Alexandria Agtech/Climate Innovation Acquisition, a blank check company formed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities targeting agtech and climate innovation, filed on Thursday with the SEC to raise up to $250 million in an initial public offering.
All eyes are on the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. Achieving the broad uptake needed to reach population immunity and curb the virus’s spread will require an unprecedented effort among health workers, scientists and stakeholders at every step of the supply chain.
During this 90 min event, experts from organizations central to vaccine development and delivery, regulatory oversight and quality assurance will discuss over the course of two high-level panels what’s needed for the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, how to build public trust in the quality and effectiveness of vaccines, and how these investments can build better systems for the future.
BIoHealth Capital Region Ranked 4th and metrics improving towards goals of Top 3 by 2023
Charles Dickens’ opening line of A Tale of Two Cities—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”—was evoked recently by the head of the nation’s largest life sciences real estate owner to describe the past year for the industry served by his real estate investment trust.
“With respect to the industry, 2020 is the ultimate paradox: The worst year of our lives, yet the greatest year ever for the life science industry,” Joel S. Marcus, Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ executive chairman and founder, told analysts February 2 after releasing fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 results. “[There’s] much work to do to rebuild businesses and lives so devastatingly impacted, and I would say, it’s going to take a good part of this decade to do that for many people who’ve been really so devastated.”
After four years of extensive planning, Inova Health System and the University of Virginia School of Medicine this week opened the UVA Inova Campus, welcoming its first class of 36 UVA medical students. An additional 36 students will join the campus next year to complete a full complement of students for two years of clinical training.
The University of Maryland is a powerhouse of discovery, with decades of experience advancing a field that will help define our nation’s—and the world’s—future.
Image: https://quantum.umd.edu/
That’s the path for technology being developed by IonQ. The College Park-based company on Monday made official a deal to merge with special purpose acquisition company dMY Technology Group, Inc. III. When the merger closes and it begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol IONQ, the company is poised to be the first “pure-play” quantum computing company that is publicly traded, leaders said.
Image: Inside IonQ’s College Park quantum computing work. (Courtesy photo)
One thing both the Trump and Biden administrations have agreed on is that the U.S. needs to expand domestic manufacturing, and soon.
The pharmaceutical industry in particular has outsourced much of its manufacturing to take advantage of lower costs and more lax environmental laws in other countries. This has left Americans reliant on overseas drugmakers, largely in India and China, and vulnerable to gaps in the supply chain when quality issues or a pandemic halts production.
Image: Ronald T. Piervincenzi – Source: United States Pharmacopeia
Gaithersburg, MD, Feb. 22, 2021 – Cartesian Therapeutics, a fully integrated, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering mRNA-engineered cell therapy in and beyond oncology, today announced that it has initiated a Phase 2a clinical trial of its mRNA chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, Descartes-11, in patients with newly diagnosed, high-risk multiple myeloma. Based upon the company’s research and analysis, this program is understood to be the first RNA-engineered cell therapy to enter clinical development for a frontline cancer. Descartes-11 is the third product candidate to be evaluated in clinical trials resulting from Cartesian’s RNA Armory℠ engineering platform.
Improving access to venture capital for life science entrepreneurs and emerging biopharma companies in the BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) is a top priority. However, elevating the region’s funding profile is not the only type of access undergoing a transformation in recent years.
Image: https://biobuzz.io
There’s an old joke about economists that I’ve always liked. A junior professor goes to his senior colleague with a brilliant new idea. The older man dismisses it. “That may be fine in practice,” he sniffs, “but it will never work in theory.”
Economists are like that, at least many of them. They don’t like to have reality intrude on their abstractions. One of the best examples has to do with mobility. Years ago, I read an article by a prominent economist downplaying the problem of a small-town factory that spews out pollution. What’s the big deal, he asked. There must be another town nearby without a soot-belching factory. The residents of the first town could just move over there. Pretty soon the polluter would get the idea.