Ken Malone and the board members of his startup biotech company gathered in a conference room at the University of Southern Mississippi last October to make a gut-wrenching decision.

Ablitech Inc.'s funding was slowly drying up, and it couldn't find new sources in Mississippi. If the company stayed, it would wither away.

The only option left for Ablitech, they decided, was for the fledgling company to move.

"We called our shareholders together and said, 'Look, if we stay here, we're going to die,'" Malone recalled recently.

For months, Malone and one of the firm's co-founders scoured the East Coast, from North Carolina to Boston, for a new home. They chose Baltimore.

Ablitech's choice this year was a modest win for the still-growing University of Maryland BioPark on the west side of downtown, where about 500 people work. The company brings only a handful of jobs, and its cancer-stopping technology is years — and millions of dollars — away from animal and human trials, let alone commercialization.

When it came time to generate a little “buzz” for its latest initiative – Deals on Wheels – the Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer office (JHTT) turned to the popular BioBuzz biotechnology industry happy hour series in Montgomery County. And they weren’t disappointed… January’s happy hour drew more than 100 biotech industry professionals who wanted to learn more about the Deals on Wheels program and have an opportunity to network with colleagues.

Deals on Wheels is an innovative program designed to bridge the geographical gap between Johns Hopkins University’s researchers in Baltimore and biotech companies and entrepreneurs in Montgomery County. Through Deals on Wheels, technology companies and entrepreneurs in Montgomery County will have the opportunity to connect one-on-one with Johns Hopkins representatives to discover potential partnership opportunities that include, licensing agreements, start-ups, core facilities, sponsored research, material transfer agreements, research collaborations, and clinical trials.

A Gaithersburg biotech that’s developing regenerative therapies for wound care has continued to broaden its scope by acquiring a North Carolina company focused on stem cell treatments for stroke and other conditions.

In an all-stock transaction, publicly traded Cytomedix agreed last week to pay $16 million — and up to $40 million, if certain milestones are achieved — for privately held Aldagen of Durham, N.C. As part of the deal, Aldagen investors bought $5 million of Cytomedix common stock in a private placement.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced the creation of the Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List (MERL), a listing of Maryland entrepreneurs available to take on a management role with a start-up company within the next 18 months or those interested in mentoring start-up companies. Compiled with the goal of fostering entrepreneurial activity in the State, MERL serves as a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs interested in joining a start-up opportunity or entrepreneurs willing to provide advice and guidance on a pro bono basis. TEDCO is looking to grow the list, which already includes entrepreneurs in the areas of biotechnology, chemistry, medical devices, network and wireless solutions, physics, engineering and software.

"The Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List will be a tremendous asset for this community as it will nurture new entrepreneurs and start-up companies," said Robert Rosenbaum, president and executive director of TEDCO. "Maryland is fortunate to have a rich network of entrepreneurs spanning various disciplines and industries, and now these individuals have an invaluable resource when looking for guidance, direction and opportunity. With Governor O'Malley's proposed Maryland Innovation Initiative slated to provide additional and much-needed funding to entrepreneurs, we hope this unique and credible list will further connect the entrepreneur community and facilitate growth for an innovation-driven economy."

Net income at United Therapeutics Corp.    surged more than four-fold in its latest quarter as sales rose and the Silver Spring pharmaceutical firm curbed expenses.

United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR) maintained the sales growth momentum of its line-up of cardiopulmonary hypertension medicines in the fourth quarter. Total revenue increased 19 percent to $195.2 million.

Derek Gabbard wasn't dreaming of California when he sought to raise investment capital for his Baltimore-based cybersecurity firm.

But the CEO of Lookingglass Cyber Solutions lucked out with a connection to venture capitalists in the state that dwarfs all others in terms of venture capital. With a San Francisco investment firm taking the lead on the investment and a Maryland firm following, Gabbard recently raised $5 million.

Such deals, where Mid-Atlantic technology companies straddle both coasts for investors, have been cropping up lately, though the dynamics underlying them vary. Leaders of local companies hunting for early-stage financing have made pilgrimages to California and either returned with a big check — or advice to move to that state or New York City if they want to build their businesses.

About three times each week, an enterprising researcher at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park, takes a step toward patenting an invention. Each year, that results in the creation of about five new high-tech firms, the kinds of businesses often credited with creating good jobs.

That's a good start, but the school's goal is to double that rate in the next few years. With a small but smartly focused investment by the state, we can get there — and all Marylanders can benefit.

Gov.Martin O'Malley's proposed Maryland Innovation Initiative offers a significant advance to our state's tech-based economic development. It commits $6 million to boost commercialization of university research and creates incentives for statewide collaborations that will strengthen our high-tech sector. Additionally, through tax credits, InvestMaryland will raise $70 million to replenish the state's venture capital fund. This gives vital support to start-up firms.

Hopkins has launched the China STEM program in partnership with Nanjing University, reports a Johns Hopkins University publication, The News-Letter.

Beginning in the summer of 2012, this eight-week long summer program will take place at the Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, and at Peking University in Beijing.

First proposed in 2009, the program will be led by program director Dr. Ninping Yu and be open to Hopkins students, students from other universities, and professionals.

When you think of artists in the Philadelphia suburbs, scenic Bucks County comes to mind.

Hoping to change that perception and give Montgomery County a leg up as a haven for artists and the arts, the Creative Montco Initiative named Karen Stout, president of Montgomery County Community College, as its leader.

“We’re trying to represent the entirety of Montgomery County,” said Laura Burnham, executive director of Abington Art Center, a member of the Creative Montco Steering Committee. “We were looking for someone who has a broad perspective. Karen really has an amazing expertise and network across the county, both in the business community and the education community and that’s really important to arts and culture.”

Greg Cangialosi’s new business accelerator will soon be looking for Baltimore’s next crop of startup tech firms.

Cangialosi, who sold Baltimore’s Blue Sky Factory    last year, plans to launch his Locust Point accelerator with business partner Sean Lane, CEO of BTS Corp., by mid-April. Cangialosi said he will then start selecting startup companies for the accelerator.

In 2008, federal agencies obligated $28.4 billion to 1,316 academic institutions for science and engineering activities, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Although this represents a 0.9% increase in current dollars over 2007 levels, it represents a 1.4% decrease in inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars. The Johns Hopkins University (including its Applied Physics Laboratory) continued to be the leading academic recipient of federal S&E obligations, followed by the University of Washington and the campuses of the University of Michigan. Together, the top 20 institutions received 34.4 percent of all federal S&E obligations in 2008.

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Today, President Obama will host the second White House Science Fair celebrating the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country. The President will also announce key additional steps that the Administration and its partners are taking to prepare 100,000 effective math and science teachers and to meet the urgent need to train one million additional STEM graduates over the next decade.

“When students excel in math and science, they help America compete for the jobs and industries of the future,” said President Obama. “That’s why I’m proud to celebrate outstanding students at the White House Science Fair, and to announce new steps my Administration and its partners are taking to help more young people succeed in these critical subjects."

The InvestMaryland program will be investing approximately $47-55M into several venture capital firms by mid-2012.  The Maryland Venture Fund Authority (MVFA) will be hiring a consultant to assist in the evaluation and selection of venture firms based on the selection criteria detailed in the InvestMaryland Program annotated code 6-518 – Selecting Applicants.

To be certified

For venture capital firms seeking to apply for investment funds from the Invest/Maryland Program, you must be Certified.

Certification is defined in the Maryland annotated code 6-518c1-c2 as:

(1)   The applicant must have at the time of application, an equity capitalization, net assets, or written commitments of at least $500,000 in the form of cash or cash equivalents; and

(2)   At least two principals or persons employed to direct the investment of the designated capital of the applicant must have at least 5 years of money management experience in the venture capital or private equity sectors.

No later than 90 days after an application is filed, the Secretary shall either:

(1)   Issue the certification; or

(2)   Refuse to issue the certification and communicate in detail to the applicant the grounds for the refusal.

The University of Maryland BioPark announced today that Ablitech, Inc., a biotechnology company developing polymer-based delivery systems for gene silencing, has signed a lease for laboratory space in the BioPark’s BioInnovation Center. With its move to Baltimore, Ablitech joins an impressive line-up of commercial tenants in the BioPark, a biomedical research park on the vibrant academic medical center campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). The BioPark’s community of life science companies and academic research centers is commercializing new drugs, diagnostics and devices and advancing biomedical research.

“After thoroughly researching the best location to continue growing Ablitech, the UM BioPark rose to the top of the list among East Coast locations as our ideal choice for relocating,” said Ken Malone, Ph.D., Ablitech’s Chief Executive Officer. “Located in the heart of West Baltimore City and Maryland’s leading biotechnology cluster and offering flexibility of laboratory and office space in buildings developed by Wexford Science & Technology LLC, the BIoPark offers the best of all worlds for a growing biotech organization.”

The January 2012 issue of Baltimore magazine recognized three Venable partners as being among the top attorneys in the state.  Venable partners Mike Baader, Kevin Shepherd and Ron Taylor each were highlighted as one of the Top 100 lawyers in the state of Maryland in the SuperLawyers ranking that was published in the magazine.

The issue is called technology transfer, and it has not been one of Maryland’s strengths.

For all of the state’s success in attracting research dollars to an array of universities and institutions with world-class experts and facilities, it has not matched that success in spinning off commercial ventures from that research to generate jobs and economic growth.

This gap has been of growing concern to leaders in business, academia and government. Now Gov. Martin O’Malley has set out to do something about it, albeit belatedly, and we applaud his effort.

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN) has announced results of operations for the fourth quarter and full-year 2011, making significant progress on strategic initiatives to drive growth and innovation.

Net sales in the fourth quarter advanced 17% (+17% at constant exchange rates, or CER) to $334.4 million from the fourth quarter of 2010. Adjusted operating income in the quarter grew 16% to $95.6 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 as the adjusted operating income margin was steady at 29% of net sales. Adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) rose to $0.31 in the fourth quarter of 2011 from $0.26 in the same quarter of 2010. Results for the fourth quarter of 2011 included a restructuring charge of $75 million for a project announced in November to enhance productivity by streamlining the organization and freeing up resources for reallocation to strategic initiatives.

The Tech Council of Maryland    has named Art Jacoby, a Catonsville, Md.-based small business consultant, as its interim CEO.

Jacoby, who is also a managing partner at Maryland Cyber Investment Partners, will head up the technology and biotech trade group while it looks for a full-time replacement for former chief executive Renee Winsky, who left the council in December. In an interview Monday, Jacoby said he expects to hold the position for two to five months – however long it takes to find a permanent chief.

Gov. Martin O‟Malley will call for more than $6 million to spin research conducted at university labs    into new companies, aides said Tuesday.

The proposal seeks to address the gulf between the state‟s strong track record in attracting research dollars and relative lack of success in turning that funding into commercial ventures, an issue that commands the attention of academics and business leaders alike.

The new state allotment would be used to fund promising technologies and fund research of others.

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A decade ago, Maryland's chief competition in the bioscience industry came from the coasts: New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts on the East and California on the West.

Since then, a crop of emerging biotech clusters has started to make its mark, hailing from the Midwest and farther south into Texas and Florida.

As these new competitors seek their place in the market, Maryland's state officials and business executives hope to maintain and expand its biotech presence through a strategy of organic growth.

Healthcare is caught in a slow-motion collision between two 21st Century realities. The world’s growing and aging population creates ever-greater needs for treatment. At the same time, limited resources constrict the availability of quality care.

Perhaps half the people who die each day – more in poor areas – suffer from diseases that are preventable or curable. While medical advances do help patients live longer, the costs of care are rising. And even as science discovers new mechanisms of disease, medicine relies too much on trial and error.

The good news is, solutions are at hand to improve the health of the world’s 7 billion people. We can transform healthcare systems to care for patients in more sustained and cost-effective ways.

Elana Fine, who heads an angel investor network organized by the University of Maryland    ’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, has been promoted to replace Dingman’s longtime managing director, Asher Epstein.

The leadership shuffle comes at a time when the Dingman Center Angels is sharply stepping up its investment activity, inking eight early-stage deals in 2011 — twice as many as it signed in 2010. The angel group was formerly known as the Capital Access Network but rebranded last year.

The legislative compromise on a short-term payroll tax extension dominated headlines in late December, but few journalists heralded a provision that was included in the bill that will help small businesses and boost America’s economy: the six-year reauthorization of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

The SBIR program helps empower our nation’s small entrepreneurs by funding a major federal Research & Development endeavor, creating new jobs and growing our economy. As a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I have been a long-time supporter of this highly successful program.

An innovative Maryland technology transfer program - the first of its kind in the United States to partner federal labs and public universities - has received an award honoring its success.

The Maryland Proof of Concept Alliance, which teams the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the University System of Maryland, was recognized as a national model by a group representing federal labs.

The Mid-Atlantic Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) - has made the Alliance the first recipient of its Partnership Award honoring successful collaborations between educational institutions and federal labs.

The four states with the nation’s largest biotech clusters showed that they too were not immune to challenges common to most U.S. regions seeking to build their life science presence. Hurdles included a capital squeeze particularly for early-stage biopharmas, the reality of the industry’s international growth, and the need to attract new businesses and retain existing ones.

All four top-tier biotech states—California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Maryland—did, however, find numerous ways to address these challenges. They rolled out new financing programs or tweaked existing ones. In some cases they reached out to regions around the world. In others they identified promising niches within their clusters. Signs of success could be seen in a series of new construction and expansion projects.

As the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel consolidates several of its major areas, it has tapped a science veteran of almost 30 years to ensure it is ready to meet the needs of its federal military and research customers.

“We need to make sure we strategically invest program development funds to best support our customers,” said Charles Goldblum, who was recently named business area executive for the lab’s new department.

The Research and Exploratory Development Department was created this fall to develop and nurture new technologies to meet emerging national challenges.

Steady progress toward broader adoption of BENLYSTA treatment

Human Genome Sciences, Inc. HGSI +1.18% will today announce its priority goals for 2012 and report on progress with the commercialization of BENLYSTA(R) (belimumab), the first approved drug for systemic lupus in 56 years, during a presentation this afternoon by H. Thomas Watkins, President and Chief Executive Officer, to financial analysts and investors at the 30th Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

"Thousands of patients with systemic lupus are now being treated with BENLYSTA," said Mr. Watkins. "We are pioneering a treatment in a market that has not seen a new option for patients in decades. Although we are still in the early adoption phase of our launch, our experience in the market to date reinforces our belief that BENLYSTA will ultimately play a major role in improving the standard of care for SLE patients."

Two Maryland biotechs announced inroads in their efforts to develop stem cell treatments for depression and diabetes.

Neuralstem has gotten the regulatory go-ahead to advance to phase 1b in its ongoing clinical trial of its stem cell treatment for major depressive disorder.

NSI-189 stimulates new neuron growth in the brain’s hippocampus, which may be involved in depression and other conditions, including Alzheimer's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Rockville biotech.

As a group, postdocs are underrepresented in entrepreneurial careers due to their need for business training, their lack of industrial experience, and their difficulty accessing entrepreneurial mentors and advisors. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, the INNoVATE™ program addresses these needs.

INNoVATE™ is a unique program that offers scientific postdoctoral fellows and researchers the opportunity to develop the needed entrepreneurial skills to move innovations to the market. Focused on cultivating entrepreneurs from the more than 4800 postdocs in the state of Maryland, the INNoVATE™ program aims to train and educate today’s life scientists in the skills needed to create the high growth technology companies of tomorrow.

President Barack Obama signed legislation Dec. 31 that reauthorized the Small Business Innovation Research program for six years.

Through the SBIR program, the 11 federal agencies with the biggest outside research budgets are required to spend at least 2.5 percent of this money with small businesses. The new legislation, which was attached to a defense reauthorization bill, increases that share to 3.2 percent over the next six years.

Ted Olsen needed to make his Baltimore environmental testing company sound so intriguing that the venture capitalists packing a hotel ballroom would beg to hear more.

The CEO of PathSensors Inc. was on the hunt for $1.5 million in financing. Like a business version of speed dating, Olsen had six minutes — less than the time it takes to cook spaghetti — to bring to life the company into which he poured his sweat, dreams and savings.

Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer has licensed a new nanotechnology to a Gaithersburg startup for the development of cancer therapies.

The license for Artificial Immune nanotechnology was granted to NexImmune, formed in part by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine faculty members. The staff members are involved in the development of the Artificial Immune technology.

Recovering from the failure of an oral supplement to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension, United Therapeutics has received approval in France for an intravenous treatment.

The firm also has submitted a U.S. application for a standalone oral treatment.

French regulatory agency Agence Francaise de Securite Sanitaire des Produits de Sante has approved IV use of the Silver Spring company’s Remodulin.

Remodulin already is approved in most of Europe and in the U.S. for subcutaneous infusion treatment, or continuous injections just under the skin, according to United Therapeutics information.