Sonavex, Inc., a privately held medical device company focused on empowered patient care, announced today that on March 8, 2019 it received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its EchoSure device to deliver definitive blood flow data on demand.

Four Johns Hopkins professors received grants through a fund created to help faculty put their research on a path to commercialization.

The professors received grants between $25,000 and $100,000 from the Bisciotti Foundation Translational Fund.

One woman is making her mark at the highest level of U.S. local politics.

She was born in China and successfully carved her path all the way to the state capitol.

CGTN’s Frances Kuo has her story.

On Wednesday, MACo Legislative Committee members Craig Rice (Montgomery), Jan Gardner (Frederick), and Laura Price (Talbot) joined Executive Director Michael Sanderson in support of SB 1030 The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.

UMB has long been one of the state’s most powerful economic drivers, stimulating $3 billion in economic activity in 2018, up from $2.8 billion in 2016. A significant factor in that growth is the UM BioPark, which occupies 14 acres in West Baltimore providing laboratory and office space to 41 biotechnology companies and over 1,000 employees.

The National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation is accepting applications for its Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids competition.

Cell therapy is emerging, cell by cell, into the repertoire of medical therapies. However, it still has not broken into mainstream use. For instance, there are only two FDA-approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell treatments in the United States: Kymirah, Novartis’s treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and Yescarta, Kite Pharma’s treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced today the findings of an independent economic impact study detailing the economic development contributions of TEDCO’s five core programs to the state of Maryland. 

Visibility, speaking out, courage and organization. Forty years ago, these were the things that brought the Orphan Drug Act to life. On Sunday, February 24, across the U.S. and India, over 7,000 supporters gathered in the same passion: speaking out and bringing visibility to the more than 7,000 disorders collectively known as rare diseases, organized under the banner of Racefor7USA and its parent organizations, the Organization for Rare Disease India (ORDI) and Organization for Rare Diseases India in the U.S. (ORDIUSA).

Cutting Edge Lab Space Available

The NIH is the cornerstone to the world scientific community and is the largest life sciences engine in the US.  

Bethesda Bio gives life science companies the ability to be on the doorstep of this invaluable wealth of resources, community, talent, technology, intellectual property, clinical studies. The existing Bethesda central business district provides a vibrant live, work and play environment to recruit and retain the best scientific minds. Over the past two decades, Bethesda has been the center of Montgomery County and the hub of innovation.

Three investment firms topped the list of local tech investors in the DMV region according to CB Insights‘ report, The United States of Venture Capital.

An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor, his doctors said.

Emmes today announced that Behrman Capital, a leading private equity firm, has made a significant investment in the company.  The capital will allow Emmes, one of the Washington area's top 100 largest private companies, to expand and strengthen its service offerings and international presence.

Are you a start-up in Maryland, DC or Virginia seeking feedback on your biohealth business idea, pitch deck, or commercialization plan?  Sign up by noon 3/19 to schedule your feedback session with BHI Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (who have industry experience in therapeutics, Dx, medtech and more) next Wednesday, March 20th.  (The next session is scheduled for 3/20 and 5/22.)  Pre-registration is required; sign up here("EIR resource" at BHI).  For questions/more information, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

More than 120 people registered for last week’s SBIR Workshop organized by BioHealth Innovation in partnership with Launch Workplaces and support from TEDCO and NIH FCU.  

The event featured program overviews, “how to” sessions regarding specific aspects of proposal development and 1:1 partnering meetings with the program managers.  

Speakers included:  Todd Haim,  Ph.D., Chief, Office of Small Business Research NIA;  Mike Pieck, Ph.D., Small Business Coordinator, NHLBI; Maureen (Cusick) Thomas, Outreach Coordinator, NIA;Victor Prikhodko, Business Advisor, NIDA; Amir Rahbar, PhD, MBA, Program Director, NCI;  Vladimir M. Popov, PhD, Business Dev. Manager, NCI-FNL;Amir Rahbar, PhD, MBA, Program Director, NCI; Henry Ahn, Program Director SBIR/STTR, NSF; and Colleen Gibney, SBIR Deputy Project Mgr, USAMRMC.  

44% of the attendees had applied for SBIR funding before with half of these innovators receiving a Phase 1.  Only 16% had received a Phase II award.  The majority of attendees were from Montgomery and Frederick Counties and the City of Baltimore.  However, registrants also traveled from Virginia, DC, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Emergent BioSolutions announced today that the company has signed a deal with the U.S. Department of State to establish a supply chain for certain medical countermeasures that address chemical warfare agents.

New Enterprise Associates, the 41-year-old venture firm with offices in Menlo Park; San Francisco; Boston; New York; Chevy Chase, Md.; and Washington, D.C., is raising its biggest fund ever, shows a new SEC filing that shows target of $3.6 billion.

Office REIT Alexandria Real Estate Equities reports it has launched a new product geared to providing post-seed-stage life science companies with turnkey, fully furnished office/laboratory suites.

MaxCyte, the global cell-based medicines and life sciences company, announced today that it has expanded its relationship with Kite, a Gilead Company, by entering into a multi-drug clinical and commercial agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Kite will use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation® Technology to enable non-viral cell engineering for development of multiple CAR-T drug candidates for up to 10 targets.

Francis deSouza Photographer: Jeff Spicer/PA Wire via AP For years, the cost to decode a full human genome has been falling much like computer processing costs -- from hundreds of thousands of dollars per person to about $1,000 today. With a $100 genome getting closer, the CEO of the top maker of DNA sequencers thinks the world may not be ready.

Gilead’s Kite Pharma has expanded its CAR-T agreement with MaxCyte. The revised deal gives Kite the chance to apply MaxCyte’s transfection technology to up to 10 targets.

The biomedical research community has made major progress in achieving a balance of men and women in human studies, however compelling questions about the underlying mechanisms that increase women’s risk or resilience for certain heart, lung, blood, and sleep (HLBS) diseases continue to challenge the scientific and medical community.

In support of its Strategic Vision, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is advancing a scientific research agenda for women’s health. As part of that agenda, the Institute has issued a Request for Information “Understanding the Health of Women and the Role of Sex/Gender in Mechanisms of Heart, Lung, Blood, and Sleep Diseases and Disorders.” The RFI offers the research community, health care professionals, patient advocates, and others an opportunity to provide input on topics ranging from scientific gap areas in mechanisms of HLBS diseases, to training and resource needs, among other topics.  

The NHLBI greatly values your perspective as it works with the wider scientific community to uncover the mechanisms of disease that will set a stronger foundation for clinical research focused on more effective prevention and treatment strategies for HLBS diseases and disorders in women. Please submit your responses via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by March 15, 2019. Don’t forget to include the Notice number (NOT-HL-18-660) in the subject line.

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE American: RNN), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies to improve patient outcomes in cancers that are difficult to treat, today announced the appointment of Lara S. Sullivan, M.D. to its board of directors.

The share of funding going to women-founded startups went down despite a massive influx of dollars to the region.

Biopharma companies have long been looking for a way to go beyond the molecule/pill.The nascent but growing digital therapeutics industry set to grow to $10 billion by 2023 may be guiding that way forward, according to a panel discussion on the second day of the DTx (Digital Therapeutics) West conference in San Mateo, California.

Albert Bourla told a US Senate hearing that other nations are "free-riding on American innovation".

Funding for the Bethesda-based National Institutes of Health is up by 14 percent during the two years that President Donald Trump has been in the White House — but it’s despite and not because of the president, according to Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

When: Wednesday, March 13, 2019 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Where: Bar Louie 150 Gibbs St Rockville, MD 20850

Join BioBuzz and Founding Sponsor JHU MoCo for our next exciting event of 2019 at Bar Louie in Rockville on March 13th. 

Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. (PGDx), a leader in cancer genomics, announced today that it has added two new members to its Board of Directors, Dr. Kavita Patel and Garry Allen Nicholson. Dr. Patel and Mr. Nicholson bring significant healthcare expertise that is aligned with and can further empower PGDx’s corporate growth strategy of driving global access to precision medicine in oncology.

For every AstraZeneca, there are hundreds of small biotech startups and scores of life science innovators that are critical to growing the BioHealth Capital Region. For every new biotech flush with investment cash, scores of smart, entrepreneur-scientists with great ideas and technology struggle to find regional funding partners.

Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a unique, noninvasive blood test that detects proteins and gene mutations from eight common cancers. The test, called CancerSEEK, screens for cancers that account for more than 60 percent of U.S. cancer deaths.

In late 2017, Baltimore-based healthcare startup Protenus was reverberating from a year of growth.

Dr. Darryl Sampey has been through the grind as CEO of Frederick’s BioFactura, a thriving biotech company that’s a key part of the BioHealth Capital Region’s second largest biotech hub. On a rainy, cold February night at FITCI, Sampey shared BioFactura’s compelling story during a “fireside chat” hosted by StartUp Grind’s Frederick chapter.

The company has already raised about $40 million to date.

I was dubious when Crystal Icenhour approached me to write about her medical testing company.