The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other research institutions closer to Greater Washington have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the ALS Association in the past few years.

Early indications are that some are likely to see even more in the future as contributions to the viral "Ice Bucket Challenge" have surpassed $113 million.

As of 2014, Deloitte is the largest professional services firm in the world by revenue. What began in the 19th century as stand-alone accounting offices has merged and evolved into a partnership that encompasses 200,000 employees in more than 150 countries around the globe.

But size alone doesn't make a company great, of course. Things like satisfying clients, increasing opportunities for personnel, and performing a vital function for society make a company great. When employees, customers, investors, and the community benefit from a company's services, that's what makes it stand out from the rest.

Please plan to attend and also help spread the word about some exciting technology transfer programs planned for the NIH Research Festival next week:

Monday, September 22nd from 12-2pm

“Careers for scientists in technology transfer & business development” Poster Session I Building 10 – FAES Academic Center Presenter: Steve Ferguson (NIH/OTT)

Monday, September 22nd from 12-2pm

“NIH and the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer” Poster Session I Building 10 – FAES Academic Center Presenters: Steve Ferguson (NIH/OTT) and Gary Jones (Federal Laboratory Consortium)

Monday, September 22nd from 2-4pm

“Commercial Development of my Research: Still More Personal Stories from former NIH Intramural Scientists” Concurrent Symposium Session I Building 10 – FAES Academic Center – Classroom 3

Co-chairs: Steve Ferguson (NIH/OTT) and Todd Chappell (BioHealth Innovation)

Medical investors once spent a disproportionate amount of their money on diseases affecting the brain, heart and skeleton. Now market pressures and technological advances are driving them to invest across the human body more broadly.

A VentureWire analysis of U.S. venture financings shows how investors have spread their dollars across a widening range of disease treatments in recent years. From 2002 to 2007 the body part that attracted the most capital–nearly always the heart–often represented 5% to 7% or more of the total venture capital deployed into all U.S. companies, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

A new upcoming report from Thomson Reuters unit CMR International declares that several positive trends are buoying the pharmaceutical industry to an all-time high in sales, which are projected to hit $1 trillion this year.

The CMR Factbook 2014 stated that global pharmaceutical sales reached a record of an estimated $980 billion last year and is expected to climb to a trillion dollars in 2014. On the other hand, the growth rate declined last year compared to previous years due to the patent expiration of several blockbuster drugs. The decline in growth was also attributed to cheaper generic drugs’ domination in the market.

Brendan Iribe dropped out of the University of Maryland here, but before he did he amassed 227 parking tickets. And he managed to meet two business partners who would help him build the virtual-reality company Oculus VR, which Facebook bought this year for about $2-billion.

One of those parking tickets remains unpaid, but the university is likely to forgive it after Friday, when he gave $31-million to erect a computer-science building. That makes Mr. Iribe, who is 35 years old, the institution’s most generous donor ever.

The Southern Maryland Innovation and Technology (SMIT) initiative has awarded Smartronix and Coherent Technical Services, two locally headquartered technology firms, Pro Memberships to CoFounders Lab. 

CoFounders Lab, a OneVest Company, is an online partnering platform of more than 40,000 founders, advisers and interns available to help launch and grow businesses. A Pro Membership provides access to entrepreneurs nation-wide to help individuals connect with the right partner, investment or resource needed to take a business to the next level. SMIT will award 40 Pro Memberships to individuals and companies to encourage technical innovation and commercialization in St. Mary’s County.  

Harpoon Medical, Inc., a medical device company focused on the development and commercialization of a minimally invasive, beating heart mitral valve repair technology, announced today that the company has successfully raised $3.2M of new capital and expects to complete the round over the coming weeks.  The Series A financing was led by Epidarex Capital in order to advance Harpoon's innovative technology into the clinic and expand the company's research and development efforts. 

"We are very pleased with the results of our Series A financing because it gives Harpoon Medical the resources necessary to advance the technology from an innovative concept into the clinic," said, Bill Niland, CEO of Harpoon Medical, Inc. and serial healthcare entrepreneur.  The round was increased to accommodate strong demand from investors that include the Maryland Venture Fund, the Abell Foundation, medical device executives, doctors and successful business executives in the Maryland area.  "When you have the opportunity to put together a high caliber syndicate of investors who can help you with more than just capital you find a way to accommodate the demand." 

Today, the University announces the receipt of its largest gift ever by a single donor. It will catapult our top-15 computer science program to even greater national and international pre-eminence.  It will spark innovation and entrepreneurship across the campus and catalyze new economic development in the state.  

The gift began after a tragedy and will end in a living memorial.  It demonstrates the impact of friendship, teamwork, and family—qualities that ultimately benefit our students and faculty.

When we go grocery shopping, most of us don’t buy a pallet of one product and survive on that for the rest of our lives. We get our food more regularly, so it’s fresher and more in tune with our tastes of the moment. So why wouldn’t education in the fast-changing STEM fields, look like that too?

That was how Andrew Coy, the executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation, put it during an informal tech leaders roundtable discussion at City Hall Thursday morning.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)

Rockville, Maryland

In February 2013, The Sunshine Act was included as the Transparency Reports and Reporting of Physician Ownership or Investment Interests section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Sunshine Act requires manufacturers of drugs, medical devices, and biologicals that participate in U.S. federal healthcare programs to report certain payments and items of value (typically $10 or more and totaling $100 annually or greater) given to physicians and teaching hospitals. Failure to stay in compliance may result in fines ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000 annually. Whether you are a practicing physician or your startup has a medical device, drug, or related product, you are impacted by the ACA’s Physician Payments Sunshine Act. In July, CMS proposed removing the reporting exemption for any payments or transfers of value made to physicians who participate in accredited CME programs. We’ll talk with experts in compliance and policy who will share their experiences in implementing these new policies and how you can understand the implications of the law, dispute inaccuracies, and stay in compliance!

The CEO and co-founder of Oculus VR is giving the University of Maryland $31 million - the largest gift in university history - to construct a computer science building.

University officials said late Thursday that alumnus Brendan Iribe's gift will help build the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation. Most of the gift will go toward the building, which will be designed for work in virtual reality, augmented reality, computer vision and robotics, and $1 million will establish the Brendan Iribe Scholarship in Computer Science.

Over the course of three days at the Mayo Clinic‘s annual Transform conference, featuring scores of healthcare’s top names, several themes stood out. Here’s what I gather were the main points.

1. Economic factors and barriers are just as important in determining health outcomes for the population as a whole. It stands to reason – people with fewer financial resources are often forced to choose between paying for a costly lab test or doctor visit or putting food on the table, among countless other instances and examples.

My last post, How Successful People Stay Calm, really struck a nerve (it's already approaching 1.5 million reads here on LinkedIn). The trick is that managing your emotions is as much about what you won’t do as it is about what you will do.

TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that the upper echelons of top performance are filled with people who are high in emotional intelligence (90% of top performers, to be exact). So, I went back to the data to uncover the kinds of things that emotionally intelligent people are careful to avoid in order to keep themselves calm, content, and in control. They consciously avoid these behaviors because they are tempting and easy to fall into if one isn’t careful.

Friday, Sept. 19, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Under Armour - 1020 Hull Street, Tide Point, Baltimore, MD 21230

Baltimore Innovation Week starts NEXT WEEK and includes more than 45 events from Sept. 12-20. The fall is just beginning—kickoff the season with a big networking event for tech and entrepreneurship in Baltimore. Come to the Innovation celebration, which will be even bigger than last year and help close out a packed week. More games, more apps, more food and more networking—plus, you get the chance to see first the winners of the second annual Innovation Awards.

BioFactura is a collaborator on a grant awarded to the Geneva Foundation. Ebola drug development funding will be provided under a Partnerships for Biodefense grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The project team is led by the Geneva Foundation (Seattle, WA) and includes partners at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID, Ft. Detrick, MD) and the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (Newark, DE). During the 5-year grant, the team aims to develop an effective monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based drug against Sudan ebolavirus.

Currently, there are no established treatments for Ebola infection. Over the past five years, three Ebola outbreaks involving a Sudan strain of the virus have occurred. The need for strain-specific Ebola countermeasures is imperative for treating infected patients and effectively containing outbreaks. The research team looks forward to developing a promising and urgently needed Ebola treatment that targets the Sudan strain of the virus.

There has been a long-running debate in the pharmaceutical industry about the value of being first to market. Companies spend considerable resources seeking to increase the odds of beating their competitors to market and often fret about the commercial disadvantage of being late. In the high-stakes race to market for a novel drug class, companies firmly believe that every month of lead time ahead of a competitor is significant.

It’s not quite that simple. Our analysis of pharma launches confirms a weak first-to-market advantage on average, but with significant nuances dependent on market context. In many instances, the first-mover advantage actually vanishes, particularly when the lead time is short or when the first mover is a small company. This article seeks to identify those situations where first-to-market advantage is strong and those where it does not hold.

Say you invent a medical device. A pacemaker. An improved hip implant. A microchip for the brain. Maybe you can change the world, but first you’ll have to get approved.

A new graduate certificate program in the bioengineering department teaches students the ins and outs of gaining Food and Drug Administration approval. This process is necessary to test the safety and efficiency of all medical inventions before they hit the market, but it can take years of expensive research — and disapproval is common, said William Bentley, the bioengineering department chairman.

Pluristem Therapeutics, a company that develops placenta-based cell therapy products, announced that its licensing partner United Therapeutics is advancing the Phase I study of Pluristem's PLacental eXpanded (PLX-PAD) cells in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

PLacental eXpanded (PLX) cells are developed by Pluristem to serve as protein delivery platforms that release a mix of proteins for ischemia or inflammation. The treatment technology is also being used to investigate tendon-healing treatments in a preclinical model of tendon injury. The company presented results at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) Annual Meeting last March in New Orleans.

Some of the greatest health care innovations have taken decades to reach widespread adoption, adding to the ever-increasing cost of health care.

We are looking for solutions that have already been implemented at least once and have demonstrated effectiveness. This "scale-up" competition seeks to shorten the time frame for innovation dissemination.

In the fight against cancer, Johns Hopkins University is invoking a popular attitude these days: go big or go home.

The Johns Hopkins radiation oncology department has teamed up with Toshiba Group to establish the Toshiba Center for Big Data in Healthcare at the Science + Technology Park at the Hopkins campus in Baltimore.

A white powdered chemical compound emerged from two University of Maryland School of Medicine laboratories more than 10 years ago with a name destined for oblivion, but a future that now looks promising as a treatment for the most challenging cases of prostate cancer.

Today, VN/124-1 is a drug candidate with a name — galeterone — a pharmaceutical company founded on its potential and a record of strong preliminary results in clinical trials with human patients.

Startup Maryland announced support from TEDCO (www.tedco.md) as a full-tour sponsor of the Pitch Across Maryland 2014, the third annual state-wide tour and celebration of entrepreneurship and startup companies.

Starting on September 15 and running through October 3 the Pitch Across Maryland tour will again traverse the state all in the name of celebrating Maryland’s diverse communities of venture building.

“Maryland’s innovation economy is front-and-center in many of the most lucrative industry and innovation categories,” stated Michael Binko, founder of Startup Maryland.  “From traditional ‘feds, eds and meds’ (government/education/healthcare/life sciences-bio), to cloud computing, cyber-security, creative/arts, clean energy/green, to autonomous systems, Maryland entrepreneurs are breeding innovation ventures that are disrupting a wide array of industry sectors and TEDCO has consistently been the recognized leader in early-stage resource commitments.”

This is the first in an exciting series of programs designed to keep you current on issues affecting you as a leader of your organization, and provides an opportunity to connect with your colleagues.

On October 7, Gary will discuss the role of disruptive technology in today’s market and how to create an adaptive, decisive, mission-oriented corporate environment that can help you drive your company forward. In addition to leading one of the largest associations of technology companies, Mr. Shapiro is at the helm of the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the world’s largest annual innovation event. It unites more than 150,000 retail buyers, distributors, manufacturers, market analysts, importers, exporters, and press from 150 countries.

Join us as Gary shares his passion for innovation and explains what it is like to be at the forefront of a multi-billion dollar industry and what is coming next.
I look forward to seeing you at this terrific event. Click here to register now!

Optum Labs has named the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) as one of the latest partners to join its research collaborative. Led by Eleanor Perfetto, PhD, MS, professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research (PHSR) at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, this new partnership will enhance and augment UMB's existing research and informatics resources with the data, tools, expertise, and infrastructure available at Optum Labs to increase the scope and impact of Alzheimer's disease and healthy aging research.

"This partnership with Optum Labs enhances UMB's recognition as a leader in 'big data' research," says Perfetto. "In addition to expanding research opportunities for faculty and students across the University, the partnership increases our competitiveness for grants and contracts from industry, government, and philanthropic organizations. We look forward to combining our expertise and resources with those at Optum Labs to pursue innovative projects that will improve health care delivery and patient outcomes for individuals with Alzheimer's diseases and other aging-related issues."

Sebastian Seiguer had already founded emocha Mobile Health by the time his company began its four-month term in January 2014 as part of DreamIt Health Baltimore, an accelerator for developing health IT and health care startups that graduated its first class in May. But Seiguer’s venture, an online remote patient management platform for clinicians to monitor patients’ symptoms and recovery via smartphone, was a one-man operation, and he needed help.

“The rallying point was the accelerator,” says Seiguer, who launched emocha in fall 2013 by licensing technology from the Johns Hopkins University. “It allowed me to quickly recruit a strong team because there’s a lot of excitement generated by joining an accelerator and a solid program.”

The Johns Hopkins University has entered into a partnership agreement with Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group aimed at speeding up the development of new technology and moving the resulting products toward the marketplace more quickly.

The agreement will enable ATAP to draw on the expertise of computer scientists and others at Johns Hopkins and approve funds for joint technology projects in as few as 30 days. That turnaround time is much shorter than the period typically required for obtaining grants from government agencies and private organizations.

The innovation program designed to move academic findings and translational research into the commercial marketplace, known at Johns Hopkins University as FastForward, is expanding early next year, with a second facility scheduled to open in East Baltimore to provide lab and office space for startups. Some lab space will be available starting in September 2014.

The first accelerator, FastForward Homewood, at the historic Stieff Silver Building near Homewood campus, was opened by the Whiting School of Engineering in June 2013, and today it houses nine startups from across the university. The second incubator, FastForward East at the Rangos Building on North Wolfe Street, will be more closely tied to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, while still allowing scientists and technical experts from a wide background to take advantage of the new facility.

Get answers now from experienced entrepreneurs and legal/business professionals on how to build a successful startup company. Receive free and impartial advice, brainstorm business strategies, investigate funding opportunities and learn about the vast resources available to entrepreneurs.

DATE:   September 16, 2014

PLACE:   Columbus Center, 701 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21202 USA

REGISTER:   Schedule an appointment here to guarantee your time slot. Walk-in appointments are also available.

nvestors in entrepreneurs have a special in-the-trenches wisdom gained through years of experience. This investor experience is now available to entrepreneurs and prospective early-stage investors through InvestorIQ.org, a free, online curriculum that provides knowledge essential to improving startup investment.

Investor IQ allows startup backers and founders to educate themselves on how investors decide whether to invest at all, where to invest, and how their money will be used and returned. A video series draws on the successes and failures of thousands of angel investors over the last 15 years, delving into five questions early-stage investors should ask themselves before they put money into an entrepreneurial venture.

As the Ebola death toll climbs above 2,000, a university researcher is working to develop a vaccine for the virus.

Alan L. Schmaljohn, a microbiology and immunology professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore, has successfully isolated one of the structural sections of the virus, which can be used as a platform for a working vaccine.

There were few surprises for local colleges and universities in the oft-quoted U.S. News and World Report annual rankings released Tuesday.

The Johns Hopkins University maintained its 12th-place position for national universities, falling between Dartmouth and Northwestern. Hopkins is focusing on its undergraduate experience, with a goal of making it among the top 10 in the nation by 2020.

Neuroscience Catalyst to Focus on Mood Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease

Janssen Inc. (Janssen) today announced it has signed an agreement, facilitated by the Johnson & Johnson Innovation center in California, with the University of Toronto's Centre for Collaborative Drug Research (CCDR) to form an open-source collaboration focused on novel therapeutic approaches to the treatment and management of mood disorders and Alzheimer's disease.

It’s no surprise that social-media campaigns can raise awareness of an issue, but the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge may be unprecedented in its impact on a relatively rare disease. The campaign, in which participants must donate to an ALS cause or take videos of themselves being doused in ice, has gone viral since it began in late June. But it has also generated controversy, with some questioning the attention and flood of cash for a disease that affects a small number of people.

As of Friday, the ALS Association had received $53.3 million since July 29, compared with $2.2 million by that time last year. To put it in perspective, the National Institutes of Health’s yearly budget for ALS research is $40 million. Other ALS charities are also benefitting similarly from the campaign.

The low-interest loan program called the BioFund has issued more than $2 million in loans to 12 businesses that account for 135 jobs in Southeast Louisiana, said a progress report released Wednesday (Aug. 27) by the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, which runs the fund.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development provided the funding to support businesses in a 12-parish area impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The Louisiana Office of Community Development, Disaster Recovery Unit, channeled the money to the program at the BioInnovation Center.