APPLICATIONS FOR SPRING 2016 DUE March 1, 2016

At Illumina, we’re committed to unlocking the power of the genome, but we know we can’t do it alone. The Illumina Accelerator is our way of accelerating innovation in the entrepreneurial community. With extensive mentorship, financial support, and access to sequencing systems, reagents, and lab space, we’ve created a dynamic genomic ecosystem to help startups launch. Together we’ll advance the solutions that will transform medicine and improve human health.

Michael Milken, one of the biggest medical philanthropists in the country, on medical research today.

Before the winter edition of HopHacks kicked off, a big crowd turned out at Johns Hopkins to hear about nurturing startups at scale from a pair of Y Combinator staffers.

The big takeaway of this YC Winter Tour for startups is pretty straightforward: applications for the biannual seed accelerator program are open. The Mountain View, Calif.-based accelerator program runs two batches each year. It provides $120,000 to each startup in exchange for 7 percent equity.

For the past five years until January, a team of federal contractors has been poring over academic journals, news reports and press releases in search of emerging technology that could change the outcome of clinical care.

The team's goal was to write reports containing lists of topics worth further research from the Department of Health and Human Services. The assessment team surfaced medical products and techniques such as “wearable artificial kidney for managing end-stage renal disease” or “joint-sparing knee implant[s] for treatment of knee osteoarthritis,” according to the team's report from last year.

In the blink of an eye, a business world that required only antivirus protection now requires far better solutions to combat sophisticated, determined ‘bad actors’ who want to steal your valuable information. You can’t pick up a newspaper or watch a news program and not read or hear about an important breach. Despite spending at a rate of $100 billion annually, global damages from cybersecurity breaches and attacks are on a trajectory to increase from $500 billion to potentially more than $2 trillion per year.

US President Barack Obama’s plan to get a vast Pacific Rim trade deal through Congress this year is taking flak from the presidential campaign trail, where disdain for the pact appears to be one of the rare unifying themes for almost everyone from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton.

Baltimore health IT startup Protenus Inc. has raised $2.6 million of a $4 million equity funding round, according to documents filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

CosmosID, the leading genomic big data company focused on microbiome research, outbreak investigations, and infectious disease diagnostics, using next-generation DNA sequencing, announced $6M in Series B funding. The company will expand its engineering capabilities, enhance clinical applications, undertake research and development to improve linkage of the DNA genetic code to actual biological traits (genotype to phenotype), such as antibiotic resistance, and develop new products directed at monitoring, predicting, and preventing disease outbreaks.

A Virginia House panel on Wednesday advanced bills that would allocate about $40 million for grants that some of the state’s most powerful business, education and government interests are touting as a boon to regional economic growth.

Dictionary.com defines “outlier” as: (1) something that lies outside the main body or group that it is a part of, (2) someone who stands apart from others of his or her group, as by differing behavior, beliefs, or religious practices (Synonyms: nonconformist, maverick, original), (3) Statistics: (a) an observation that is well outside of the expected range of values in a study or experiment, (b) a person whose abilities, achievements, etc., lie outside the range of statistical probability.

Merck has expanded its digital health accelerator programme, opening it up in the first country outside its home territory of Germany. The company has picked Kenya for the new programme, which will run for three months and see it look for three digital health startups to support with equity-free funding of $15,000.

The complex nature of cancer and its manifestation strikes fear in the heart of many who receive the diagnosis. Scientists are making incredible strides, however, in both the development of diagnostic techniques and treatments. International Innovation’s Stephanie Spurr speaks with Professor of Cell and Gene Therapy at UCL, Waseem Qasim, and explores how gene editing is contributing to far greater success in this field.

GlaxoSmithKline has expanded its alliance with Adaptimmune Therapeutics to accelerate its lead clinical cancer programme toward pivotal trials in synovial sarcoma.   The companies signed a strategic collaboration and licensing agreement in June last year for up to five programs, including the lead programme, an affinity enhanced T-cell immunotherapy (GSK3377794) targeting NY-ESO-1, one of the best-characterised and most immunogenic cancer antigens frequently expressed by tumours. GSK can license the programme if it chooses to.

Mission Therapeutics said Tuesday it raised a 60 million pound ($85.8 million) financing round led by Imperial Innovations Businesses LLP. New investor Woodford Patient Capital Trust Plc took part with follow-on investment from existing shareholders Sofinnova Partners, SR One, Roche Venture Fund and Pfizer Venture Investments. U.K.-based Mission Therapeutics is a drug discovery and development company.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Spero Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company targeting drug resistant bacterial infections, raised $30 million in Series B preferred financing, matching the $30 million Series A round Spero raised in June. Existing Series A investors Atlas Venture, SR One, MRL Ventures, Lundbeckfond Ventures, The Kraft Group and Partners Innovation Fund all returned to participated.

The Hercules Pinkney Life Sciences Park has been renamed to Pinkney Innovation Complex for Science and Technology at Montgomery College (PIC MC). The new name reflects the Center's mission of fostering a more innovative workforce.

The Montgomery College Board of Trustees approved the new name which is relevant to today's economic environment and to the business sectors who partner with the academic programs represented at the park.

DATE: Wednesday, February 10, 2016

LOCATION: Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, 111 Rockville Pike, Suite 800, Rockville, MD 20850

Southern Maryland's Energetics Technology Center (ETC-MD) announces it is opening Montgomery County's newest technology business incubator as part of the ETC-MD TechFire incubator network at the former National Labor College located at 10000 New Hampshire Avenue.  This incubator is sponsored by the Army Research Labs and is purposed to serve companies interested in commercializing ARL developed technologies although other technology companies will be considered as well.  Find out how you can work successfully with the Army Research Lab at this informative session.  

The World Medical Innovation Forum is shaping up as a fantastic showcase of cancer innovation, breakthrough science and thought leadership from across the oncology community. I encourage you to join me at this unrivaled gathering. For a full list of all of the speakers, visit the website at: worldmedicalinnovation.org/speakers

Alexandria LaunchLabs™ has opened its doors to local, cutting-edge life science startups at 708 Quince Orchard Road in Gaithersburg, MD.

Alexandria LaunchLabs was created by a consortium of world-class partners to fill a specific unmet need in the market for early-stage life science companies. The consortium, which includes Alexandria Venture Investments (the strategic venture capital arm of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.), BioHealth Innovation, Montgomery County, and the City of Gaithersburg, recognized that in addition to providing early-stage life science companies with specialized state-of-the-art lab and office space, access to first- class supporting resources, services, and capital, is critical for innovation and growth. As such, consortium members will extend their respective networks to Alexandria LaunchLabs’ tenants, while BioHealth Innovation will provide access to its Startup and Entrepreneur-in-Residence programs. Additionally, co-location will provide a collaborative ecosystem in which tenants will be able to further assist one another in identifying resources and sharing best practices. The creative startup environment fostered at Alexandria LaunchLabs will dramatically accelerate the growth of local early-stage life science companies.

Since the World Health Organization started raising alarms about the mosquito-born Zika virus spreading throughout the Americas, deep-pocketed pharmaceutical companies have been racing to find a vaccine.

But a seven-person biotech company based in Rockville, Md., is trying something different.

Available lab space in Montgomery County's I-270 corridor has dropped to levels not seen since before the Great Recession struck in 2008, according to the latest update from Rockville-based commercial real estate group Scheer Partners.

That's after a remarkably active year for biotechs in 2015, said Matt Brady, a Scheer vice president who specializes in office, research and development, and industrial leasing. "People grabbed up a lot of space in a really short amount of time. That's the story here," Brady said.

The president and executive director of Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) has resigned and the agency’s chief operating officer has been promoted to president. TEDCO announced Thursday that Robert Rosenbaum, who has served as the quasi-government agency’s leader for the past five years, would step down effective immediately to “pursue other interests.”

While fourth-quarter venture capital funding slid in most industries amid fears of an economic slowdown, biotechnology investment sprinted ahead. The question is how long the run can last.

Total U.S. venture funding reached $72.30 billion in 2015, its highest level since 2000, despite fourth-quarter investment declines in consumer services, information technology, and other markets, according to industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource.

Partners HealthCare is expanding its Innovation Fund from $35 million to $100 million, the Massachusetts health system announced today at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.

The fund, which was launched as an experiment in 2007 with funding from Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, provides startup capital to early stage life sciences companies. To date, it has funded 25 companies. This second fund, at $100 million, is geared in particular towards therapeutics startups – with aims to provide early seed investments.

Texas Medical Center added a second class of startups to its accelerator program and acknowledged that it has tweaked its approach.Although the second group will focus on digital health, the next cohort starting in July will be devoted to medical device innovation.

ImmunoCellular (NYSEMKT:IMUC), a clinical-stage biotechnology company, has entered into a research collaboration agreement with the University of Maryland, Baltimore, focusing on immunotherapies for cancer. The company said the agreement includes three projects, which together have the potential to improve the efficacy of dendritic cell, T-cell, and combination immunotherapies for cancer and lead to enhancements to both of ImmunoCellular’s dendritic cell and Stem-to-T-cell platforms. IMUC fell to $0.24 at closing on Tuesday, at the bottom of 52-week range $0.21 – $0.73.

For more evidence that tech is moving into the mainstream economic conversation for Baltimore, look no further than the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore’s annual report. The 2015 edition was published earlier this month.

Tarveda Therapeutics, Inc., formerly Blend Therapeutics, today announced that it has secured $38 million in Series C financing co-led by new investor Novo A/S and existing investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA). The company also announced the change of its corporate brand to clearly highlight the company’s differentiated approach to treating cancer.

The 2016 Nominating Committee is pleased to announce the opening of the nomination period for FLC positions!

This year the FLC will elect five national positions: Finance Officer, Recording Secretary, and three Members-at-Large; as well as Regional Coordinators and Deputy Regional Coordinators for the Midwest, Far West, and Mid-Atlantic regions.

If you are a Consortium Representative or Consortium Participant, you are welcomed and encouraged to nominate yourself or someone else. The nomination period will run from Wednesday, January 27 through Friday, February 26, 2016.

Hospitals and health systems are clinging tenaciously to the belief that their economic survival depends on their embracing continuous quality improvement and Lean methods. After all, in a time of ratcheted-down reimbursement, the need for a little belt-tightening and quality improvement seems obvious.

The 100 Rising Stars in this, the inaugural Global Corporate Venturing awards, represent the top 1% of the industry.

Global Corporate Venturing (GCV) selected these stars as representing the brightest prospects, and those who have already been changing the industry. The selection process involved researching more than 10,000 industry professionals across more than 1,000 corporate venturing units to identify these stars. GCV was looking for those below the top rank of the venturing hierarchy in long-established units, based on their deals, career development so far, being an heir apparent and being the glue in the unit.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016 - National Press Club 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor  Washington, D.C.

Kauffman Foundation President and CEO, Wendy Guillies, will present the 2016 State of Entrepreneurship Address highlighting an actionable policy agenda for renewing economic growth. “America’s New Entrepreneurial Growth Agenda” will present recommendations culled from some of the nation’s foremost thinkers on how to foster dynamism, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity.

 Following the address, a panel of contributors will present recommendations from “America’s New Entrepreneurial Growth Agenda,” and policy leaders will share their own insights.

The UM BioPark-based PathSensors, Inc. has been awarded a new firm fixed price contract through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the design and development of a CANARY® detection system for biosecurity.  The focus of phase I of this research contract will be on the development of biosensors for Abrin and Ebola.  The research supported by this contract will further enhance the robustness of the CANARY® technology opening up a broad range of deployment opportunities for quick and accurate detection of harmful pathogens. 

Dubbed the Apollo Therapeutics, the new fund will see the three pharma companies work with Imperial College London, University College London and the University of Cambridge. Together they aim to "significantly improving the speed and potential of university research being translated into novel medicines".

Leidos Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LDOS) CEO Roger Krone describes his company’s new agreement to combine with Lockheed Martin Corp.’s (NYSE: LMT) Information Systems & Global Solutions business as a landmark moment for the government services space. "I am convinced that this transaction is the kind of event that is often sought after but rarely found,” Krone said in a conference call Tuesday after the $5 billion deal was announced.