Accenture (NYSE:ACN) today announced it will continue to serve as a catalyst for identifying and engaging with emerging innovators and disruptors with the second annual Accenture HealthTech Innovation Challenge. Building on the success of the inaugural program in which 500 startups participated, the Accenture HealthTech Innovation Challenge brings together leading-edge startups with prominent health and life sciences companies to tackle some of the world’s greatest health challenges including access, affordability and transparency.

UMBC officials are planning to add new space at the research and technology park adjacent to the Catonsville campus over the next two to five years.

Up to 100,000 additional square feet for tech companies could be added at the south campus of bwtech@UMBC, said Gregory Simmons, UMBC’s VP of Institutional Advancement.

Honoring those who see past the present to create the future. The future is not granted. It is born from the initiative of entrepreneurs. Now in its 31st year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year® program celebrates these future-makers whose drive propels growth in our economies and our world.

We invite you to join us in celebrating the remarkable achievements of this year’s Maryland finalists at the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 Maryland Awards gala.

On May 15, MdBio Foundation hosted the first STEM Leadership Experience, an afterschool workshop for high school girls, onboard the Mobile eXploration Lab. Designed in collaboration with MdBio’s longtime partner, MedImmune/AstraZeneca, the program is an immersive, hands-on activity designed to teach laboratory practices while building relationships between high school students and STEM professionals.

TEDCO named George Davis as its new CEO on Wednesday. He will start in the leadership role of the quasi-public agency that backs early stage companies on June 26.

The organization provides investment funding as well support for entrepreneurs. Davis has experience both in leading and funding companies in Maryland.

Bruce Booth, D.Phil., a partner at Atlas Venture, astutely observed earlier this year that two key resources fueling the growth of biopharma were until recently somewhat geographically spread among the 10 or so regions of the nation where the industry began to arise a generation ago.

“In recent years, this has changed—Boston and San Francisco are now the preeminent biotech clusters.  And their gravity in the ecosystem is only getting stronger,” Dr. Booth concluded in a March 21 post on his Life Sci VC blog. “Beyond having great science and the right ‘pixie dust’ in the local environment, two fundamentally important ingredients to the success of any cluster are capital and talent—and both are aggregating into the two key clusters.”

President Trump announced Tuesday that he will keep Francis S. Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Collins was first nominated for the position in 2009 by President Obama. Shortly after he took office, Trump announced that Collins would stay on in an interim role, and many scientists have wondered if Collins would be offered the position or would accept it on a permanent basis in the new administration. Trump surprised many this year by proposing cuts of nearly 20 percent in the budget of the NIH, which normally has support from Democrats and Republicans alike.

The 2017 Omnibus Grant Solicitations of the NIH, CDC, and FDA are now available for the SBIR and STTR (NIH only) programs.

The 2017 SBIR/STTR Omnibus solicitations and accompanying resources can be found below:

• SBIR: PA-17-302
• STTR: PA-17-303
• 2017 Program Descriptions and Research Topics and Appendix A (SBA approved topics for budget waivers)
• SF 424 (R&R) Online HTML Application Guide
• SF 424 (R&R) PDF Guide Application Guide for SBIR/STTR Grant Applications
• Annotated SF424 SBIR/STTR Form Set  

Standard Application Due Dates: September 5, 2017 and January 5, 2018.

The Maryland Tech Council (MTC), Maryland’s largest technology trade association, announced the winners of its 29th Annual Industry Awards during a celebration and ceremony at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center attended by more than 550 business leaders from around the state.

“MTC was honored to recognize the Industry Award winners this year whose innovations are improving and saving lives,” said Tami Howie, CEO, Maryland Tech Council. “This year’s winners gave inspiring and heart-felt messages on their advancements and how they are changing the world.”

The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) has been awarded two $115,000 grants to commercialize technologies based on improving protein-based therapeutics utilizing a novel biopolymer and an alternate way to treat Niemann-Pick disease patients. The grants are funded by the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) as part of the Technology Council of Maryland's (TEDCO) effort to support commercialization of academic-based scientific research and the state's efforts to foster economic development in Maryland. The MII program is a collaboration between the State of Maryland and five Maryland institutions: University of Maryland, Baltimore; University of Maryland, College Park; Morgan State University; UMBC; and Johns Hopkins University.

Qiagen this past weekend said that it signed separate agreements with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johns Hopkins University related to next-generation sequencing assay development.

Under one agreement, Qiagen and BMS will initially explore the use of NGS to develop gene expression profiles as predictive or prognostic tools for use with several BMS immuno-oncology therapies. The companies also plan to enter into a further agreement to develop diagnostic products using the jointly developed profiles to expand the use of NGS technology with other BMS immuno-oncology therapies.

Several technology research and commercialization research projects are getting money thanks to the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund Awards.

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced $2.7 million in funding for 40 projects across the Commonwealth, including several in Albemarle County.

QIAGEN (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced it has received premarket approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its automated artus® CMV QS-RGQ MDx kit for use on QIAGEN's QIAsymphony platform, providing fast, reproducible, high-quality test results for use as an aid in the management of solid organ transplant patients who are undergoing anti-CMV therapy.

Patients who have undergone organ transplantation have an elevated risk of infection from CMV, which is a common virus that infects people of all ages. Over half of all adults by age 40 have been infected with CMV, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Once CMV is in a person's body, it stays there for life in latent form and can reactivate.

QIAGEN has announced it has received a worldwide license from The Johns Hopkins University for biomarkers that have been shown to play key roles in identifying patients who could benefit from novel immune-oncology (I-O) therapies in cancer treatment.

The agreement involves rights to genetic biomarkers to assess microsatellite instability (MSI) and mismatch repair (MMR) in all sample and cell types, and will enable QIAGEN – subject to its exercising certain option rights – to commercialize molecular testing solutions using next-generation sequencing to assess MSI and MMR status. Levels of MSI and MMR, along with tumor mutation burden (TMB), are important in identifying cancer patients who could benefit from certain types of I-O therapies, which offer a novel way to treat cancer by using drugs to target the body’s immune system to help fight cancer.

Join MCCC in congratulating David Nguyen as he receives the MCCC 2017 Chairman's Award.

David’s contributions to the MCCC Board of Directors are strategic and impactful. An exemplary thought leader, he has advanced the Chamber’s Metro Maryland concept, grown our membership and provided innovative solutions to advance the MCCC mission.

The angel investor market in 2016 experienced a decrease in investment dollars and in the deal size. Total investments in 2016 were $21.3 billion, a decrease of 13.5% over 2015, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. A total of 64,380 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in 2016, a decline of 9.5% over 2015 investments. The number of active investors in 2016 was 297,880 individuals, a decrease of 2.3% from 2015. The change in both total dollars and the number of investments resulted in a deal size for 2016 that was smaller than in 2015. While these data indicate a cautious retreat in terms of dollars invested and deals, angels increased their appetite for seed and start-up investing, and the associated risk, but with a higher perceived value as demonstrated by the increase in valuations and decrease in deal (investment round) size.

The FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health is ramping up medical app and device offerings with a recently announced digital health unit.

The aim of this development is to centralize and coordinate digital health information so that there is consistency in applying policies. According to the associate director of digital health for the FDA, Bakul Patel, the primary responsibilities of those on the project will be to develop software and digital health tech to assist with premarket submissions or devices, utilize experts, and incorporate metrics that will aid review times and submissions.

Some startup concepts are easy to understand.

OrderUp wants to deliver food right to your door. Lyft will make sure you can call a ride to anywhere you need to go.

A vaccine that could provide a major breakthrough in the fight against Type 1 diabetes is to be tested in human trials.

Developed by Belgian biotech Imcyse, in collaboration with the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris – and 18 clinical sites across Europe, the company’s Imotopes™ technology can destroy immune cells that kill insulin-producing cells.

With both Maryland and Virginia donating land and financing construction of new federal buildings, a hundred square mile District of Columbia (originally called Territory of Columbia) was surveyed.

As an entrepreneur, I spent over three years in two different startup incubators – Brazil’s Genesis Institute, part of PUC-Rio’s university, and Maryland’s Rockville Innovation Center, run by Montgomery County’s Economic Development Department. As mentor, I have also had the opportunity to coach several incubated companies, from incubators like 1776 and beyond. I could experience firsthand the benefits of business incubation, which can be significant for early-stage entrepreneurs.

Max Becton and Fairleigh Dickinson were two travelling salesmen when they met through an act of kindness in a Texas railroad station in 1897. The friendship that resulted formed the basis of a partnership that built Becton-Dickinson into a global medical technology company based in Bergen County. A story in 201 Magazine recounts the history of how the company got started.

For more than a decade, Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation has been making grants to organizations that support its mission of increasing the number of adults obtaining postsecondary credentials.

That’s the typical playbook for private foundations—contribute to other not-for-profits that are trying to make a difference. But over the past year, Lumina has aggressively moved in a more novel direction, funneling more of its $1.2 billion endowment into venture capital. Instead of just handing out grants, it’s taking ownership stakes in for-profit businesses, mainly education-tech startups.

University of Maryland (UM) Ventures announced today that the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has granted worldwide, exclusive licensing rights for a new vaccine technology to Serenta Biotechnology, LLC, a Gaithersburg, MD-based startup. The license is based on technology co-owned by UMB and Northern Arizona University and is the basis for a multivalent vaccine against infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial strain often resistant to antibiotics.

Are you an NIH-funded investigator focused on medical device innovations? NIH recently announced the availability of administrative supplements to parent awards for a number of different activity codes with participation by four ICs (see lists below). Both SBIR/STTR awardees as well as recipients of a number of different research grants are eligible.

Maryland Technology Development Corp. is offering $300,000 to the person or organization that comes up with the best idea for how to support and grow technology companies in the state.

The Concept to Clinic: Commercializing Innovation (C3i) Program is designed to provide NIH-funded medical device innovators with an entrepreneurship training program to include specialized business frameworks and essential tools for successful translation of biomedical technologies from lab (concept) to market (clinic). The curriculum and customized mentoring provided by the program are intended to guide investigators in assessing the commercial viability and potential business opportunity for their innovation.

We are pleased to report that 20/20 placed first place among 21 pre-selected entrepreneurial contestants this month at the U.S. China Innovation & Investment Summit InnoSTARS competition in Houston, Texas: http://www.uschinainnovation.org/innostars/ . As a result, we have won an all-expenses paid trip to China to meet with and pitch to investors in that country as part of the Final Stage of the contest. The contest involved a 7-minute pitch by the CEO of 20/20 followed by Q&A before a panel of judges comprising Chinese and American VCs and business executives.

On April 26, hundreds of people came to East Baltimore for the grand opening of FastForward 1812. The event, billed as a celebration of a new physical space to support innovation, was just as much a celebration of the innovation hub’s promise to impact the future of Johns Hopkins, the city of Baltimore and people around the world by helping bring life-changing technologies to market.

“[This space is] a physical manifestation of our commitment to bringing together the necessary ingredients of innovation,” Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels said during the celebration’s opening remarks.

Last year, Johns Hopkins University and MedImmune announced their collaboration on a unique new initiative, the Johns Hopkins-MedImmune Scholars Program. The program has just selected its first Ph.D. candidates for a curriculum that will prepare them for careers in the biopharma industry.

Inez Lam and Natalia Majewska, both first-year Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. students, will participate in the five-year program, the first-of-its-kind in the United States, to gain a better understanding of the process and challenges of drug discovery and development. Upon completion, they will receive a traditional Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University.

University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher’s efforts to hotwire the region’s fledgling life sciences industry is getting a spark from a new seed capital fund targeted to helping develop new medications.

The Pittsburgh Revolution Fund is soliciting $200 million, which will be made available in the form of investments in drug research teams with the idea of spinning out companies, said Bill Newlin, chairman, Newlin Investment Co., a seed-stage investment firm in Sewickley.

Saluda Medical has raised $40 million in a round led by a GlaxoSmithKline VC fund. The series D gives Saluda the means to take its spinal cord stimulation (SCS) device through a pivotal trial in the U.S. while commercializing it in Europe and its home country, Australia.

Senator Bill Frist, MD, is among the country's most important healthcare leaders. He is a partner at Nashville-based Frist Cressey Ventures, a heart/lung transplant surgeon and a serial entrepreneur. He's also the former US Senate Majority Leader and has had a ring-side seat at the development of Nashville's healthcare startup scene, which is now one of the most mature in the country.

GlaxoSmithKline, once the largest real estate owner in Research Triangle Park, has sold what’s left of its once-sprawling RTP campus and will lease back a small portion of the property where 3,000 employees and contractors work.

The deal, involving 20 buildings, was announced late Friday by Los Angeles-based Parmer Innovation Centers, which purchased the property, and by CBRE, a Los Angeles-based real-estate advisory that represented GSK in the real estate sale. The sale price was not disclosed.

Senseonics is set to raise $41 million to support the anticipated commercialization of implantable continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system Eversense. The fundraising attracted the support of major existing shareholders New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Roche.