AccelerateBaltimore received new funding that will allow a startup in next year’s class to receive additional funding when the company completes the program.

The accelerator, which is run by the Emerging Technology Centers, awards six startups with $25,000 in funding as part of the program. New in 2016, one startup will receive an additional $100,000 in funding.

Join us for the Illumina Accelerator reception at ASHG. Meet and greet company leaders and industry peers to learn about new opportunities for your genomics startup.  

Date:   Tuesday, October 6                                    

Time:   6:45 PM–8:30 PM  

Location:     Illumina Lounge Baltimore Convention Center

DuPont has entered into a license and collaboration agreement with The Johns Hopkins University to commercialize a special garment from Johns Hopkins for the protection of people on the front lines of the Ebola crisis and fatal infectious disease outbreaks in the future. DuPont plans to launch the garment in markets during the first half of 2016.

DuPont has been providing special garments for over 40 years to cater to the safety and protection issues of industrial and healthcare workers. Hence, this alliance will enable the garment to gain faster and wider access to the market. According to the agreement, Johns Hopkins will support DuPont in assessing the sample garments produced by the latter and further help prepare information for users. DuPont, on the other hand, will take care of the commercialization of the garment. Further terms of the agreement were kept under wraps.

Without the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT), Leesburg-based Disrupt6 wouldn’t exist. Just two years ago Disrupt6 co-founder and CEO Joe Klein was a defense contractor with more than 30 years of cybersecurity experience — he battled his first hacker in the 1980s. But Klein had never been able to get his own business off the ground until he was asked last year to pitch his business idea as part of CIT’s MACH37 initiative to promote cybersecurity startups.

Remember Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster who went on to be founding president of Facebook and then the investor who brought Spotify to the U.S.? He’s now putting his considerable wealth into immuno-oncology, and apparently doing it without his usual “disruptive” style.

The normally brash Parker — the one played by Justin Timberlake in “The Social Network” — has, according to FierceBiotech’s Damian Garde, been doing his homework on T cells and is ready to put his money where his mouth once was. “My role is not to be a disrupter but to be a consistent, long-term funder,” Parker said alongside two Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center researchers, discussing the “new face of cancer.”

Switzerland's Roche has moved into pole position in the race to launch the world's first treatment for progressive multiple sclerosis but smaller players are working hard on rival approaches.

While there are a number of treatments for relapsing remitting MS, the most common form of the disease, there are no approved drugs for progressive MS, which is marked by steadily worsening symptoms.

Medtronic, the international medical technology and services company, announced that it has received a grant from the Israeli government to launch a digital medicine incubator in the country. Medtronic will reportedly work together with IBM, Pitango Venture Capital and Rambam Hospital in Haifa to establish an incubator called “HealthO2″ that will help digital health companies to receive funding and access. “HealthO2″ will offer companies between $500,000-800,000 in initial funding to develop their ideas. Medtronics recently invested $2 million in Israeli company DreaMed Diabetes, acquiring the company’s artificial pancreas technology.

Accelerator Corporation, a leading life science investment and management firm, today announced that it has secured an additional $11.7 million in new investment commitments, bringing the final Accelerator IV closing to an oversubscribed $62.8 million. This final closing includes new strategic investments from AbbVie, WuXi PharmaTech, and Watson Fund. These new investors join the previously announced Accelerator IV syndicate, which includes Alexandria Venture Investments, ARCH Venture Partners, Eli Lilly and Company, Harris & Harris Group, Inc., Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., The Partnership Fund for New York City, Pfizer Venture Investments and WRF Capital.

Health-focused restaurants and retailers, as well as technology-centered businesses, will someday be a part of Inova Health System's Center for Personalized Health, officials said this week as they prepare to take possession of the 117-acre former Exxon Mobil campus in Merrifield.

All ideas are on the table as Inova imagines what its new "health-focused" concept should look like, said center CEO Todd Stottlemyer during an exclusive tour of the facility.

Big pharma has a big public perception problem among Americans, according to Gallup poll results released September 14. Of more than 1,000 Americans polled, 43% held an unfavorable view of the industry, compared with just 35% who view pharma favorably. Pharma ranks 23rd of 25 industries for which Gallup solicited opinions; the federal government finished dead last.

Investors, however, hold a more mixed view of traditional drug developers. While shares for most biotechs have zoomed, pharma giants are almost as likely to have seen their total values of all outstanding shares—their “market capitalization”—shrink as grow over the past year. Four of 10 companies appearing on GEN’s List of Top 10 Pharma Firms of 2014 (GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., and Roche) showed smaller market cap totals on this year’s edition of the List compared with last year. Another five companies, however (AbbVie, Bayer, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi) showed year-over-year increases in their market caps, which are computed as shares times current market price.

It was like any other contest where startup founders pitch their ideas to a skeptical audience, except the majority of the people doing the pitching as well as in the audience had either gray or no hair.

Most of the 50-plus people gathered in a conference room at Boston’s Harborside Hotel late last week were seasoned biotech executives and consultants, or people with years of experience trying to develop promising academic discoveries. And the “pitch contest” came at the end of a 27-hour session focused on solving a single, looming question that’s haunted the life sciences for decades: How to make sure that the most promising such discoveries make it into the hands of a company with the knowledge and financing to oversee its development.

Youseph Yazdi was surprised by the number of people who jumped in to help design better protective gear for people helping Ebola victims – everyone from freshmen to robotics experts to a wedding-dress maker.

But he was even more surprised when the solutions the team came up with at the hackathon at Johns Hopkins University attracted the notice of leading producers of protective clothing. A version of the suit they designed will be manufactured by DuPont and available early next year, the university announced Monday.

Readers of the NIH Director’s Blog know how excited I am about the potential of precision medicine for revolutionizing efforts to treat disease and improve human health. So, it stands to reason that I’m delighted by the positive reactions of researchers, health professionals, and the public to a much-anticipated report from the Precision Medicine Initiative Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director. Topping the report’s list of visionary recommendations? Build a national research cohort of 1 million or more Americans over the next three to four years to expand knowledge and practice of precision medicine.

When the president announced PMI during his 2015 State of the Union address, he envisioned a precise new era in medicine in which every patient receives the right treatment at the right time — an era in which health care professionals have the resources at hand to take into account individual differences in genes, environments, and lifestyles that contribute to disease. To achieve this, PMI’s national research cohort would tap into recent advances in science, technology and research participation policies to build the knowledge base needed to develop individualized care for all diseases and conditions.

The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse Accelerator Fund II has closed on $4 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commisison.

The fund could raise as much as $12 million, the filing said.

A Baltimore startup that developed a surgical tool to recycle the blood of a patient suffering from internal bleeding landed a $100,000 investment Monday from AOL co-founder Steve Case, winning a "live pitch" competition among eight Baltimore companies.

Sisu Global Health, founded less than two years ago by three women, was singled out for the potential impact its Hemafuse surgical tool could have in emerging markets of sub-Saharan Africa, said Case, CEO of Washington-based investment firm Revolution LLC.

Switzerland's Roche has moved into pole position in the race to launch the world's first treatment for progressive multiple sclerosis but smaller players are working hard on rival approaches.

While there are a number of treatments for relapsing remitting MS, the most common form of the disease, there are no approved drugs for progressive MS, which is marked by steadily worsening symptoms.

The National Institutes for Health is trying to commercialize its inventions by licensing them out, a new Federal Register notice shows. 

The technology available for licensing includes a mobile app that monitors users' psychological health by asking them questions throughout the day, as well as research that could be useful in the treatment of cancers. 

The use of a patient's or tumor's DNA sequence to diagnose/characterize a disease and select or discover drugs that have the highest likelihood of response with least toxicity is one way of broadly defining Precision Medicine. Although most doctors would agree that medicine is far from precise, President Obama's state of the union address in early 2015 made 'precision medicine' a household phrase drawing public attention to this burgeoning field. Mayo clinic has adopted the phrase individualized medicine in naming its world class center at Rochester, MN. Some even refer to it as genomic medicine but I like 'personalized medicine' (PM) better. Major healthcare organizations in US and around the world are early adopters and are already practicing PM.

Vtesse, Inc. today announced that the first three patients have been screened for inclusion in its pivotal Phase 2b/3 clinical trial with VTS-270 for treatment of Niemann-Pick Type C1 Disease (NPC). This clinical trial follows a Phase 1 study conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

NPC is a progressive, irreversible, chronically debilitating – and ultimately lethal – genetic disease. It is caused by a defect in lipid transportation within the cell, which leads to excessive accumulation of lipids in the brain, liver and spleen. Vtesse has worked extensively with regulators in the United States and Europe with the goal of conducting its pivotal study under one global protocol that will evaluate safety and efficacy of VTS-270 to support approval of the drug by regulatory agencies in both regions.

Three years ago, MIT finance professor Andrew Lo proposed rallying private investors to raise an eye-popping $30 billion to develop cancer drugs. That idea went nowhere.

A California congressman plans to file legislation next week that would create a more modest version of Lo’s plan: A $400 million fund to finance development of drugs for rare diseases — with the federal government acting as a backstop, providing financial guarantees to attract private investment. If it works, Lo said, taxpayers could profit and patients could get access to new treatments.

It's officially election season, which is why I'll be firing up a big, campaign bus and traveling through Charm City on Monday, stopping for crab cakes, talking to business leaders and meeting with politicians and students. Only our campaign is not about asking for votes in Baltimore; instead, it's about encouraging the people of Baltimore to continue rallying around startups and entrepreneurs.

For all the tragic news in recent months — and there is real heartbreak along with festering issues that have to be addressed — there's another chapter being written in the city's dynamic history. It centers around founders who are starting companies, creating jobs and bringing economic opportunity and growth to Baltimore.

BD Life Sciences, a segment of global medical technology company BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) announced Thursday the availability of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared BD MAX™ Enteric Parasite Panel for use on the BD MAX System.

The BD MAX Enteric Parasite Panel is the latest panel in the BD MAX Enteric suite of assays that aid in the diagnosis of infectious gastroenteritis. This panel joins the BD MAX Enteric Bacterial Panel detecting the pathogens that are responsible for up to 95 percent of the bacteria causing gastroenteritis. With the availability of the BD MAX Enteric Parasite Panel, the majority of pathogens causing this disease can be detected with a fully automated, rapid and accurate platform.

Gaithersburg-based biotech MedImmune and a division of 3M unveiled plans Friday to work together on a next-generation cancer immunotherapy drug.

Under the agreement, MedImmune — the biologics research and development arm of U.K. pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) – licensed an agent called MEDI9197 from 3M Drug Delivery Systems. 3M said it developed the molecule as an injectable treatment for head and neck cancer that stimulates the body's immune system to attack and destroy tumors.

If you want to see a city with pride and passion, come to Baltimore on the Friday before a Ravens football game. The entire city is purple, our home team's color. School kids wear purple. Working men and women wear purple. The cupcakes at local bakeries are -- you guessed it -- purple.

A Ravens game might be the occasion, but our pride and passion are bigger than our team. During Orioles games, we sing "Oh" as loud as we can during the national anthem that was penned right here ("Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light"). We put Old Bay (thank you McCormick Spice, a Baltimore company) on everything from crabs to ice cream.

BioFactura proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Jeffrey Hausfeld as the newly elected Chairman of the Board and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Hausfeld, a graduate from Yale University School of Medicine, practiced Otolaryngology and Facial Plastic Surgery in the Washington DC area for more than 23 years until he ventured into the business side of medicine. He obtained an MBA specializing in healthcare from Johns Hopkins University and a degree in Organizational Development from George Washington University. Along with having been highly acclaimed during his surgical career, Dr. Hausfeld has been a successful physician entrepreneur as well. He is the President of Memory Care Communities LLC, a syndicate which builds and operates Assisted Living facilities specifically designed for Alzheimer’s and dementia care patients. He is the Managing Director of FMS Financial Solutions, a full service debt recovery firm in Greenbelt, Maryland focusing on medical and multi-family housing debt collections. Dr. Hausfeld is one of the Founders and the Chairman of the Board of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (http://www.sopenet.org ), a global not for profit network focused on educating healthcare and life science professionals in Bioentrepreneurship and Innovation.

Five Johns Hopkins-affiliated tech startups were selected as finalists for the pitch competition at next week's "Rise of the Rest" tour event, where they will vie for a $100,000 top prize.

The five-city "Rise of the Rest" roadshow, launched by AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case, kicks off in Baltimore on Monday. The tour is designed to bring attention and funding to startups outside of traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley and New York City.

The Baltimore City Health Department has received federal grant funding worth up to $22.8 million over four years that will go toward strengthening the city’s HIV prevention strategy.

Baltimore plans to use the money from the Centers for Disease Control to target outreach and prevention programs to men who have sex with men and transgender individuals, two groups at high risk for HIV infection.

Roche Holding AG's product lineup is so strong that it can grow briskly even if it meets setbacks, the chief executive of the Swiss drugmaker told a newspaper.

"Roche could have six new active pharmaceutical ingredients approved within two years. We never had this before," Severin Schwan told Finanz und Wirtschaft in an interview published on Friday.

On September 11, representatives of Zhongshan City, China, and Montgomery County, Maryland, signed a Memorandum of Understanding launching an economic development relationship between the two jurisdictions.

Through the agreement, the two authorities agree to actively support the other’s “efforts to promote culture, art and education exchanges,” including travel programs for members of their respective communities.

A new Science|Business analysis puts the spotlight on the most innovative clusters in Europe, uncovering what it takes to translate research from bench to bedside and highlighting the crucial need for policy support, innovation pull, and access to finance

The leading life sciences clusters in Europe have a long history of excellence in medical research, and with highly educated workforces, state of the art infrastructure, and well-established technology transfer organisations, are making significant progress in translation and commercialisation, according to a new Science|Business report that takes an in-depth look at 17 of Europe’s most innovative clusters.

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels has been awarded Carnegie Corp. of New York’s 2015 Academic Leadership Award, a prestigious recognition that comes with a $500,000 grant to the Baltimore school.

Daniels will use the $500,000 grant to make the university more accessible to students of Baltimore City public schools. He plans to increase support for low-income students through the Baltimore Scholars program, expand partnerships with local K-8 schools and create new initiatives that will help prepare students for college and careers.

The pictured device, produced by Baltimore-based Harpoon Medical, seeks to provide another in a series of recent improvements in mitral valve repair technology. While perhaps less revolutionary in form than Valtech Cardio’s Cardioband that received its CE Mark approval last week, the Harpoon does promise to cut traditional surgeries down to under an hour in length and drastically reduce the required incision size (to 2-inches or less).

Evidera, a leading provider of evidence-based solutions for the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce Evalytica™, a new software platform designed to support near real-time analyses of virtually any type of real-world data source, including claims, electronic medical records, and registry data. Evalytica™ uses standard data formats and published analytic methods that provide transparency and yield results that may be used in publications or submissions. 

"Evalytica™ marks a new frontier for Evidera as a leader in technology enabled tools for generating and communicating evidence of product safety and effectiveness," said Jon Williams, President and CEO, Evidera. "The increasing focus on real-world evidence for drug safety analysis that has resulted from the FDA Sentinel, the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP), and the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) initiatives make tools like Evalytica™ that much more important." 

Drugmaker AstraZeneca is harnessing the wisdom of crowds to help mix tomorrow's cancer drug cocktails. 

The company said its decision to release preclinical data from more than 50 of its medicines was unprecedented in scale and would help accelerate the hunt for synergistic tumour-fighting drug combinations. 

CASI Pharmaceuticals to Raise $25.1 Million in Private Placement of Common Stock and Warrants ROCKVILLE, Md., Sept. 21, 2015 - CASI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (the “Company”) (Nasdaq: CASI), a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative therapeutics addressing cancer and other unmet medical needs for the global market with a commercial focus on China, announced today that it has entered into definitive agreements for a $25.1 million financing led by a China investment fund manager affiliated with the same management team of our current largest shareholder, IDG-Accel China Growth Fund III, L.P.