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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a clinical trial Friday that will allow Johns Hopkins University researchers to test a therapy for COVID-19 that uses plasma from recovering patients.

Arturo Casadevall, a Johns Hopkins infectious disease expert, proposed the use of convalescent plasma to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients and to boost the immune systems of health care providers and first responders. He assembled a team of physicians and scientists from around the United States to establish a network of hospitals and blood banks that can collect, isolate, and process blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors

COVID-19 Notice for Maryland SBDC Clients, Stakeholders, and Partners

We are committed to serving our clients during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) health emergency.

Consulting Services – New clients already in business can request COVID consulting assistance by clicking on the “I’M IN BUSINESS- GET CONSULTING” on our home page. The link is right below this notice towards the right side of the page. Continuing clients may continue to contact their consultant by phone, web conference, or email.

Training – All in-person training scheduled during the month of April has been canceled, postponed or offered online. If a paid training class is canceled or postponed, participants may request a refund or apply the funds to another class. If the class will be offered online, registered participants will receive an email with instructions for participating in the online class.

We’re proud to announce a partnership with the U.S. Government on a comprehensive response to expedite development of our plasma-derived therapy to address hashtag#COVID19. https://lnkd.in/eHGC5F6

hashtag#toprotectandenhance hashtag#emergentbiosolutions hashtag#COVID19 hashtag#coronavirus

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Information regarding the hashtag#montgomerycountymd Public Health Emergency Grant Program passed by County Council yesterday. The County Executive’s staff is preparing regulations and plans to implement the program as quickly as possible. Businesses may submit questions about the program to: BizinfoCovid19@montgomerycountymd.gov. More info to come! hashtag#covid19response hashtag#moco

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Solicitations play an important role in making the general public aware of funding opportunities available to the small businesses of the nation. Participating Federal Agencies post these funding opportunities on a regular periodic basis throughout the year associated to SBIR/STTR.

To become involved with the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, small businesses can compete by submitting solicited proposals to these agencies. A winner in the competitive solicitation process is awarded a grant or contract. The SBIR/STTR program does not fund unsolicited proposals (proposals that do not refer to and address a specific topic in a current agency SBIR/STTR solicitation).

QIAGEN (Hilden, Germany) has received emergency use authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its newly developed QIAstat-Dx Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 Panel test for use in diagnosing patients infected with the novel COVID-19 coronavirus. The EUA approval status comes after QIAGEN recently began shipping QIAstat-Dx SARS-CoV-2 test kits to the US under a new FDA Policy allowing the kits to be made commercially available.

Image: QIAstat-Dx Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 Panel test (Photo courtesy of QIAGEN)

GAITHERSBURG, Md., April 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) announced today that it has entered into a formal partnership with the U.S. government to expedite development of a plasma-derived therapy for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Emergent has received $14.5 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), in support of its COVID-HIG program, one of two hyperimmune development programs announced by Emergent in March.

COVID-HIG is a candidate human hyperimmune product being developed as a potential treatment for COVID-19 in severe hospitalized patients and high-risk, acute symptomatic patients to prevent progression to severe symptoms. COVID-HIG will be manufactured using plasma donations from people who have recovered from COVID-19 with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

Steve Bulger has heard all the complaints.

The acting director for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Mid-Atlantic region knows about the technical issues that applicants for the agency’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) faced last week.

He’s received questions about why those loans come with interest rates well above the Federal Reserve’s current standard rate.

Image: Steve Bulger, acting director for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Mid-Atlantic region, has been dealing with an overflow of loan applications from small businesses struggling amid the COVID-19 crisis. U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

The agency said it had redeployed some staff and streamlined processes to enable it to review clinical trial protocols faster and respond faster to companies and scientists developing new drugs for the disease.

The Food and Drug Administration hopes to expedite development of treatments for Covid-19 under a new program that the agency announced Tuesday.

The FDA said that under the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, or CTAP, it is redeploying staff and streamlining processes with the goal of speeding up reviews of clinical trial protocols and single-patient expanded-access requests.

Image: https://medcitynews.com

In the middle of a hand-sanitizer shortage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Johns Hopkins and Baltimore distillery Sagamore Spirit are working together to manufacture the disinfectant for use by the Johns Hopkins Health System.

The collaboration came together in less than 10 days, with Sagamore Spirit converting 100% of its distillation processes from rye whiskey mash bills to corn ethanol in support of the effort.

Image: IMAGE CREDIT: WILL KIRK / JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY