Heading up the Johns Hopkins Medicine Technology Innovation Center, Gorkem Sevinc, MSE, CIIP, focuses the bulk of his attention on partnering with clinical and research personnel within Hopkins Medicine to collaboratively build innovative Health IT tools. Software development, IT infrastructure, workflow and collaboration tools are all part of his purview.

Sevinc started the informatics research laboratory in the Department of Radiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine along with his director and chair-elect of SIIM, Paul Nagy, PhD. They grew it to serve all of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Health IT needs, but the department of radiology continues to be the lab’s anchor.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has hired Jason Hardebeck to work on internet access issues for the city.

Hardebeck will serve as “Broadband Coordinator” for the city. He recently left his role as director of DreamIt Health Baltimore. The mayor made the announcement at a weekly media availability at City Hall.

When Japanese doctors Ryuji Ueno and Sachiko Kuno came to Bethesda two decades ago, they already had a drug company back home. They founded what would become Sucampo entirely with their own capital in 1996 to see if they could sell treatments to a much larger American market.

Two decades later Sucampo is under new leadership, and is buying out its Japanese predecessor R-Tech Ueno for $278 million in cash and stock.

A blood test that could quickly detect a brain injury and measure the damage it has done could help doctors provide better care for the millions of people suffering from such injuries, potentially improving their chances of avoiding long-term disabilities.

The trick is identifying proteins that appear in the blood in elevated amounts only after a brain injury and then developing tests that can both detect those markers and determine medically relevant information from them. Two companies, Quanterix and Banyan Biomarkers, have identified promising biomarkers and are devising and evaluating diagnostic tests.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015 2:00 pm

Patents help define the scope of your invention. In this two-part webinar, we shall provide a simple overview of the patent litigation process in the U.S., some options to defend against a patent infringement lawsuit brought against you, and how to protect your patent rights from being infringed by others.

In the future, Baltimore will basically be part of Washington, D.C.

So says Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Capitals and Wizards, who predicts in a blog post that Baltimore will be the northern edge of a D.C. supercity. Leonsis writes: "By 2050 - DC will be like London, it will take up about 100 miles end to end, we will think of it as a area that goes from Middleburg to well north of Baltimore on 95."

The Daily Record's Innovator of the Year recognizes individuals and companies that have created a product, service or program that has had a positive effect on their business, industry or community.

Innovators make the extraordinary ordinary. They make the impossible possible. In many ways, they turn dreams into realities. We congratulate this year's winners! Event:

Thursday, October 15, 2015 The Center Club 100 Light St. #16, Baltimore, MD 21202

The transformations in healthcare have gotten the attention of many healthcare investors, including private equity firm NaviMed Capital. It closed a $110 million healthcare fund last month. I recently spoke with Managing Director Bijan Salehizadeh about its investment priorities and how he regards the digital health sector.

The firm’s mandate is to do small buyout deals of profitable companies in healthcare.

The Cordish Companies proudly announce Baltimore's newest collaborative workspace for creators and innovators: Spark. Spark, designed by Baltimore based Verve Design, will be ideally located in the central business district at The Offices at Power Plant Live!. Baltimore's tech community is thriving, creating a need for non-traditional, businesses to work collaboratively under the same roof. Spark will be uniquely set-up to help businesses connect with different industry professionals, from education to health IT to finance.

An increasing number of venture capital investors are sounding the alarm on what the current public markets downturn could mean for private valuations. One recent warning came from Jeremy Levine of Bessemer Venture Partners:

Maryland Venture Fund and The Abell Foundation Top Investors in Round of Financing

Perceptive Navigation, LLC, a privately-held, Maryland-based medical device company developing solutions for the rapidly growing image- guided market, today announced the closing of its $500,000 seed round of financing, led by the Maryland Venture Fund (MVF) and The Abell Foundation. The proceeds will accelerate the development of Vu-Path, Perceptive Navigation's ultrasound probe for minimally invasive interventional procedures, as well as enable its regulatory submission to the FDA.

Perceptive Navigation also announced the appointment of Todd Chappell as Chief Executive Officer. Chappell comes to Perceptive Navigation with fifteen years of experience working withearly-stage, venture-backed biotechnology companies. Most recently, he managed a portfolio of start-up pharmaceutical and medical device companies at BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant life science innovations, as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Perceptive was incubated at BHI under the leadership of Chappell prior to his appointment as Chief Executive Officer.

September 8th, Cattail Creek Country Club, Glenwood, MD

Biotech execs play for free in the tournament that will benefit The Little Things for Cancer & the Zaching Against Cancer Foundation organizations.

Welcome to the 2015 Biotech Invitational, a DogDenGolf managed event that is being supported by top executives at Medimmune, other Biotechnology companies and Vendors in the region. This year's event will be held on September 8, 2015, at Cattail Creek Country Club in Glenwood, MD and will determine the Biotech Executive Golfers of the Year.  

Proceeds from this event will benefit The Little Things for Cancer, a local non-profit providing support and services to cancer patients, and their caregivers. For detailed information on the programs and services that The Little Things provides, visit their website at www.tlt4c.org.

Cloud-based data company Inovalon Holdings will acquire D.C. health research and advisory firm Avalere Health in a deal worth $140 million, the companies announced Monday.

The move will enable Bowie-based Inovalon (Nasdaq: INOV) to expand into the pharmaceutical market and fuel growth in the use of big data analytics at life sciences companies, officials said. The deal is expected to close Sept. 1.

We are looking for the Most Rockin' Business in the City!

Is it yours?

The 2nd Annual "Rockin' in Rockville" Award is set to be handed out at this year's REDI Resource Meetup (R2M) event in September.

This award, created to highlight the success, community engagement, and innovative practices of a Rockville-based company, is given out during Maryland Economic Development Week.

Durham venture capital fund Hatteras Venture Partners plans to announce Monday that it has raised more than $90 million for its fifth investment fund, giving it roughly 60 percent of its $150 million goal.

“We’re humbled and gratified that people would continue to have this level of confidence in us,” said Clay Thorp, co-founder and general partner.

Bayer HealthCare has launched its own digital health accelerator program in Berlin, Germany called “Grants4Apps,” selecting five digital health startups from around the globe that will advance their business ideas and technology in areas such as hormone tests, patient adherence, breathing patterns, clinical trials and vitamin deficiency. The selected five digital health startups will receive financial support of up to 50,000 Euro and will work out of the company’s pharmaceutical division in Berlin. Over the next four months, the startups will work with Bayer executives and seasoned entrepreneurs 

The world's first malaria vaccine got a green light on Friday from European drugs regulators who recommended it should be licensed for use in babies in Africa at risk of the mosquito-borne disease.

The shot, called RTS,S or Mosquirix and developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, would be the first licensed human vaccine against a parasitic disease and could help prevent millions of cases of malaria in countries that use it.

“The startup scene is starving for seed-stage investment right now.”

If you've ever spent time around a startup hub then you've probably heard some version of this comment before. Whether it's currently the case in the D.C. area may be a fair question, and one that we've put to venture capitalists from some of the region's most prominent firms—Revolution, New Atlantic Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.

Novartis has agreed to buy all remaining rights to Ofatumumab from Britain's GlaxoSmithKline for up to $1 billion, boosting the Swiss drugmaker's stable of multiple sclerosis (MS) treatments.

Basel-based Novartis had previously acquired the rights to Ofatumumab for oncology indications, but it is currently being developed for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis and other auto-immune conditions.

October 27 – 29, 2015 (Seattle, WA)

The 17th Annual NIH SBIR/STTR Conference will be held in Seattle, Washington on October 27 – 29, 2015. Early-bird registration rate of $350 is available until August 20, 2015. Let us know if you’re planning to attend so we can connect with you directly!

The WIB-DC/Baltimore Mentors, Advisors, and Peers (MAPs) Committee is thrilled to announce the initiation of our 1:1 Mentoring Program. This program is designed to match mentees in the early stages of their careers to mentors who can help guide them based on different areas of interest. We are looking for volunteers interested in being part of this new program.

Most consumers are familiar with the idea of probiotics — particularly when it comes to gastrointestinal health. But could they actually benefit HIV and AIDS patients?

That's a question being examined in a medical probiotic product created by Gaithersburg startup ExeGi Pharma LLC. That product, Visbiome, is planned for launch this fall and was originally designed to help the treatment of patients with ailments such as ulcerative colitis or irritable bowel syndrome.

Startup Maryland and LAUNCH! Annapolis today announced a teaming relationship under which both organizations present the 2015 Maryland Open Bloody-Mary and Crab-Soup Competitions. Contested over two rounds, the Maryland Open will be held during the Pitch Across Maryland tour and celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Round One begins on Saturday, September 12 during a tailgate at the University of Maryland. Round One continues the following week Saturday, September 19 during a tailgate at the United States Naval Academy. The Final Round will be announced during the Pitch Across Maryland tour.

BrainScope Company, Inc., a privately held neurotechnology company with an initial focus on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and concussion assessment, is feeling a lot of positive momentum these days as it recently announced an additional $500,000 funding from GE and the NFL, and a host of new appointments intended to move the company forward.

In July, the company announced that it had received an additional $500,000 award from GE and the National Football League (NFL) to further enhance its portable concussion assessment system, as one of six final winners of the GE NFL Head Health Challenge I. In February 2014, Brainscope was selected as one of the initial 16 recipients from more than 400 entries from 27 countries of the up to $10 million Challenge, which was created by GE and the NFL to award entrants for proposals focusing on “identifying breakthrough technologies and approaches that will improve the diagnosis and prognosis of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI).”

United Therapeutics (Nasdaq: UTHR) is selling a voucher designed to speed up approval for rare pediatric disease treatments to Chicago-based pharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc. for a record $350 million.

The Wall Street Journal reports the Silver Spring-based biotechnology company landed the voucher when it received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for Unituxin, its drug designed to treat neuroblastoma.

Sara Nayeem will participate in the Biotechnology Industry Organization webinar entitled, "Capturing Investor Interest in a Hot Biotech Climate," on Tuesday, August 18th at 1PM EST. The panel will explore the strong biotech market and answer questions from start-ups seeking funding in their venture.  

The biotech market is stronger than ever with more than $5B invested in 2015 so far. With the influx of capital flowing in the biotech pools, the panel will advise startups on what to look for when interviewing investment firms, what due diligence is needed to find appropriate investment partners, and what steps a company should take to ensure that the partnership runs smoothly. 

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a major consumer technology developer and Internet services giant which is involved in an incredibly diverse array of innovative tech fields. The company is best known for its Internet search engine, which processes an average of about 40,000 search queries every second, but in our Companies We Follow series  we’ve seen them develop everything from robots with humanoid personalities to medical emergency response drones. We’ve covered Google acquisitions that have pulled the company into the sphere of digital wallet tech as well as patenting activities in the field of autonomous vehicles. It’s clear that the tentacles of the corporate octopus that is Google stretch wide and far away from each other.

Applications for consideration in Relevant Health's first cohort must be submitted by this Friday, August 21st at 11:59pm Eastern Time.

Complete or submit your application here.

Relevant Health will begin reviewing applications submitted through F6S next week.

Here is the review process schedule:

• Friday, August 21: Application deadline
• August 24 - August 27: Application review by Relevant Health team
• August 28: Semi-finalists notified via message through F6S. Notification will include instructions on scheduling an interview
• August 31 - September 3: Semi-finalist interviews
• Finalists will be notified of their acceptance by September 18

In the May 15, 2014, edition of the journal Nature, Floyd Romesberg’s chemistry lab at San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute published a paper titled “A Semi-Synthetic Organism with an Expanded Genetic Alphabet.” Romesberg and his colleagues had created a bacterium incorporating chemical building blocks that, as far as anybody knows, have never been part of any earthly life form.

There had been previous claims to “creating life.” Genome pioneer Craig Venter led a team that manufactured a genome for a germ that causes pneumonia in cows, but their effort used the familiar chemical bases of DNA, known by the letters A, G, C, and T. Romesberg’s group, on the other hand, added two additional letters, dubbed X and Y. When the bacteria successfully replicated X and Y in succeeding generations, Romesberg’s lab could claim to have made the first living thing with an expanded genetic code.

The company is just so much better known its medical countermeasures against biological threats like anthrax than for its cancer work, and that's a problem.

We’ve been covering news of the GlucoTrack non-invasive glucometer for almost a decade now, and finally Integrity Applications, the company behind the device, is moving toward clinical trials potential regulatory approval in the U.S. The Israeli firm already received the CE mark in Europe for the GlucoTrack model DF-F two years ago, and the same device is in the pre-submission documents filed with the FDA.

The GlucoTrack uses an ear lobe clip-on similar to pulse oximeters to spot glucose levels through the skin. The sensor uses three different technologies to estimate blood glucose and sends its readings to a smartphone-like device that displays the numbers and keeps track of previous tests.

With the financial aid of a biotechnology executive whose daughter may need a lung transplant, U.S. researchers have been shattering records in xenotransplantation, or between-species organ transplants.

The researchers say they have kept a pig heart alive in a baboon for 945 days and also reported the longest-ever kidney swap between these species, lasting 136 days. The experiments used organs from pigs “humanized” with the addition of as many as five human genes, a strategy designed to stop organ rejection.

Betamore and Plank Industries, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s private investment arm, are teaming up to showcase Baltimore startups in a new entrepreneurship event.

The Oct. 1 event, called Beta City, is intended to highlight promising Baltimore startups, connect entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and showcase Baltimore as an emerging startup hub. The day will include a pitch session, a VIP event at Plank Industries’ new innovation center and networking opportunities.

Mere months after a major venture capital fundraise, Rockville-based biotech RegenxBio Inc. says it's ready to go public. UPCOMING EVENTS AUGUST 18, 2015 , 11:45AM Washington Business Journal: Lead Generation Seminar

In an initial regulatory filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it would trade on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol RGNX. It has yet to say how much it plans to raise and set either a price for the stock or date for the initial public offering. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (NYSE: MS), BofA Merrill Lynch, Piper Jaffray and Chardan Capital Markets LLC will manage the IPO.

WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc. ("WuXi" or the "Company") (NYSE: WX), a leading open-access R&D capability and technology platform company serving the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries with operations in China and the United States, today announced that it has entered into a definitive Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Merger Agreement") with New WuXi Life Science Limited ("Parent") and WuXi Merger Limited ("Merger Sub"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent.