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The DC regional Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program is now accepting university research teams from the DC, MD, and VA area for the 5-week Lean LaunchPad, technology commercialization and customer development workshop beginning March 24th. UMD is the lead institution running the NSF-funded program, and as such, teams from UMD will be given priority in this program. Interested teams can learn more and apply at http://www.dcicorps.org/. Feel free to contact info@dcicorps.org or (240) 319-9594 if you have any questions.

The pharmaceutical industry’s dependence on universities and small biotechs as the source of innovation is laid bare in an analysis of the origin of all the novel drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the three years from 2010 – 2012.

The analysis shows that 49 per cent of the products granted marketing authorisation during this time were originally discovered by the in-house efforts of pharma companies, with the remaining 51 per cent originating elsewhere. However, of the 94 products that received approval, 87 per cent were owned by pharma companies at the point the license was granted.

Out of 260 applicants, 41 start-ups have advanced in the second annual InvestMaryland Challenge, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) announced today.

The early-stage business competition—with awards provided by DBED’s Maryland Venture Fund, the BioMaryland Center and other sponsors—seeks to grow entrepreneurship and innovation in the State.

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, announced it has entered into a three-year collaboration with the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The collaboration will focus on CTSI’s Catalyst Awards program, which solicits applications from University scientists who wish to move their translational research beyond the bench and into product development.  

This marks the first industrial partnership for CTSI’s Catalyst Awards program’s therapeutic track, which focuses specifically on discovery and development of patient treatment options. The collaboration will benefit both MedImmune’s biologics and AstraZeneca’s small molecule portfolios and will call for proposals in therapeutic areas of interest to MedImmune and AstraZeneca, including cardiovascular and metabolic disease; oncology; respiratory, inflammation and autoimmunity; neuroscience and infectious disease.

Looking beyond the small-molecule drugs and biologic treatments that have dominated therapeutic development over the past generation, GlaxoSmithKline’s ($GSK) all-encompassing R&D department is trying to get a jump on the future of medicine, and research chief Moncef Slaoui is betting that there’s a great deal of promise in drug-mimicking electronics.

It looks like Clarus Ventures is planning to reload with investment capital for life science companies.

The Boston- and San Francisco-based venture firm revealed in a SEC filing it’s looking to raise up to $375 million for a third fund.

In a recent post at In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe answers a reader’s question about how best to promote drug discover in India. Given my research on the matter, I figured I would try and provide an answer as well.

In Scientific American’s Worldview, I have been ranking national biotechnology industries for the past five years. When I was recently in New Delhi I presented the Indian innovation figures and asked the audience to guess where they ranked. Much to their amazement, India was ranked with the bottom five of the 50+ countries assessed. The issues are myriad — poor patent protection, infrastructure problems, an insufficient quantity (not quality!) of skilled workers, etc.

Rockville-based MacroGenics Inc. plans to sell 2.5 million shares in a secondary offering, the bulk of which would go toward advancing the biotech’s oncology drug candidates through the clinic and expanding its manufacturing capacity.

Much like in MacroGenics’ October initial public offering, the chief purpose of this offering is to fund the pipeline, with 1.5 million shares offered by the company and another 1 million shares coming from selling shareholders.

A recent third-party economic development impact study conducted by Battelle Technology Partnership Practice (TPP), the world’s largest non-profit research and development organization, has found that the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) currently supports more than $565.9 million in economic contributions and more than 2,835 jobs in the State of Maryland annually, earning $200.5 million in salaries with estimated State and local government revenues of $22.8 million. The study also determined the economic contribution of TEDCO programs is projected to grow to $910.3 million and support a total of 4,527 jobs by 2018. These jobs will earn $320.3 million in salaries with estimated State and local government revenues of $36.6 million.