Declines in budgets across the public health community were just one reason the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began looking at innovative approaches for employees and partners to collaborate online.

With the agency’s health informatics partners stretching to state and local public health departments, academics, educational institutions, standards organizations, as well as other countries, CDC in 2009 began examining how it could develop a more cost-effective and efficient way for these key stakeholders to meet, collaborate and advance new ideas.

HHS is committed to implementing all the provisions of the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-81).  NIH has set up a website to keep the small business research community abreast of its implementation plan for the many changes resulting from the reauthorization. The site will be updated as the implementation process moves forward. 

This issuance implements an additional provision of the Reauthorization Act.

TechConnect is pleased to host 2014 TechConnect World, June 15-19 in Washington DC. The event, co-located with the 2014 National Innovation Summit the 2014 National Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Conference, delivers the world’s largest showcase and accelerator for industry-vetted emerging-technologies ready for commercialization.

Don’t miss this opportunity to place your technology, your company, or your agency’s awardee portfolio into the TechConnect Innovation Showcase and Accelerator program to be matched with the world’s largest gathering of potential investment and corporate partners.

One of the old saws in journalism is to “follow the money” when you’re looking for a story. But sometimes you learn even more by following the people.

The people, in this case, are biotech venture capitalists. Regular readers of this column know that biotech VC has been going through a historic shakeout the last few years. The institutional investors who back VCs have gotten fed up with the long investment timelines, high degree of risk, and limp returns from this group of well-compensated asset managers. Not surprisingly, many VC firms have been unable to continue to raise new funds, and have turned into zombies.

It's nearly Valentine's Day. And for humans, love is in the air. But it's a good time to examine how love is in the air for crabs, too, and how their mating affects a Maryland industry.

For blue crabs, it's all about the pheromones in the water. And for female crabs looking for mates, size really does matter.

The Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer Office is looking to fill a Portfolio Director position. The Portfolio Director will manage a team of licensing professionals and provide scientific, intellectual property, licensing and marketing expertise, mentorship, team building for members working within the portfolio and across portfolios, educational outreach, relationship management, organizational and communication skills to commercialize inventions resulting from research at Johns Hopkins University.

An untraceable currency called Zerocoin is being designed by Johns Hopkins University researchers to compete with other virtual moneys such as Bitcoin. The researchers say that if virtual currencies are going to exist, there should be one that provides the same kind of privacy that people have when exchanging traditional forms of money. 

Inside a drab computer lab at Johns Hopkins University, a team of researchers is trying to build something that has never existed before: a digital currency that changes hands completely in secret. Its name is Zerocoin.

A high sugar diet greatly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease regardless of body weight, according to a new study by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study, which is the biggest one of its kind to date and has included more than 10,000 people followed for up to 14.6 years, concludes that people who drink, for example, one soft drink per day increase their risk of cardiovascular disease by one-third.

Taking a page from national payers such as Aetna and Humana, Independence Blue Cross opened an innovation lab this week. The idea is to use it to examine the best ways to integrate startup ideas from DreamIt Health companies and research insights produced with its provider collaborations at Penn Medicine and New York University Langone Medical Center.

Insurance companies have a reputation for moving slow as molasses and being resistant to change. But the changes mapped out by the Affordable Care Act are forcing them to make changes. Will adding a few white boards and comfortable chairs in a separate from its corporate offices make that much difference at IBC?

For the first time, Montgomery College and industry giant Lockheed Martin join together to meet the nation’s growing demand for cyber security professionals. Register now to benefit from this exciting partnership where you will learn from the industry’s leading experts in secure software development.

Malcolm Gladwell opened his healthcare talk with a joke. Confessing that he is expert in neither healthcare nor interoperability, the long-time journalist revealed that he had actually pondered how his former self would cover his present self as a speaker — likely with “quotes out of context and something really snarky.”

The best-selling author and New Yorker staffer likened the change required for healthcare to make it over the interoperability hurdle to several events of this generation, “three lessons in culture, framing and consequence,” as he put it during Health Care Innovation Day.

Every month in the Startup Index, we publish a list of the startup stories that got the most attention. Scroll down to the end of the report to find this list. There is usually a common thread among the companies in the list – geography, focus, industry sector. This month the list is all over the place:

Read more: http://medcitynews.com/2014/02/janauary-top-5-startup-list-makes-optimistic-innovation-healthcare/#ixzz2svRNpfzk

Epidarex Capital, a leading international early-stage life science venture capital fund, has announced a £4 million Series A investment, in Edinburgh Molecular Imaging (EMI). Scottish Enterprise’s investment arm, the Scottish Investment Bank, also participated in the round. EMI, an Edinburgh BioQuarter spin-out company from the University of Edinburgh, is developing a pioneering Optical Molecular Imaging (OMI) technology with the potential to address unmet needs in the diagnosis and monitoring of several major diseases.

EMI’s highly innovative OMI technology revolves around the development of fluorescent imaging reagents that detect harmful processes deep inside the human body, at the bedside, in real time and at molecular resolution. The company’s initial focus is on lung conditions but the technology is applicable to a wide spectrum of disease. The company’s approach has the potential to transform clinicians’ ability to diagnose and manage a number of serious respiratory conditions, including lung cancer, fibrosis, lung infections and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). EMI’s technology will address the pressing need for tests which can rapidly provide diagnostic certainty and reduce healthcare costs. Respiratory diseases kill one in five people in the UK and cost the NHS over £6 billion per year, with lung cancer being the biggest cancer killer.

Ozarks Medical Center in Missouri and Flagstaff Medical Center in Arizona are just two hospitals in 25 states across the country that will receive federal funding for telemedicine projects. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced nearly $16 million in USDA grants would be disbursed for distant learning and telemedicine services.

The USDA's Distance Learning and Telemedicine Loan and Grant program provides funding to rural hospitals, clinics, schools and libraries for equipment and technical assistance for telemedicine and distance learning. Grant recipients must demonstrate that they serve rural America, prove there is an economic need and provide at least 15 percent in matching funds.

Three of the University of Pennsylvania’s health-related research centers have teamed up to launch an innovative grant program designed to lure academic investigators out of their insular comfort zones into large scale interdisciplinary research projects.

The three—Penn’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (CCEB), Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) and Center for Public Health Initiatives (CPHI)—are offering a novel funding structure they hope will pull together researchers from a variety of disciplines to focus on “big ideas” related to improving the health of populations.

Frustrated  by unpredictable and often political funding for science research,  a handful of young researchers think they’ve found the answer: crowdfunding.

Jackson Solway Experiment.com Co-founder and CEO Cindy Wu The researchers–who have backgrounds in synthetic biology, rocket science and other disciplines–built much of  their startup, Experiment.com, while at the Y Combinator accelerator in 2013.

Mobile technology is transforming the way patients and doctors interact.

That was the message conveyed by a panel of speakers at a Health IT Forum hosted at Johns Hopkins University’s Montgomery County Campus.

The Health IT Forum series, held four times a year, is a community partnership co-sponsored by the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, the TechCouncil of Maryland and the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. The January forum, titled “Patient Tools for Better Health,” attracted approximately 50 health IT experts from the region.

New Enterprise Associates has stepped up to help with a $14 million A round designed to get Austin, TX-based startup Lumos Pharmaceuticals in the clinic with a new therapy for an autism spectrum disorder characterized by severe cognitive impairment. Sante Ventures negotiated the original term sheet for Lumos and NEA joined the financing later.

Lumos has been working with a subsidiary of the NIH on LUM-001, an analogue of creatine that was studied by investigators at the University of Cincinnati. The "repurposed" molecule has been shown in animal studies to cross the blood-brain barrier, offering the potential to restore levels of creatine in the brain, which is eliminated by a defect in the transporter gene found in people who suffer from a range of cognitive disorders, including autism.

It's no big secret that the vast majority of venture capitalists are men. But that vastness is even a bit larger than I had expected.

Following yesterday's news that Jennifer Fonstad and Theresia Gouw were stepping down as partners with DFJ and Accel Partners, respectively, in order to launch their own firm, we decided to begin researching exactly how many partner-level female VCs there really were.

On Tuesday, Kaiser Permanente and the Veterans Health Administration announced that they will collaborate to research and develop best practices for various health care fields, EHR Intelligence reports (Freeman, EHR Intelligence, 2/4).

The partnership is part of the VA's Innovation Partnership Program.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Bethesda Blues and Jazz - 7719 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814

What’s next for Montgomery County? The potential for livable work, live and play environments on Metro abound. But what about the business community? What is it going to take to build an innovation economy? Is Montgomery County going to become the next tech hub?

Join us for a very special morning event featuring some of the brightest and most influential business and real estate leaders as they discuss some of the most dramatic decisions that this region will face in the upcoming year. Sign up now to join leaders of the Maryland business region for an important morning of discussion and networking!

"Our goal is absolutely to democratize knowledge," says Denny Luan. "Modern science has such a rush for fast results - publish or perish, output over process. We'd like to show the greater public that science does not have to be locked up behind monasterial walls. We'd like to change the way science is shared - in an engaging, deliberately beautiful way. Real-time, open-access and with great design."

Luan is co-founder of what, until this morning, was known as "Microryza" - the site has been renamed "Experiment" as part of a revamped branding strategy - a potentially revolutionary crowdfunding platform that is looking to do for science what Kickstarter has done for the entertainment industry.

As part of an ongoing effort to empower patients to be informed partners with their health care providers, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has taken action to give patients or a person designated by the patient a means of direct access to the patient’s completed laboratory test reports.

“The right to access personal health information is a cornerstone of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule,” said Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Information like lab results can empower patients to track their health progress, make decisions with their health care professionals, and adhere to important treatment plans.”

Two years ago, at the recommendation of a nutritionist, I stopped eating wheat and a few other grains. Within a matter of days the disabling headaches and fatigue that I had been suffering for months vanished. Initially my gastroenterologist interpreted this resolution of my symptoms as a sign that I perhaps suffered from celiac disease, a peculiar disorder in which the immune system attacks a bundle of proteins found in wheat, barley and rye that are collectively referred to as gluten. The misdirected assault ravages and inflames the small intestine, interfering with the absorption of vital nutrients and thereby causing bloating, diarrhea, headaches, tiredness and, in rare cases, death. Yet several tests for celiac disease had come back negative. Rather my doctors concluded that I had nonceliac “gluten sensitivity,” a relatively new diagnosis. The prevalence of gluten sensitivity is not yet clear, but some data suggest it may afflict as many as 6 percent of Americans, six times the number of people with celiac disease.

Ten big rival drug companies have formed a pact to cooperate on a government-backed effort to accelerate the discovery of new drugs, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The companies and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will share scientists, tissue and blood samples, and data, to identify targets for new drugs for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, the Journal said.

On March 19 and 20, the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) will be holding its “Global 1000: Meet | Partner | Deal Showcase and Conference” at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. The GLOBAL 1000 Meet | Partner | Deal :: Startups Showcase + Conference is an important transaction-based conference for Global 1000 corporates, and for universities, angel investors, VCs, accelerators, incubators, state startup investment programs, and SBIR programs, who want to do deals with them. The conference has multiple showcases by Global 1000 corporates, state programs, universities, VCs and angel investors. Sophisticated meeting software allows for real-time meetings between conference attendees to facilitate deal-making at the conference.

Global Corporate Venturing is the fastest growing venturing activity in the world with already about $100 billion in venturing assets and more than $3.5 trillion in corporate revenues. According to NCET2’s Executive Director, Tony Stanco, the conference focuses on bringing deals to the Global 1000 companies. He said, “This is the major conference to do transactions with the Global 1000 corporates, including M&A, favored access to customers, early/late stage investing, partnering, joint venturing, co-developing products, incubation, product sourcing, white labeling, revenue sharing, and distributor agreements."

NCET2 is proud to have Innovation America as a media partner. Richard Bendis will be delivering a keynote speech on Thursday, March 20. Innovation America subscribers can get a $300 registration discount by using the code "innoam2014".

Female blue crab's eyes play a role in growing body parts that enable the crabs to mate and reproduce, according to researchers at the University of Maryland's Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET).

It has been known that the crabs' eyeballs produce hormones responsible for the growth and development for a crab from adolescence to adulthood, but this new find is noteworthy for its necessity in crab motherhood.

Independence Blue Cross today announced it has created the Independence Blue Cross (IBC) Center for Health Care Innovation, an important milestone in the company's groundbreaking efforts to transform the Philadelphia area into a national magnet for health care innovation. At the 5,000-square foot center at 1700 Market Street in Philadelphia, the company's associates and external partners will innovate, collaborate, and implement path-finding new concepts in health care. The center will also be the home for the company's widening range of innovation initiatives, including its partnership with Penn Medicine and DreamIt Ventures on the region's first health care accelerator, DreamIt Health Philadelphia, which last year brought ten promising health care startups from across the country to Philadelphia and today eight are still located in the region.

"Through the IBC Center for Health Care Innovation, we are championing health care entrepreneurism in our region, and acting as a catalyst for innovations that lead to superior care at lower costs," said Independence Blue Cross President and CEO Daniel J. Hilferty. "With our region's active investment community, experienced health care talent, world class health care systems, and strong academic institutions, we have all the ingredients to become the Silicon Valley of health care innovation."

One year after DreamIt Health and the Canadian consulate launched digital health accelerators, the University City Science Center is hosting a state-backed health IT accelerator, according to a statement. The program has spots for six companies in a three-month program in Philadelphia. Aron Starosta, who set up the Canadian Consulate’s accelerator on the Science Center’s campus, also developed the Pennsylvania-backed program.

Geography isn’t a barrier as long as companies are registered in the state. The application deadline is March 15.

The Salk Institute's Office of Technology Development (OTD) is responsible for managing the intellectual property of the Salk Institute.

At the OTD, our mission is to enable our researchers to realize the commercial potential of their ideas. Our goal is to develop and support relationships with industry partners who can help turn scientific progress in the lab into tangible products for the benefit of patients and society at large, while returning income to the inventor and to the Institute to support further research.

Commentary by Dr. Wallace D. Loh, President, University of Maryland

Maryland's economic success relies on its staggering concentration of scientific talent, superb education, highly competitive businesses and enlightened government. When they all mesh, the state's economy outpaces the competition.

This has earned Maryland a designation by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as the No. 1 entrepreneurial state and a No. 2 ranking by the National Science Foundation for the economic impact of its concentrated research activities.

People can argue all day about whether Illumina has, at last, given us the $1,000 genome. The answer does matter, because the cheaper it gets to sequence a whole human genome, the easier it will be to gather lots of them. That will help us understand what makes people different, and shed light on what causes disease. Or so scientists hope.

It’s heady stuff. But that’s the not the biggest story at Illumina right now.

GlaxoSmithKline is set to unveil plans to launch late-stage clinical trials on 10 new drugs over the next two years, the Telegraph reported, without citing sources.

The new drugs, which have not been detailed to investors, will include cancer and respiratory disease medicines, the newspaper said on its website.

The venture arm of GlaxoSmithKline joined investors in ZappRx, a prescription app, in a second instance recently of big pharma putting cash into a mobile health firm.

ZappRx announced it had closed a $1 million round from backers led by current investor Atlas Venture but also including GSK-backed SR One.

The round follows $1 million invested by Atlas Venture in September 2013.

The 2014 SBIR and STTR Omnibus Grant Solicitation of the NIH is now live and the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) budget for the program is increasing. Funding from the NCI Small Business Innovation Research & Small Business Tech Transfer (SBIR & STTR) Programs can help you advance your technology towards commercialization and can also help spark investor interest in your business.

The next application due date is April 5, 2014. We encourage you to start preparing your application and are happy to provide feedback on your project. If you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity, please email the NCI SBIR program director listed in your relevant technology area. Also be sure to check that all of your required registrations are complete. It’s never too early to start the registration process.