluding the value of a primary residence, or annual income of $200,000.  At issue is whether these financial thresholds should be arbitrarily raised based on inflation. 

In the US, many entrepreneurs see grants as “free money,” since they are not loans and don’t have to be repaid. A grant is not an equity investment, so the entrepreneur doesn’t have to give up a stake in the company either. Typically they can be used to fund product development and commercialization that would otherwise require outside investors.

A good place to start looking is the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which is a lifeline for high-tech startups. A more general approach is to check out Grants.gov, which is a searchable directory of more than 1,000 federal grant programs. An advanced search tool is provided to search for a grant by eligibility, by issuing agency, or category.

Baltimore startups were not among the winners of this year’s InvestMaryland Challenge and its more than $1 million in cash and in-kind awards.

Gov. Martin O’Malley announced the winners May 19 at an award ceremony at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Top winners in each of the four categories receive $100,000 from the Maryland Venture Fund and BioMaryland Center, plus other in-kind prizes.

More than 250 companies applied to the competition. Four Baltimore companies — ZeroFox, Staq, Foodem.com and Light Point Security — were among a dozen finalists announced in March. Vasoptic Medical in Columbia and Dinnertime in Lutherville were also in the running.

AstraZeneca on Monday rejected a “final” $119 billion buyout offer from Pfizer, possibly sinking a pharmaceutical mega-merger that could have jeopardized jobs at AZ’s Maryland subsidiary, MedImmune.

Pfizer, which would have created the world’s largest drug company through the deal, on Sunday evening increased its earlier $106 billion cash-and-stock bid. In a statement, AstraZeneca Chairman Leif Johansson called that new offer “inadequate” and said it would have “serious consequences for the company, our employees and the life-sciences sector in the U.K., Sweden and the U.S.”