In this new episode of BioTalk, Rip Ballou, MD, VP & Head, GSK Global Vaccines US R&D Center and BHI President & CEO Rich Bendis discuss GSK’s move to the BioHealth Capital Region, their Vaccines Portfolio/Future, and the importance of succeeding in the industry today.

W. Ripley Ballou, MD is Vice President and Head, GSK Global Vaccines U.S. R&D Center in Rockville, MD - Just outside of Washington, DC. Prior to this he was VP and Head, Clinical Research and Translational Science, Vaccine Discovery and Development at GSK Vaccines in Rixensart, Belgium. Previously he served as Deputy Director for Vaccines, Infectious Diseases Development, Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Ballou is an expert in vaccine development and has worked in this field for more than 30 years. Trained in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, he began his work on vaccines at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research where he led the team that with GlaxoSmithKline co-developed RTS,S, the world’s most advanced malaria vaccine. Dr. Ballou has numerous publications in the field of vaccine development and infectious diseases.

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Senseonics Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: SENS), a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of Eversense®, a long-term, implantable continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system for people with diabetes, today announced that it has commenced a registered underwritten public offering of $80 million of its shares of common stock. In addition, Senseonics has granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional $12 million of its shares of common stock. All of the shares to be sold in the offering are to be sold by Senseonics.

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QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today introduced seamless next-generation sequencing (NGS) solutions for a wide range of hereditary diseases on the GeneReader NGS System, the complete Sample to Insight NGS solution for any lab worldwide.

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Hospitals in D.C. and Baltimore rank among the best in the nation, according to a new list released by U.S. News & World Report.

Overall, Children’s National Medical Center in D.C. ranked No. 5 and John’s Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore ranked No. 8 on the “honor roll,” which lists the best-performing children’s hospitals across 10 pediatric specialties including neonatal care, neurology, cancer and cardiology.

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gel-e Inc., announces the 510(k) clearance of gel-e FLEX by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the over-the-counter (OTC) use of its first flowable hemostat.

This new clearance expands the Company's label that now includes the use of gels and bandages in the local management of bleeding, such as lacerations and minor bleeding. These products are specifically designed to create rapid hemostasis through easy-to-use applications for professional healthcare providers, parents, coaches, adult caregivers and even patients themselves. gel-e FLEX also complements the Company's already FDA cleared vascular closure device, Vascular gel-e®, as it can be worn home by patients to manage any residual bleeding from an out-patient diagnostic or interventional procedure, see http://www.gel-e.co/products.html.

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Two Rockville employers are among the top workplaces in the region, according to The Washington Post's newest ranking.

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Leslie Weber was inducted in June as chair of the board of directors of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. Weber is director of the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus and director of government and community affairs for Johns Hopkins in Montgomery County. She long has been involved with the Chamber: She has held leadership positions on the board and received the Chairman’s Award in 2016.

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Johns Hopkins University is again the top NIH grant recipient in Greater Baltimore in 2017, with a total grant value of $651.8 million last year.

The university also led all U.S. universities in research and development expenditures for the 38th consecutive year in fiscal year 2016, spending $2.4 billion on various research projects.

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The Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) at the University of Maryland, College Park seeks an organized, energetic person to assist with operational functions and related activities for the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program in the Honors College.

This nationally award-winning program helps to develop the entrepreneurial mindsets, skill sets and resources for first and second-year students.

The position-holder would provide coordination and support for

program operations and administration courses and curriculum student activities and engagement marketing and recruiting development and grants

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CosmosID a bioinformatics provider and NGS service laboratory announced that the company’s cloud-based bioinformatics platform for microbiome analysis has received the highest score in the strain-level microbial profiling category of the Mosaic Community Challenge and for strain-level microbial identification in the precisionFDA Pathogen Detection Challenge.

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There is limited data available on Health Tech investing in general and even less related to early stage investing in the sector. IPHA set out to fill that gap by analyzing quarterly health tech investing data between 2010 through Q1 2018. We track both total investment dollars and deals completed over the period with additional analysis of the five quarters leading up to March 31, 2018. There is an unmistakeable trend reversal that started in Q1 2017 that is significant for both health tech entrepreneurs and investors.

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Lupin has announced that it has partnered with Mylan to commercialize Enbrel (Etanercept) biosimilar. Under the terms of the agreement, Lupin will receive an up-front payment of $15mn and potential commercial milestones together with an equal share in net profits of the product. Mylan will commercialize Lupin's Etanercept biosimilar in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Africa and most markets throughout Asia.

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Though we’re nowhere near machines taking over, artificial intelligence has a plethora of applications in healthcare. The oncology space is no exception.

The intersection of artificial intelligence and cancer care is up for discussion at the forthcoming MedCity CONVERGE conference in Philadelphia on July 11-12.

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Women and men almost equally shared all positions in the life sciences world, but women are not advancing in their biopharma careers at the same pace as men, according to a recent report by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and recruiting firm Liftstream. The wide gender gap higher up, though improved in recent years, persists: Women only hold a quarter of all C-suite level jobs, and less than 15% joined the board of directors.

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Changes are afoot at GE. The company will separate GE Healthcare into a standalone company.

Kieran Murphy, the president and CEO of GE Healthcare, will continue at the helm of the business, which offers medical imaging, biomanufacturing and data analytics capabilities, among other services.

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Without fanfare, the University of Pennsylvania has agreed to invest up to $50 million over the next three years in at least 10 biotech companies, the Inquirer has learned.

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The city has begun testing its hypothesis that real estate costs and other hurdles stood in the way of a booming life science sector by supporting three biotech incubators.

Two of the incubators, which offer young companies an affordable workspace, lab equipment and networking opportunities, have started welcoming tenants. But data on the strategy’s success has been sparse.

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Venture investors poured more than $1 billion into agtech last year, and we are on pace to match or exceed that this year. The convergence of AI, cloud computing, big data and gene editing, with applications from soil to plants, foods to medicines, farm to table are driving investments. Discerning startups and investors will capitalize from the market’s current, numerous opportunities.

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Carisma Therapeutics, formerly Carma Therapeutics, is working on a new onco-immunotherapy approach for treating cancer patients with solid tumors.

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