Biohealth Innovation
Unlock your molecule’s potential with the help of EMD Millipore’s Emerging Biotech Grant Program
At EMD Millipore, it’s our goal to help advance lifesaving drugs to market. We understand the challenges that emerging biotech companies face in their quest to quickly push the next generation of drugs to market. We want to help you succeed.
Baltimore biotech firm Noxilizer Inc. is expanding its footprint at the University of Maryland BioPark to meet growing demand from clients.
Noxilizer developed a medical sterilization system that uses nitrogen dioxide, a faster alternative to traditional methods. The company added about 5,000 square feet to its sterilization space to accommodate a growing interest in its contract sterilization services. The company's sterilization lab now takes up about 16,00 square feet — the entire basement at 801 W. Baltimore Street.
In perhaps yet another sign of the expanding role of retail healthcare, CVS Health said it is opening a new Digital Innovation Hub on Boston that will serve as a central hub for the Rhode Island-based pharmacy’s digital health team.
Deloitte recently released its 2014 Technology Fast 500 Rankings, and biotech companies ranked third-quickest in growth following software and internet firms. The biotech industry, over all, grew 940 percent this year – the lowest it’s been, actually, in the past decade. Last year, for instance, the it grew 2,723 percent, in 2012 it was 3,734 – the lowest since this year was in 2005, when growth was at 1,420 percent.
Protagen AG announced that it has entered into a long-term collaboration agreement with QIAGEN targeting the development of novel protein-based companion diagnostics for autoimmune disorders. Under the terms of the agreement, QIAGEN will gain access to the proprietary SeroTag® technology platform of Protagen, which enables the discovery and validation of novel protein-based marker panels. Such markers hold great promise for the development into companion diagnostics to guide treatment decisions in various autoimmune disorders. Financial details of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Two University System of Maryland schools are turning investor.
University of Maryland, Baltimore, and University of Maryland, College Park plan to invest up to $500,000 each in Maryland-based startups that use technology licensed from the universities.
University of Maryland UM Ventures and Harpoon Medical, Inc., announced today that the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has invested $100,000 in Harpoon Medical. This is the first equity investment UM Ventures has made in a company and completes Harpoon Medical's $3.6 million Series A financing. The investment also coincides with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision to grant a patent for the innovative beating heart mitral valve repair technology Harpoon Medical licensed from UMB. The team in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine developed the licensed technology.
ATCC, the premier global biological materials resource and standards organization, is pleased to announce that Ralph Koch has joined ATCC as the Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration/Chief Financial Officer and Dr. James Kramer has joined as the Vice President of Operations.
ATCC has a reputation for delivering high quality biomaterials and services to support scientific research and breakthroughs that improve the health of global populations.
The Life Sciences Impact Grant Program was created in 2014 to provide financial assistance to life science employers who retain jobs and to stimulate the organic growth of life sciences in Montgomery County.
The Department of Economic Development will award grants in the amount of between $5,000 and $25,000 to 5-7 life sciences companies, enabling them to advance a business development/product development goal.
Connecticut Innovations (CI), the leading source of financing and ongoing support for Connecticut’s innovative, growing companies, today announced that the Connecticut Bioscience Innovation Fund (CBIF) has awarded $1.8 million to bioscience projects at the conclusion of the latest review of project applications.
The Department of Health and Human Services has expanded its entrepreneurs-in-residence program with new partners who will work with agency employees on various projects over a 12-month period.
A Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering student team has placed second in the undergraduate division of the Collegiate Inventors Competition for its AccuSpine probe, marking the third consecutive year that a Johns Hopkins team has been awarded a top prize in this challenge.
The president of the University of Maryland University College, rejecting a recommendation from an outside committee, has decided he won’t ask the state to let the university convert to a private nonprofit institution or break away from the University System of Maryland.
What do beekeepers, marching band members, engineers and choir singers all have in common? They all raised money for various projects through Launch UMD, a new crowdfunding platform at the University of Maryland, College Park.
(Screenshot courtesy of launch.umd.edu)
Now through December 1st, 2014, Freudenberg will be hosting a contest in the area of smart surface technology for medical devices (preferably silicone based). Share your new product or business idea for the opportunity to launch a successful and innovative startup business in cooperation with Freudenberg.
About 15 years ago, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation made what was considered a risky foray for a nonprofit organization into the world of business. It began giving money to a small biotechnology company to entice it to develop drugs for the deadly lung disease.
Ten years ago, scientists discovered that some people are naturally missing working copies of a gene known as PCSK9. The consequences of the mutation were extraordinary. These people, including a Texas fitness instructor, a woman from Zimbabwe, and a 49-year-old Frenchman, had almost no bad cholesterol in their blood. Otherwise, they were perfectly normal.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EST), Rockville, Maryland
Climbing the Regulatory Summit: Insights into developing the Best Regulatory Pathway for your Venture and Methods of Designing an Efficient and Productive Clinical Trial
An absolutely essential exercise in any healthcare or life science start-up is to determine the optimal regulatory pathway and the most efficient clinical trial design. Come and hear the experts before you go spending those scarce resources!
In the “Mystery of Capital,” Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto famously writes about the need to convert assets into capital for creation of social and economic value in developing countries and economies in transition, noting: “Any asset whose economic and social aspects are not fixed in a formal property system is extremely hard to move in the market.” While de Soto is describing the need to legalize informal property systems, this is equally true with respect to BRICS and other countries seeking to unlock capital resources for R&D intensive start-ups, also known as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Are you an established public company looking to impress investors with your company's latest developments, or a late-stage private company hoping to make the valuable connections needed to take your product to the next phase? Nominate your company to be the Buzz of BIO at the 2015 CEO & Investor Conference!
Ten biotechs will be nominated in each of two categories, "Most Distinguished Public Company" and "Most Promising Private Company." Only 20 nominations will be accepted in total, and must be submitted by 5:00pm ET, November 21, 2014. All nominations are subject to review.
The US healthcare industry is undergoing a major transformation as healthcare reform encourages consumers to play a far more active decision-making role. Yet despite this traditionally business-to-business industry moving quickly to a business-to-consumer model, companies have been slow to join the digital movement. Unlike successful B2C companies in other industries—which offer mobile solutions, provide personalized product recommendations, and empower customer-service agents with a 360-degree view of the customer—most healthcare providers and payors are lagging, as are pharmaceutical companies and medical-device manufacturers.
The angel investor market in Q1,2 2014 showed signs that the five year moderate growth has continued in the first half of 2014. Total investments in Q1,2 2014 were $10.1 billion, an increase of 4.1% over Q1,2 2013, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. A total of 30,270 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in Q1,2 2014, a 5.9% increase from Q1,2 2013, and the number of active investors in Q1,2 2014 was 143,140 individuals, an increase of 6.1% from Q1,2 2013. The increase in total dollars and the larger increase in total investments (deals) resulted in a deal size of $332,120 in Q1,2 2014, a decline from the deal size in Q1,2 2013 of $337,850. These data indicate that angels remain major players in this investment class and at valuations similar to Q1,2 2013. The market exhibited a sustained growth pattern over a five year period and the angel market has now recovered from the correction in 2008.
More than half of all healthcare practitioners, or 57 percent, said that on “most days” they feel more attached to computers than their patients, according to a recent survey conducted at the Integrative Health and Medicine conference.
Big pharma companies are making greater efforts to improve access to medicines in the developing world, but corruption and intellectual property (IP) issues are areas of concern, says a new report.
The biannual Access To Medicines Index (ATMI) - which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK and Dutch governments - puts GlaxoSmithKline at the top of its rankings in 2014 for the fourth time, followed by Novo Nordisk and Johnson & Johnson.
As part of ongoing research into national healthcare spending, the Deloitte Center For Health Solutions recently published their findings based on health data from 2012. According to the new report, there’s an additional amount of healthcare consumer spending that isn’t included in the federal calculations (often referred to as the National Healthcare Expenditure or just NHE). The new Deloitte calculations represent out‒of‒pocket expenses by consumers and amount to an additional $672 billion for 2012. By Deloitte’s accounting, this additional amount puts the NHE for 2012 at $3.46 trillion.
Patients and doctors often don’t know if surgery to remove cancerous tissue was successful until scans are performed months later. A new kind of nanoparticle could show patients if they’re in the clear much earlier.
The nanoparticles—dubbed nanoflares—attach themselves to individual cancer cells in a blood sample and then glow, allowing cancerous cells to be detected and sorted with the help of a laser.
Americans include two health-related issues among the 10 most important problems facing the U.S., according to a recent Gallup survey. Healthcare in general ranked fourth on the list, with Ebola coming in at no. 8. But is Ebola really among the biggest health problems for Americans? Not when we look at the chances of actually being infected.
Seniors in the University of Maryland’s Fischell Department of BioEngineering (BioE) design and build devices designed to improve patient outcomes and health care while lowering costs. BioE teams are typically matched with a pair of advisors including a BioE faculty member and a physician from the University of Maryland Medical Center. The teams are assisted by University engineers for fabrication and by business advisors for entrepreneurship. This year, there are 91 students comprising 18 teams of innovators full of fearless ideas.
Eighth grader Lily DeBell won the 2014 NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, presented by the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth.
DeBell, who is still in middle school, finished ahead of 40 other student entrepreneurs from across the county – almost all of them were either High School or college age students.
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:
Requests for Applications:
Program Announcements:
Startup Maryland (http://www.startupmd.org) today announced the Great two top Finalists from the 2014 Pitch Across Maryland celebration.
After qualifying and posting more than 150 video pitches from Maryland entrepreneurs that were captured during the three-week Pitch Across Maryland tour | celebration, Startup Maryland is proud to announce Vheda Health (Howard County/MCE) and BrinkBit (uBalt, ETC, EAGB, GBC) as Winner and Runner-up, respectively.
Swiss drugmaker Roche said Friday that the Food and Drug Administration approved its drug Avastin as a treatment for ovarian cancer.
Roche said the FDA approved Avastin in combination with chemotherapy as a treatment for recurrent cases of cancer that are resistant to platinum-based chemotherapy.
Join us Nov. 20 for the 15th annual Bioscience Day at the University of Maryland, where we will explore "Scientific Advances in Treating Trauma and Disease."
Registration is free and lunch is provided.
LabCentral and Roche announced an agreement in which Roche would provide technology and financial support to LabCentral, a first-of-its-kind shared laboratory space designed as a launchpad for high-potential life-sciences and biotech startups.
If you’re a foreign entrepreneur looking to break into the U.S. market, the State of Maryland wants to help.
On the third floor of a nondescript office building perched on a busy commercial strip in College Park, Maryland, foreign-owned startups can get a boost at the Maryland International Incubator, a first-of-its-kind incubator focused exclusively on foreign companies settling in the United States.