Remember the news of Rockville-based Human Genome Sciences Inc. getting scooped up by London-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC back in mid-2012?
The acquisition news was reported internationally, but the aftermath of the $3 billion buyout is not as widely known.
Johns Hopkins University will share in a $20 million award from GE and the National Football League to improve diagnosis and treatment for concussions, which has become a major focus as more is learned about the lasting effects of mild traumatic brain injury.
The grants aim to benefit professional football players, who have been seeking compensation for their injuries and means to reduce problems. The grants also will benefit the community as a whole, officials said. Each grant recipient will receive $300,000.
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Please join Rich Bendis on Thursday, February 6th, 2014 for the 7th Annual Health IT Day in Annapolis. Learn more about Health Information Technology (HIT) and how it affects you as a consumer today and in the future. Get the chance to meet with district legislators and senators to let them know what needs to be done to further push HIT in Maryland and keep us on the cutting edge of this rapidly evolving field.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. announced today the pricing of its offering of $215 million aggregate principal amount of 2.875% Convertible Senior Notes due 2021 (the “Notes”) in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), which was upsized from the previously announced $200 million offering. Emergent also granted the initial purchasers an option to purchase up to an additional $35 million aggregate principal amount of the Notes.
Emergent intends to use a majority of the net proceeds from the offering to finance the acquisition of Cangene Corporation, announced in December 2013. The company intends to use any remaining net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes.
I am clearly on a digital health kick, blog-wise, as I look back on my last few posts. Having spent time at both CES and the JP Morgan Healthcare conference, where digital health was a hot topic, it seems that the subsector is definitely having its day in the sun. I was particularly honored to be named among the 2013 “Top 50 in Digital Health” by a group comprised of Rock Health, Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank, and Fenwick & West. There are some pretty smart people on the list with me and it is very gratifying to be in such great company (nice article about the list by Wade Roush at Xconomy can be read HERE).
On the other hand, I was feeling a little inadequate being on the list without my own digital health start-up to show for it. I mean, hey, there I am among the actual innovators who dreamed up such cool companies as MC10, Evolent, Pokitdok, Athena Health, and a host of others with only my investment checkbook and blog to show for it. Given that it is the year of the wearables, as anyone who went to CES could readily attest, and that the entrepreneurs in that sector were well represented in the Top 50 list (FitBit’s James Park, Misfit Wearables’ Sonny Vu, etc), I have decided to throw my own hat (wrist?) in the ring on this sector.
February 3 and 4, 2014, 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT
About the Workshop: Now on its ninth run, the NIH SBIR Phase I Program for First-Time Applicants is a very practical step-by-step, four-hour online “How-To” workshop over two evenings to help researchers, faculty members, graduate students, post-docs and entrepreneurs create a SBIR company and apply to the NIH SBIR program in April of 2014. This workshop includes a post-course review of the applicant’s proposed SBIR application by our experts before submission to the NIH. As an added benefit, your SBIR companies will be included on NCET2’s newsletters that is sent out to VCs, angel investors, Global 1000 companies, and government funders.
About the SBIR Program: The NIH SBIR/STTR program is one of the federal government’s best mechanisms to continue funding innovative life science research after traditional research funding has been exhausted. The objective of the program is to dramatically increase the impact of innovations derived from original federally funded R&D, and as such is an ideal program to fund university commercialization of research through new university/faculty/student startup companies. Phase I can be for up to $150,000 for 6 months. Phase II can be for up to $1 million for 2 years. After Phase I and II, the company should have eliminated enough technical and scientific risk of the original research that the company is ready for outside investor funding or product sales in the company sustainability final Phase III of the SBIR program.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC), whose mission is to bolster technology transfer (T2) among federal labs, agencies, and academic institutions, will hold it’s 2014 National Meeting in Rockville, Maryland from April 21 – 23, 2014 at the North Bethesda Marriott Hotel.
Included among the hundreds expected in attendance are, federal and industry technology transfer (T2) professionals, patent attorneys, licensing professionals, and scientists, along with other members of the FLC community. In sticking with the mission of the FLC and striving to simultaneously meet the needs of our nation’s progressive industry, this year’s FLC National Meeting is centered on the theme of accelerating innovation for economic impact.
National health organizations are constantly updating the treatment guidelines doctors are expected to follow. These guidelines come to hospitals and doctors daily and must be manually added to the hospital’s electronic record-keeping system. It’s drudgery, and at one time was the domain of Noah Weiner while working at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
That work led him to ask a question that has sparked many an entrepreneurial venture: “There must be a better way to do this.”
Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels explains how the institution is pushing harder to commercialize research and build resources for startups in Baltimore.
