Vtesse, Inc. announced today that the dose-finding portion of the company’s global, pivotal Phase 2b/3 clinical trial for its lead investigational product, VTS-270, for treatment of Niemann-Pick Type C1 Disease (NPC) is now complete, and a dose level for further testing has been selected by an independent dose selection committee (DSC). Vtesse’s ongoing Phase 2b/3 prospective, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial is a three-part, efficacy and safety trial of VTS-270, administered by the lumbar intrathecal (IT) route every two weeks. VTS-270 is based on a specific, well-characterized composition of 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin.  

OrbiMed has launched a $307 million venture capital fund five years after its inagural $202 million fund investing in biotech, diagnostic and medical device and digital health companies.

IBM is partnering with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to create the Accelerated Cognitive Cybersecurity Laboratory (ACCL), which will be housed within the College of Engineering and Information Technology at UMBC. The Lab will use Watson technology to improve cybersecurity.

The Washington region is poised to dominate a new billions-dollar industry.

Extending their partnership to an eighth company, La Jolla's Avalon Ventures and UK-based drug giant GSK said Friday they have formed another San Diego biotech startup.

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels was among the speakers Thursday at the fifth annual U.S. News & World Report STEM Solutions National Leadership Conference in Baltimore.

The three-day conference brought together leaders from academia, business, and government to contribute key insights into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—or STEM—education. The summit focused on solutions and best practices to ensure that the nation's future workforce has the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in a global economy.

Roche Venture Fund and 5AM Ventures have led Purigen Biosystems to an $18.2 million Series A round. Purigen will use the money to advance the development and commercialization of a benchtop system for extracting, quantifying and enriching of samples for genomic testing.

TEDCO handed out its annual honors for “Innovation,” “Corporate Excellence” and “Entrepreneurship” on Tuesday. The ICE Awards ceremony at Columbus Center in Inner Harbor marked a move into Baltimore city after last year’s event in Columbia.

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced the extension of the offer period for the acquisition of Exiqon A/S, a world leader in RNA technology. On 18 April 2016, QIAGEN had published a conditional, voluntary public tender offer for the shares in Exiqon, in which the shareholders of Exiqon were offered a cash amount of DKK 18 for each share they held in Exiqon. In accordance with the Offer, the Offer Period expired yesterday on 18 May 2016 at 23.59 (CET).

Roche Holding (RHHBY - Analyst Report) announced that the FDA has granted accelerated approval to its cancer immunotherapy drug, Tecentriq (atezolizumab), for the treatment of patients suffering from locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC), who experienced disease progression during or after platinum-based chemotherapy, or whose disease has worsened within 12 months of receiving platinum-based chemotherapy before or after surgery.

Decades of research have linked specific personality traits to a longer life expectancy. Some of them — from friendliness to emotional stability — may be written into our genes.

And while one study found that we're not particularly good at identifying these traits in ourselves, it suggested that our close friends are often spot-on.

What 4000+ corporate directors think about the economy, risk, board strengths and weaknesses, and boardroom diversity

“Boards cannot afford to have directors around the table who aren’t delivering value,” says a new report based on the 2016 Global Board of Directors Survey, released from Professor Boris Groysberg and Yo-Jud Cheng of Harvard Business School, Spencer Stuart, the WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Foundation, and researcher Deborah Bell. With greater institutional and activist shareholder activity and stronger concerns about risk and global competitive threats, boards are taking on “a more strategic, dynamic, and responsive role” in their companies, the report states – pushing “issues around board composition and diversity to the fore.”  

Kevin Plank encourages University of Maryland graduates to let "passion" fuel their dreams Kevin Plank remembers sitting in his cap and gown at the University of Maryland, College Park commencement ceremony in 1996 as Hillary Clinton spoke to his graduating class. He also remembers that he was fidgeting in his seat and only half-listening.

The National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics a "Center of Excellence" grant to study the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of applying genomics to research on, and the prevention and treatment of, infectious disease. This builds on three years of work of an exploratory Center of Excellence in ELSI Research (CEER) at the Berman Institute, the first such project to focus attention on genomic ELSI issues in the context of infectious disease.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) today announced approval of the VENTANA PD-L1 (SP142) Assay1 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a complementary diagnostic to provide PD-L1 status on patients who are considering treatment with the FDA approved Roche immunotherapy TECENTRIQ™ (atezolizumab) for metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC). This test is the first to evaluate patient PD-L1 status using immune cell staining and scoring within the tumor microenvironment, providing clinicians with information that may guide immunotherapy decisions2.

It will be obvious when the Department of Health and Human Services’ IDEA Lab is a success, because it will no longer be needed, according to Damon Davis, the director of the department's Health Data Initiative.

Whatever Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) learned about MacroGenics’ off-the-shelf approach to stirring a T cell attack against cancer since inking their first partnership deal 17 months ago seems to have only whetted the pharma giant’s appetite for more. 

Novartis is splitting its pharmaceuticals division into two business units, one focused on cancer and the second on other drugs, while switching out its current pharma head in the second high-profile management reshuffle this year.

Dr. J. Thomas August, who has spent the last 40 years at Johns Hopkins and decades developing a way for people to fight off viruses, has turned his attention to developing a Zika virus vaccine. He is relying upon one of his own discoveries - a means of delivering cells injected with the DNA code of the virus to a person's own immune system to fight off infection. "Others talk about 10 years to invent and develop a new vaccine,” said August, “We're going to do this in about a year."  August is bankrolling his new Baltimore-based company called Pharos Biologicals with his own money and has enlisted CEO David Wise to help raise as much as $5 million to conduct the initial trials.

The TMCx accelerator program couples the resources of Texas Medical Center with the innovative horsepower of entrepreneurs working in the areas of medical technology and digital health. Throughout the program, startups engage with TMC physicians and other hospital stakeholders to refine their value proposition and determine their product/market fit.

Neuralstem, Inc. (Nasdaq: CUR), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of central nervous system therapies based on its neural stem cell technology, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell 2,700,000 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase 2,700,000 shares of common stock in a private placement. The securities are being sold in a private offering at a price of $0.40 per one share of common stock and one common stock purchase warrant. The warrants have an exercise price of $0.40 per share, are immediately exercisable and expire on the fifth anniversary of the date of issuance. The shares of common stock and warrants are immediately separable and will be issued separately.

Researchers at the University of Maryland were able pull away color and chemicals from a block of wood to leave it impressively see-through. The result is a material that is both stronger and more insulating than glass, with better biodegradability than plastic. "We were very surprised by how transparent it could go," said Liangbing Hu, who wrote about the project in Advanced Materials.

At the North Bethesda Marriott, Maryland's leading technology and life science companies gathered to celebrate recent successes from the most innovative teams in the state on Thursday night's industry celebration.

Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi (NYSE: SNY), announced today a research collaboration with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine that will focus on novel strategies aimed at advancing the understanding of underlying causes of disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS). The collaboration, under guidance by a joint committee of representatives from Sanofi Genzyme and the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center, will leverage certain technologies and methodologies designed to inform new therapeutic approaches to treating disease progression.

Satellite campuses are increasingly popular for public institutions hoping to expand their reach and increase access to students throughout the state, but the Post reports Maryland’s configuration of combining nine satellite programs onto one campus is unique.

The 2030 Group has hired a consultant to create a campaign to rebrand Greater Washington and expects to launch that campaign early next year. The fear is that the region all too often loses its best and brightest to places such as Silicon Valley and lags when it comes to diversifying its economy away from a dependence on the federal government to a more entrepreneurial one centered on innovation.

The state venture capital fund led an add-on investment for Columbia's Healthcare Interactive and is the kind of deal the fund wants to do more of in the future.

It’s abundantly clear that microörganisms play an essential role in maintaining the health of humans, animals, and plants. But how exactly they pull this off is still mostly a mystery—one that the White House hopes to help solve by way of a new microbiome research initiative.

Funding and Research Opportunities
The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:

Notices:

• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Research Program (U01)
• (NOT-RM-16-014)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human  Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Collaborative Centers (U54)
• (NOT-RM-16-015)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Research Grants (U01)
• (NOT-RM-16-016)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Collaborative Centers (U54)
• (NOT-RM-16-017)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Administrative Coordinating Center (U24)
• (NOT-RM-16-018)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Informatics Network (U24)
• (NOT-RM-16-019)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• BD2K Predoctoral Training in Biomedical Big Data Science (T32) 
• (RFA-LM-16-002)
• National Library of Medicine, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Cancer Institute, National Eye Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01)
• (PAR-16-238) 
• National Cancer Institute, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Due to California’s penchant for legislating at the ballot box, the state has reigned as the top destination for industry campaign spending since even before the Supreme Court widened the door to corporate political donations with its 2010 Citizens United decision. 

Europe already has many of the ingredients for successful biotech and pharma activity—top-tier academic research, a commitment to public research funding, a heritage of pharmaceutical giants stretching back to 1668 (when Merck was founded in Darmstadt, Germany), and a growing number of biotechs nurtured by regional biotech clusters (especially in Germany and France).

This week at Health Datapalooza, a group of medtech and pharma companies traded insights on the strategic partnerships they built with technology companies and what they learned in the process. But they also touched on how they collaborate with startups.

Johns Hopkins University took over the No. 1 spot on this week's List of patents in Maryland. The private research institution obtained 133 patents in 2015, achieving a total of 454 patents in the last five years.

It would be easy to mistake the Universities at Shady Grove as a flagship public school, with its red-brick buildings and its state-of-the-art labs, library and fitness center.

Stafford County leaders voted to infuse $500,000 into the county’s Tech and Research Park.

The money from the county’s Economic Opportunity Fund will be used to launch a co-working space and business incubator at the Quantico Corporate Center site in North Stafford. Incubators attract start-up companies and entrepreneurs looking for temporary office and meeting space to grow their firms.