BHI Weekly Newsletter Archives

GlycoMimetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: GLYC) today announced that the peer-reviewed journal, Science Translational Medicine, has published preclinical research in its May 25 issue pointing to a potential clinical application for GMI-1271 in the treatment of breast cancer. The published study details research in an in vivo model that showed the company’s drug candidate, GMI-1271, a novel E-selectin antagonist, inhibits breast cancer metastasis.

Vtesse, Inc. announced today that the dose-finding portion of the company’s global, pivotal Phase 2b/3 clinical trial for its lead investigational product, VTS-270, for treatment of Niemann-Pick Type C1 Disease (NPC) is now complete, and a dose level for further testing has been selected by an independent dose selection committee (DSC). Vtesse’s ongoing Phase 2b/3 prospective, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial is a three-part, efficacy and safety trial of VTS-270, administered by the lumbar intrathecal (IT) route every two weeks. VTS-270 is based on a specific, well-characterized composition of 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin.

Novavax Inc. has won a potentially lucrative fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for one of its lead vaccine candidates to protect older patients against a respiratory virus known as RSV.

Senseonics Holdings, Inc. (NYSE-MKT:SENS), a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of a long-term, implantable continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system for people with diabetes, today announced it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Roche for the multi-country commercialization of Senseonics’ Eversense® Continuous Glucose Monitoring System.

Pharma major Lupin today said it has received an establishment inspection report (EIR) from the USFDA on closure of inspection of its Mandideep and Aurangabad facilities.

In a BSE filing, Lupin said: “It has received establishment inspection report (EIR) for its Mandideep and Aurangabad facilities wherein the USFDA has concluded that the inspections stand closed.”

From Stewart Edelstein, Executive Director, Universities at Shady Grove:

“I am pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Richee L. Smith Andrews as USG’s first Chief Development Officer. Richee brings over 15 years of development experience and will lead USG’s efforts to secure development funding, endowments, and major gifts to support academic programing, scholarships, and student success.”

Women who get a prosthetic foot after losing a leg to disease or injury have limited shoe options, but an invention by five Johns Hopkins University students may change that. The university announced Wednesday that the “Prominence” could be the first non-custom prosthetic foot to adapt to high heels up to 4 inches high.

The National Science Foundation’s I-Corps initiative is heavily influenced by the lean start-up methodology, which calls for rapid iteration of value propositions and customer segments based on formal and extensive interviews with the industry stakeholders of a technology or service. While this methodology has proven to be very successful overall, many universities have reported difficulty engaging faculty in the process because of the six-week commitment to the program.

“Twelve weeks ago, these projects were literally just ideas,” said Rana Quraishi, PhD, director of new ventures in the Office of Research and Development at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). Quraishi was welcoming students, intellectual property experts, and scientists to the final meeting of UMB’s first-ever course in developing and pitching a biotechnology business concept, called CIPP 980.

On May 23, U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) convened at Johns Hopkins Hospital a scientific expert panel to discuss what to do about the Zika epidemic. Organizing the event within two business days was no small feat, as Cardin, scientific experts, health department leaders, hospital executives and industry representatives all had to quickly clear their very busy morning schedules. The attendance of television and newspaper outlets (such as the Baltimore Sun) meant that the discussion’s proceedings would be available to the public. From the very start, Cardin kept the tone very science-focused: The Zika epidemic is a public health emergency, and the issue is how best scientifically, collaboratively and expeditiously to handle this emergency.

The fifth annual U.S. News STEM Solution Conference kicked off May 18 with a half-day look at STEM education in the Baltimore region and its impact on the local economy.

Thursday, June 2, 2016 7:30 AM – 9:00 AM, Bethesda Country Club

An IPO is one of the most important events in a company’s history, and navigating the course requires an enormous amount of endurance. Choosing an investment bank, perfecting your roadshow, and meeting with investors is just the tip of the iceberg. Join Vit Vasista, Chief Financial Officer of REGENXBIO, at All the Right Moves: Planning a Successful Exit Strategy, on Thursday, June 2, from 7:30 – 9:00 a.m. Vit will share tips that were integral to REGENXBIO’s successful 2015 IPO, from pitching to trading.

IBM is partnering with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to create the Accelerated Cognitive Cybersecurity Laboratory (ACCL), which will be housed within the College of Engineering and Information Technology at UMBC. The Lab will use Watson technology to improve cybersecurity.

Longtime San Franciscans may remember the Mission Bay neighborhood, located on the southern end of the city, as the home to one of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company’s railyards. Trains ran in and out of the railyard for nearly 100 years until the 1990s.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a federal funding opportunity (FFO) to establish and sustain up to eight Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate (RAMPS) Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development. Through this announcement, NIST will commit up to $1.6 million for state or regional consortiums that identify cybersecurity workforce development pathways that address local workforce needs. Although lead organizations must be a nonprofit or institution of higher education, NIST encourages public-private partnerships with industry and local governments. Proposals are due July 12, 2016.

The Association of University Research Parks is proud to present the 2016 Awards of Excellence in research and science park development and practice.

AURP will honor industry leaders at the 2016 International Conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Please submit nominees by Friday, July 15, 2016.

The angel investor market in 2015 had a slight increase in investment dollars and in the deal size. Total investments in 2015 were $24.6 billion, an increase of 1.9% over 2014, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. A total of 71,110 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in 2015, a decline of 3.1% over 2014 investments. The number of active investors in 2015 was 304,930 individuals, a decrease of 3.7% from 2014. The change in both total dollars and the number of investments resulted in a deal size for 2015 that was larger than in 2014 (an increase in deal size of 5.1% from 2014). These data, combined with the yield rates and valuations, indicate that angels were selective in their investment behavior in 2015. The decrease in valuations over the last three years indicates a continuing market correction in valuations. However, the $24.6 billion of investments is a robust amount and is close to the market high of $26.0 billion that occurred in 2007.

Startups based in California, New York, and Massachusetts account for most of the VC tech funding in the United States. However, hotbeds of innovation are being spurred by VCs across the country.

With that in mind, we used CB Insights data to analyze the most active venture capital firm by the number of investments into tech startups in each US state from 2011 to 2016 year-to-date (through 5/9/16).

OrbiMed has launched a $307 million venture capital fund five years after its inagural $202 million fund investing in biotech, diagnostic and medical device and digital health companies.

Two sets of numbers shows how far biopharma activity has progressed in Asia recently. The value of biotech venture capital funding during the first quarter zoomed to $174 million in the first quarter from $150 million in Q4 2015 and a mere $9.4 million in Q1 2015, according to Tech In Asia.

Life science venture firm 5AM Ventures has raised $285 million for fund number 5, according to data from a Form D filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm makes investments in life science startups at the seed and early stage of their development.

The National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) will hold its inaugural University Startups Demo Day (USDD) at the National Press Club and Congress in Washington, DC on September 20, 2016.

The USDD provides an unprecedented opportunity for corporate open innovation and venturing groups, VCs, and angels to discover, review, partner with, and fund university startups. At the same time, it raises awareness in Congress of the pivotal role that universities play in the formation of high potential startups, the creation of high value jobs across the country, and overall national competitiveness.

The USDD will showcase thirty-five (35) of the best university startups in specific technology areas. Selected by their universities, and scored by corporates, angels, and VCs, the top scoring university startups will be invited to present at the National Press Club in the first part of the day. During the second part of the day, the companies will meet and have photo ops with their senators and representatives at Congress.

On June 8th, WTCI will hold our 10th Annual Women Spanning the Globe Leadership Conference. Over the course of the day, you will be introduced to an impressive line- up of speakers and topics ranging from being an authentic leader, living your purpose to promoting and nurturing gender equality in your professional and person life.

We have designed an interactive day with time between sessions, when the audience can “Lean In”, ask questions, encourage feedback and share their perspective. We hope all attendees will leave with a fresh perspective, new ideas, best practices to implement, new friends, and the feeling that you are part of an International Professional Sisterhood.

The Information Technology (IT) Manager will develop, assess and maintain secure, effective and innovative information technology functions at BHI. The IT Manager influences the BHI organization by strategically managing and providing information, intelligence and insights which influence BHI operations decisions and promote the image of the organization.

Whatever Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) learned about MacroGenics’ off-the-shelf approach to stirring a T cell attack against cancer since inking their first partnership deal 17 months ago seems to have only whetted the pharma giant’s appetite for more.

Neuralstem, Inc. (Nasdaq: CUR), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of central nervous system therapies based on its neural stem cell technology, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell 2,700,000 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase 2,700,000 shares of common stock in a private placement. The securities are being sold in a private offering at a price of $0.40 per one share of common stock and one common stock purchase warrant. The warrants have an exercise price of $0.40 per share, are immediately exercisable and expire on the fifth anniversary of the date of issuance. The shares of common stock and warrants are immediately separable and will be issued separately.

At the North Bethesda Marriott, Maryland’s leading technology and life science companies gathered to celebrate recent successes from the most innovative teams in the state on Thursday night’s industry celebration.

Roche Venture Fund and 5AM Ventures have led Purigen Biosystems to an $18.2 million Series A round. Purigen will use the money to advance the development and commercialization of a benchtop system for extracting, quantifying and enriching of samples for genomic testing.

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced the extension of the offer period for the acquisition of Exiqon A/S, a world leader in RNA technology. On 18 April 2016, QIAGEN had published a conditional, voluntary public tender offer for the shares in Exiqon, in which the shareholders of Exiqon were offered a cash amount of DKK 18 for each share they held in Exiqon. In accordance with the Offer, the Offer Period expired yesterday on 18 May 2016 at 23.59 (CET).

Roche Holding (RHHBY – Analyst Report) announced that the FDA has granted accelerated approval to its cancer immunotherapy drug, Tecentriq (atezolizumab), for the treatment of patients suffering from locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC), who experienced disease progression during or after platinum-based chemotherapy, or whose disease has worsened within 12 months of receiving platinum-based chemotherapy before or after surgery.

Extending their partnership to an eighth company, La Jolla’s Avalon Ventures and UK-based drug giant GSK said Friday they have formed another San Diego biotech startup.

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels was among the speakers Thursday at the fifth annual U.S. News & World Report STEM Solutions National Leadership Conference in Baltimore.

The three-day conference brought together leaders from academia, business, and government to contribute key insights into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—or STEM—education. The summit focused on solutions and best practices to ensure that the nation’s future workforce has the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in a global economy.

TEDCO handed out its annual honors for “Innovation,” “Corporate Excellence” and “Entrepreneurship” on Tuesday. The ICE Awards ceremony at Columbus Center in Inner Harbor marked a move into Baltimore city after last year’s event in Columbia.

Kevin Plank encourages University of Maryland graduates to let “passion” fuel their dreams Kevin Plank remembers sitting in his cap and gown at the University of Maryland, College Park commencement ceremony in 1996 as Hillary Clinton spoke to his graduating class. He also remembers that he was fidgeting in his seat and only half-listening.

The National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics a “Center of Excellence” grant to study the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of applying genomics to research on, and the prevention and treatment of, infectious disease. This builds on three years of work of an exploratory Center of Excellence in ELSI Research (CEER) at the Berman Institute, the first such project to focus attention on genomic ELSI issues in the context of infectious disease.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) today announced approval of the VENTANA PD-L1 (SP142) Assay1 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a complementary diagnostic to provide PD-L1 status on patients who are considering treatment with the FDA approved Roche immunotherapy TECENTRIQ™ (atezolizumab) for metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC). This test is the first to evaluate patient PD-L1 status using immune cell staining and scoring within the tumor microenvironment, providing clinicians with information that may guide immunotherapy decisions2.

Novartis is splitting its pharmaceuticals division into two business units, one focused on cancer and the second on other drugs, while switching out its current pharma head in the second high-profile management reshuffle this year.

Dr. J. Thomas August, who has spent the last 40 years at Johns Hopkins and decades developing a way for people to fight off viruses, has turned his attention to developing a Zika virus vaccine. He is relying upon one of his own discoveries – a means of delivering cells injected with the DNA code of the virus to a person’s own immune system to fight off infection. “Others talk about 10 years to invent and develop a new vaccine,” said August, “We’re going to do this in about a year.” August is bankrolling his new Baltimore-based company called Pharos Biologicals with his own money and has enlisted CEO David Wise to help raise as much as $5 million to conduct the initial trials.

Researchers at the University of Maryland were able pull away color and chemicals from a block of wood to leave it impressively see-through. The result is a material that is both stronger and more insulating than glass, with better biodegradability than plastic. “We were very surprised by how transparent it could go,” said Liangbing Hu, who wrote about the project in Advanced Materials.

Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi (NYSE: SNY), announced today a research collaboration with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine that will focus on novel strategies aimed at advancing the understanding of underlying causes of disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS). The collaboration, under guidance by a joint committee of representatives from Sanofi Genzyme and the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center, will leverage certain technologies and methodologies designed to inform new therapeutic approaches to treating disease progression.

Satellite campuses are increasingly popular for public institutions hoping to expand their reach and increase access to students throughout the state, but the Post reports Maryland’s configuration of combining nine satellite programs onto one campus is unique.

The 2030 Group has hired a consultant to create a campaign to rebrand Greater Washington and expects to launch that campaign early next year. The fear is that the region all too often loses its best and brightest to places such as Silicon Valley and lags when it comes to diversifying its economy away from a dependence on the federal government to a more entrepreneurial one centered on innovation.

The Washington region is poised to dominate a new billions-dollar industry.

The state venture capital fund led an add-on investment for Columbia’s Healthcare Interactive and is the kind of deal the fund wants to do more of in the future.

It’s abundantly clear that microörganisms play an essential role in maintaining the health of humans, animals, and plants. But how exactly they pull this off is still mostly a mystery—one that the White House hopes to help solve by way of a new microbiome research initiative.

Decades of research have linked specific personality traits to a longer life expectancy. Some of them — from friendliness to emotional stability — may be written into our genes.

And while one study found that we’re not particularly good at identifying these traits in ourselves, it suggested that our close friends are often spot-on.

What 4000+ corporate directors think about the economy, risk, board strengths and weaknesses, and boardroom diversity

“Boards cannot afford to have directors around the table who aren’t delivering value,” says a new report based on the 2016 Global Board of Directors Survey, released from Professor Boris Groysberg and Yo-Jud Cheng of Harvard Business School, Spencer Stuart, the WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Foundation, and researcher Deborah Bell. With greater institutional and activist shareholder activity and stronger concerns about risk and global competitive threats, boards are taking on “a more strategic, dynamic, and responsive role” in their companies, the report states – pushing “issues around board composition and diversity to the fore.”

It will be obvious when the Department of Health and Human Services’ IDEA Lab is a success, because it will no longer be needed, according to Damon Davis, the director of the department’s Health Data Initiative.

The TMCx accelerator program couples the resources of Texas Medical Center with the innovative horsepower of entrepreneurs working in the areas of medical technology and digital health. Throughout the program, startups engage with TMC physicians and other hospital stakeholders to refine their value proposition and determine their product/market fit.

GenVec, Inc. (NasdaqCM: GNVC) (“GenVec” or “the Company”), today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with institutional investors for an offering of shares of common stock with gross proceeds of approximately $5 million in an at-the-market registered direct offering. The closing of the offering is expected to take place on or about May 10, 2016, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Hong-Kong based Value Measured Investment Limited led a $10 million Series B financing in Sirnaomics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on RNAi therapeutics. The funding will go towards development of anti-fibrosis treatments, with a Phase I clinical trial planned for early second half of 2016.

Healthcare Interactive Inc. has raised $3.4 million to bring on more clients for its health care planning business.

The new funding is an add-on to the company’s Series A round and was led by the Maryland Venture Fund, the state’s venture capital arm. Previous investors Grotech Ventures and Harbert Management Corp. also participated. The new funding brings Healthcare Interactive’s total Series A to $11.8 million.

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association, announced the winners of it 28th Annual Industry Awards during a celebration at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center attended by more than 600 technology and business leaders.

Epigenomics AG, a German-American cancer molecular diagnostics company, with its U.S. headquaters in Germantown, MD, announced that LabCorp® to offer Epi proColon®, a blood-based test for colorectal cancer screening, in the U.S.

With its U.S. headquarters located within the Germantown Innovation Center, Epigenomics recently announced that its blood-based test for colorectal cancer screening, Epi proColon®, will be available in the U.S. This deal is yet another example of the success of a company in Montgomery County’s Business Innovation Network, specifically in the life sciences incubator, earning significant revenue from the marketplace. “It’s truly hard to express how proud we are when an incubator company makes it through FDA approvals and gets their product to market,” said Sally Sternbach, Acting Director of Montgomery County Department of Economic Development.

Not only have several of the top bioscience companies in our region grown in the past year, but we can already predict some of the biggest growth spurts we’ll see next.

Johns Hopkins University took over the No. 1 spot on this week’s List of patents in Maryland. The private research institution obtained 133 patents in 2015, achieving a total of 454 patents in the last five years.

It would be easy to mistake the Universities at Shady Grove as a flagship public school, with its red-brick buildings and its state-of-the-art labs, library and fitness center.

Wait, can this be true? From a new report by 1776, “a global incubator and seed fund,” comes this startling claim: “Boston is the #1 city in the U.S. for fostering entrepreneurial growth.”

Boston, not Silicon Valley? Really? This chart from the reports seems to say otherwise:

Helping individuals returning from incarceration pay for housing, mentoring high school students to build robotic cars, and providing a system to reuse dorm furnishings and supplies are among the winning ideas to emerge from the latest round of online crowdsourcing on the Johns Hopkins Idea Lab.

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels was among the panelists at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference last week, taking part in a discussion on how universities across the country are increasing their roles in regional economic development.

The panelists examined innovative models of collaboration with the private and government sectors that are spurring regional economic growth. They also discussed how universities are walking the tightrope of balancing a commitment to basic scientific research—where new knowledge is generated—with their desire and need to maximize returns from transferring technology to the private sector.

After six years of existence and raising more than $20 million, Personal Genome Diagnostics has its first full-time CEO.

Douglas Ward will head the Canton-based Johns Hopkins spinout and sit on its board, the company announced Monday.

According to Johns Hopkins researchers, every year due to birth defect, trauma or cancer, more than 200,000 people will need replacement bones in their face or skull. Typically, doctors would remove a part of the patient’s fibula and try to carve it into the required shape and implant the bone back into the patient’s face. While the procedure typically results in the bone regrowing and healing the damage in the face, it isn’t the ideal solution. Depending on the damage being corrected, the bone fragment often can’t be shaped to fit the face very well, which leaves the patient with significant scarring. The removal of part the fibula also creates trauma in the patient’s leg which, when combined with the ongoing trauma in their face or skull, can be quite stressful.

UMBC and IBM Research have announced an exciting new collaboration to create the Accelerated Cognitive Cybersecurity Lab (ACCL), opening at UMBC in fall 2016. Housed within the College of Engineering and Information Technology, the ACCL will advance scientific frontiers in cybersecurity and machine learning. The new lab is supported by a multi-year commitment from IBM.

The move to open an accelerator is part of the health system’s goal to create a place for personalized health ideas to “percolate,” says CEO Todd Stottlemyer.

Lockheed Martin wants to inspire the next generation of American space innovators with a major Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education project.

Launched last month, Generation Beyond aims to bring the science of space into homes and classrooms. Geared toward middle school students, the program harnesses Lockheed Martin’s experience in deep space exploration.

IBM today announced a multi-year, cognitive computing collaboration with the University of Maryland in Baltimore on an Accelerated Cognitive Cybersecurity Laboratory (ACCL). It’s the second such move in a month. In mid-April Big Blue announced plans for the Center for Cognitive Computing Systems Research (C3SR) to be based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This week at Health Datapalooza, a group of medtech and pharma companies traded insights on the strategic partnerships they built with technology companies and what they learned in the process. But they also touched on how they collaborate with startups.

Stafford County leaders voted to infuse $500,000 into the county’s Tech and Research Park.

The money from the county’s Economic Opportunity Fund will be used to launch a co-working space and business incubator at the Quantico Corporate Center site in North Stafford. Incubators attract start-up companies and entrepreneurs looking for temporary office and meeting space to grow their firms.

Redonda Miller, senior vice president of medical affairs for the Johns Hopkins Health System and vice president of medical affairs for The Johns Hopkins Hospital, will assume the role of president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital on July 1.

She will succeed current president Ronald R. Peterson, becoming the hospital’s 11th president and the first woman to hold the post since the hospital was founded in 1889.

Greater Washington builds great startups – we just can’t keep them here.

Over the past 20 years, 105 D.C. area startups were sold for more than $1 billion, but only 16 of those deals kept the businesses in the region, according to a new report examining innovation in the D.C. area. And out of 6,000 business sales over the last 20 years, about 75 percent were to out-of-region purchasers.

The 2030 Group has hired a global brand consultant to help rebrand Greater Washington and expects to launch a marketing campaign early next year.

There’s no doubt that telemedicine is growing: Its usage is up 50 percent since 2013 with nearly 15 million people using such services in 2015. Here are the top five telemedicine trends happening right now.

Join us this month at a special Baltimore BioBuzz to to showcase the region’s #1 ranked strength among other Biotech industry hubs – our talent. Graduate Student groups from JHU and UMB have come together to sponsor BioBuzz and welcome all of our regional industry partners to join them. They are all seeking to connect with and impact our regional industry and ecosystem and begin to show you what their vision of tomorrow looks like.

Come out on May 26th to the Baltimore BioBuzz at Heavy Seas Ale House to meet the leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Event is for Post-Docs & Professional Scientists currently working in the Therapeutic Areas of:

•Oncology

•Respiratory, Inflammation & Autoimmunity

•Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases

•Infectious Diseases & Vaccines

•Related scientific disciplines

Event will include music, lawn games, hors d’oeuvres, drinks.

Funding and Research OpportunitiesThe following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:

Notices:

• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Research Program (U01)
• (NOT-RM-16-014)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Collaborative Centers (U54)
• (NOT-RM-16-015)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Research Grants (U01)
• (NOT-RM-16-016)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Collaborative Centers (U54)
• (NOT-RM-16-017)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Administrative Coordinating Center (U24)
• (NOT-RM-16-018)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Informatics Network (U24)
• (NOT-RM-16-019)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• BD2K Predoctoral Training in Biomedical Big Data Science (T32)
• (RFA-LM-16-002)
• National Library of Medicine, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Cancer Institute, National Eye Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01)
• (PAR-16-238)
• National Cancer Institute, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Kathy Snyder can go back to the beach now.

Snyder came out of retirement last year to once again take over the Maryland Chamber of Commerce when its CEO unexpectedly resigned. On Tuesday, the Chamber announced Snyder’s replacement, Christine Ross, currently the CEO of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce in Florida, will take over the organization on July 11.

Due to California’s penchant for legislating at the ballot box, the state has reigned as the top destination for industry campaign spending since even before the Supreme Court widened the door to corporate political donations with its 2010 Citizens United decision.

Europe already has many of the ingredients for successful biotech and pharma activity—top-tier academic research, a commitment to public research funding, a heritage of pharmaceutical giants stretching back to 1668 (when Merck was founded in Darmstadt, Germany), and a growing number of biotechs nurtured by regional biotech clusters (especially in Germany and France).

A team of MIT and Harvard University students who invented a smartphone-connected sensor that detects lung cancer from a single breath took home the grand prize from Wednesday night’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

Kevin Haley doesn’t pay attention to the competition. As president of product and innovation for Under Armour, he encourages his team to ignore the noise and focus on their own game.

English-speaking universities continue to dominate the world, according to a new ranking from the Times Higher Education supplement released Thursday.

Of the top 24, 16 were American and six were British.

Construction on the Universities at Shady Grove’s new biomedical sciences and engineering building is scheduled to begin this fall after local leaders persuaded Gov. Larry Hogan to reinstate funding for the project during this year’s General Assembly session.

The Information Technology (IT) Manager will develop, assess and maintain secure, effective and innovative information technology functions at BHI. The IT Manager influences the BHI organization by strategically managing and providing information, intelligence and insights which influence BHI operations decisions and promote the image of the organization.

The biohealth industry in Maryland, Virginia and DC needs a strong identity and brand that will help it grow and attract the best talent in the world. At a regional conference on April 18, the community announced a new name and tagline, along with a wordmark:

To complete the logo, an icon is needed that captures the spirit of the industry and the region.

A competition is underway for the icon design. Anyone from an organization (college, company, PR firm, etc.) based in Maryland, Virginia or DC may submit an entry. The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2016. The winner will receive $5,000.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Our annual Industry Awards Celebration recognizes the leaders and innovators in the technology and life science communities from Maryland and the surrounding regions. The evening brings over 900 technology, life science, government, academia, and supporting businesses together at one place, at one time for Maryland’s best night of networking.

Harbor Designs and Manufacturing (HDM) will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony at Tuesday, May 17th to mark the opening of its new 45,000 sq. ft. engineering and manufacturing facility in the heart of a Baltimore City Economic Empowerment Zone. The new HDM facility is dedicated to the production and engineering of cutting-edge technologies built with local labor. Link to the invite.

And the Winners are…

Innovation

• Cobrain
• MFFire
• Sisu Global Health

Corporate Excellence

• Immunomic

Entrepreneur

• Jess Gartner CEO and Founder, Allovue

Please join TEDCO at our annual ICE Awards, as we honor some of our “coolest” portfolio companies and recognize the best and brightest that are developing cutting-edge technologies and enriching our community.

Meet with 20 of TEDCO’s recently funded startup companies that will be exhibiting.

Network with the hottest tech startups, investors and entrepreneurship community in Maryland.

Baltimore was a major site in the effort to develop an Ebola vaccine. Two years later, a leading Johns Hopkins researcher is looking to apply a major discovery to the Zika virus.

J. Thomas August, a JHU pharmacology and molecular sciences professor, formed Pharos Biologicals in December. The company received a license to develop DNA vaccine technology called the LAMP for influenza and flaviviruses from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty attributes the company’s success to sticking to the tried-and-true business model of investing in research and development and not transitioning to an acquisition model.

Witty told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Monday that the key is to be patient and to see the value of investing in innovation.

As we await the decision from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the petition backed by Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and others urging that the march in provision of the Bayh-Dole Act be used to control drug prices, it’s worthwhile to recall the time the agency followed similar advice. That resulted in a smack down by Congress and the courts after a band of universities, an innovative small company and a conscientious federal employee refused to be bullied, altering the course of government.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Please join us for the award ceremony where we announce the three winners of the Innovation into Action Challenge—a new initiative to support innovations with the potential to make a difference in the lives of people in emerging nations. At stake is a tailored package of support designed to accelerate the winning innovations’ deployment in the field, including $100,000 in funding, market testing on DAI’s overseas projects, access to a network of accelerator professionals, and technical mentoring to refine the innovator’s pitch, product, or service.

This week, MdBioLab was featured on ABC7 (WJLA) and Montgomery Community Media (MCM). In the ABC7 piece, MdBioLab was on location at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro. Students were engaged in one of MdBioLab’s more popular activities, Mystery of the Crooked Cell in which they learn how to diagnose sickle cell disease at the molecular level. Working to achieve MdBio Foundation’s mission, MdBioLab brought the students access to laboratory equipment that many had never used before.

Speaking at the annual Health Datapalooza conference today, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced a challenge to encourage health care organizations, designers, developers, digital tech companies and other innovators to design a medical bill that’s simpler, cleaner, and easier for patients to understand, and to improve patients’ experience of the overall medical billing process. The “A Bill You Can Understand” design and innovation challenge is intended to solicit new approaches and draw national attention to a common complaint with the health care system: that medical billing is a source of confusion for patients and families.

As I take part in panel discussions on the investor’s perspective on startup financing and growth, it strikes me how formulaic these events tend to be. A group of investors provides insight to a room full of rapt entrepreneur attendees. Sometimes the entrepreneurs get to ask questions, and sometimes they don’t.

A new accelerator devoted to agricultural technology startups is launching in Research Triangle Park with $11.5 million in initial funding.

The AgTech Accelerator, which officially opened for business Thursday, anticipates raising a total of $25 million to $30 million from investors by the end of this year, said John Dombrosky, a former Syngenta executive who is CEO of the new venture.

Two biotech companies in the United States have been given the green light to see if it is possible to regenerate the brains of dead people. © Shutterstock Bioquark Inc., in collaboration with Revita Life Sciences, has been given ethical permission by US health authorities to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead from a traumatic brain injury to test whether parts of their central nervous system (CNS) can be brought back to life.

Investment firm Heritage Group has closed its second innovation fund and now counts 15 healthcare organizations as limited partners.

The $220 million fund is the latest example of how health systems and other industry players are taking an active role in piloting, investing in and mentoring young digital health companies as technology continues to reshape healthcare delivery. It is among the largest pools of funds for healthcare technology investments, and the combined approach allows the group to make larger investments in later-stage companies than they might otherwise do on their own.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government has shown that it understands the need to develop innovation in the country’s health care sector.

Lita Nelsen is one of the most influential power brokers in the drug industry — and yet there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of her.

That’s because she ran one of the country’s largest and most successful technology transfer offices, an unglamorous yet essential go-between for universities and startups. And any time a venture capitalist, a pharmaceutical company, or a tech titan wanted to cash in on an invention at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, each had to go through her.

Orthopedic surgeons are relying more and more on 3-D printing to build replacements for their patients’ defective or worn out bones.

This year surgeons around the world will implant tens of thousands of 3-D printed replacements parts for hips, knees, ankles, parts of the spine, and even sections of the skull.

The biohealth industry in Maryland, Virginia and DC needs a strong identity and brand that will help it grow and attract the best talent in the world. At a regional conference on April 18, the community announced a new name and tagline, along with a wordmark:

To complete the logo, an icon is needed that captures the spirit of the industry and the region.A competition is underway for the icon design. Anyone from an organization (college, company, PR firm, etc.) based in Maryland, Virginia or DC may submit an entry. The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2016. The winner will receive $5,000.More information and submission instructions are at http://www.competition.regionalbiotechforum.com/

Emergent BioSolutions has filed a supplemental Biologics License Application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to scale up production of its anthrax vaccine BioThrax. BioThrax is the only FDA-approved anthrax vaccine for humans. It’s primarily produced for and purchased by the U.S. military, and has been in distribution since the 1970s.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Our annual Industry Awards Celebration recognizes the leaders and innovators in the technology and life science communities from Maryland and the surrounding regions. The evening brings over 900 technology, life science, government, academia, and supporting businesses together at one place, at one time for Maryland’s best night of networking.

The Energetics Technology Center, Inc. (ETC) and the Army Research Labs (ARL), under its recent Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA), are pleased to announce the opening of a new incubator , TechFire ARL, in Silver Spring, MD. This new facility, located in the former National Labor College at 10000 New Hampshire Avenue, will focus on providing start-up and joint collaborative workspace for entrepreneurs, ARL researchers and university faculty.

Roger Jeffs will step down as president and co-CEO at United Therapeutics Corp. as part of an executive shakeup at one of Greater Washington’s largest bioscience firms.

Baltimore-based Sisu Global Health has announced $200,000 in funding from the Abell Foundation to further progress of its medical device created to be used in the developing world.

Today, Stewart Edelstein, executive director of the Universities at Shady Grove, released the following statement:

“On behalf of the entire Universities at Shady Grove (USG) community, I want to thank the Maryland General Assembly and Governor Hogan for reinstating $36.7 million in funding for the construction of our Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Education (BSE) facility. With this secured funding, the Universities at Shady Grove plans to break ground later this year on the new facility.

The old adage that money doesn’t change everything could well be said of this year’s Top 10 U.S. biopharma clusters as listed by GEN. Nearly all regions saw significant increases in NIH funding (thanks to the $2 billion boost agreed upon by Congress for the current fiscal year) and in venture capital or “VC” funding (thanks to a market that was bullish on biopharma until this fall).

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, today announced that it has achieved a significant scientific milestone by publishing three manuscripts in Nature Immunology that advance the understanding of the immune system and highlight underlying mechanisms in two little-understood disease areas — chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). These include:

Baltimore is in line to have two schools that offer a career pathway program developed by IBM.

Gov. Larry Hogan signed a bill into law on Tuesday that provides framework and funding for P-TECH in the state. The Pathways in Technology Early College High School program follows a model of partnering with companies to provide students with STEM skills so they are immediately ready for a job. Starting the program in 9th grade, the students receive a high school diploma, associate’s degree and additional workforce training.

University of Maryland will break ground Saturday on a new computer science building made possible by a $31 million donation from a student-turned-technology entrepreneur.

American University is launching a new Center for Innovation in the Capital on Wednesday, part of its ongoing efforts to position itself as a source for business intelligence in Greater Washington.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) held a grand opening for its Community Engagement Center in West Baltimore at 1 N. Poppleton St. on Saturday, April 16, including a spring community festival to introduce the neighborhood to the center and its valuable services. Maryland’s First Lady Yumi Hogan was a guest at the grand opening, assisted with the ribbon-cutting, and spent the day with community members at the spring festival.

How can we detect ovarian cancer before it’s too late? Can we make wounds heal faster? What are the alternatives to bariatric surgery for people with type 2 diabetes? Is there a way to reduce complications and cost in reconstructive surgery?

US-based medical devices firm Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) Monday said it will introduce a malaria detection method developed by Israel’s Sight Diagnostics Ltd (SightDX) in India, which will make a diagnosis in just in four minutes.

Universities traditionally measure their impact on entrepreneurship locally. At last month’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC), Bill Aulet from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reminded us that in a world where national boundaries are porous to both innovation and knowledge creation, assessing our impact globally can be a strong driver of collective performance improvement.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced an agreement to feature Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)-funded early-stage biomedical companies in an expanded Innovation Zone at the 2016 BIO International Convention. The Innovation Zone companies, focused on drug discovery, diagnostics and other therapeutic platform technologies, will have dedicated exhibit space and participate in BIO’s One-on-One Partnering™. Select companies will make 15-minute company presentations in the BIO Business Forum.

VividCortex, the database performance monitoring company that helps enterprises understand and optimize workloads across hybrid, distributed databases, today announced it has raised an additional $4.5 million in a Series A funding. The fast-growing company, which is profitable and grew revenues 8x last year, will use the funds to accelerate product development and sales.

AbbVie will buy venture-backed startup Stemcentrx for $5.8 billion, beefing up the biopharma giant’s portfolio of cancer drugs.

The sale could be worth $4 billion more if San Francisco-based Stemcentrx meets development milestones. Plus, as Business Insider reported, the startup has $400 million in the bank, potentially making the entire deal worth $10.2 billion.

Biopharmaceutical research has never been for the faint of heart. For small biotech companies working on the absolute edge of innovation, one clinical trial can literally mean the difference between closing up shop or commercializing a breakthrough, life-saving medicine. And even for big pharmaceutical companies, setbacks have always been inevitable – the nature of discovery means that success comes only after years of trial and error.

If academic discoveries turn out to be wrong, one drug company wants its money back.

That’s the tough-minded proposal floated today by the chief medical officer of Merck & Co., one of the world’s 10 largest drug companies, as a way to fix the “reproducibility crisis,” or how many, if not most, published scientific reports turn out to be incorrect.

May 8-11, 2016 – Grand Hyatt Washington DC in Washington, DC

Health Datapalooza is the gathering place for people and organizations creating knowledge from data and pioneering innovations that drive health policy and practice, and generate market value. Conceived as part of a public/private movement to liberate and use health data, the Datapalooza continues its tradition of engaging patient and consumer voices, and bringing national and international leaders from the C-levels of business and government together for engaging discussions.

We’re excited to invite you to join us for the 2016 Health Datapalooza – the meeting that brings data to life in ways that matter in health and health care. This year’s meeting finds us even closer to the reality of using data, analytics, and technology to re-define how we deliver and pay for health care. Come hear how data sharing, use, and transparency fuels innovative applications and business models that are building momentum towards a vibrant health information economy that drives high value health care.

A simple blood test to detect early signs of cancer. A noninvasive way to screen pregnancies for common genetic conditions. An app store for your genetic information. Illumina, a San Diego-based gene-sequencing hardware and software behemoth with a market capitalization of $22 billion, is working on all these initiatives—and more.

University tech transfer offices play a central role in the biotech ecosystem, as the successful commercialization of an academic discovery is the aspiration of many young startups. Navigating–and optimizing–this tech transfer process is therefore critical to the health of the biotech sector.

Incubators aren’t just for startups and entrepreneurs with a business idea. A new film incubator at Johns Hopkins University will look to cultivate new ideas for producing films and give a voice to local filmmakers and visual artists. The program, called the Bold Voices, New Paradigms Incubator, is part of the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film and Media Studies, which was launched by a $1 million grant from the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation.

Hello Tomorrow is a global non-profit headquartered in Paris that aims to accelerate science & tech innovation by empowering startups with cash prizes and connections with investors and industrials. It was created in 2011 by Xavier Duportet & Arnaud de la Tour. Hello Tomorrow is supported by the French public and private sectors, but remains an independent organization governed by entrepreneurs.

Novartis (NOVN.S) is discussing options with banks for selling its near $14 billion (9.7 billion pounds) stake in rival Roche (ROG.S), potentially providing cash for new deals, though a sale is not imminent, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Merely 5 percent of healthcare organizations worldwide are “operating at the highest level of digital health innovation proficiency and expertise,” according to a report from digital health consulting firm Enspektos. That means the vast majority have yet to scale and share their innovations, even within their own walls.

Dr. Jay Bradner, a decorated cancer researcher from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, turned heads last year when he accepted a top job at Novartis, one of the world’s largest drug makers. Academics jump to industry all the time, but Bradner made his name with a move pharma almost never makes: When he discovered a potentially cancer-fighting molecule, he just gave it away.

Currently live on SBIR.gov , are FY 2016 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant and contract funding opportunities from NSF, DOD, and HHS.

If you’re an innovator, entrepreneur, researcher, or small technology firm, looking to engage in high-tech growth entrepreneurship and seeking non-dilutive funding opportunities to facilitate your necessary R&D prototype development, then SBIR.gov should be one of your first reference points of interest.

While speakers at the first day of Smithsonian magazine’s fourth annual “Future is Here” festival shared their thoughts on subjects as diverse as computer programming, the Zika virus, human space exploration, the future of the internet and the state of global fisheries, they all shared a common thread: there’s hope. Never give up—even if you have to wait a long time.

AstraZeneca has received Food And Drug Administration approval for one product, and entered into a deal to sell the U.S. rights to another. The FDA granted marketing approval to Bevespi Aerosphere, a maintenance treatment of airflow obstruction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

1776 is launching a new campus in Dubai.

The D.C.-based startup incubator and seed fund signed an agreement to open an outpost at the Dubai Museum of the Future Foundation, a new organization formed to promote innovation in the United Arab Emirates.

One of the first things a new developer in healthcare quickly realizes is integrating and launching your application on top of medical data can be a total nightmare and often a showstopper. There are hundreds of electronic medical record (EMR) vendors and every implementation has a different “flavor” of a handful of competing standards.

Who: Sona Shah, 26, and Teresa Cauvel, 23, both of whom recently received master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from Columbia University. Shah previously worked as an engineer for the pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Co.

After flying under the radar for two years, Baltimore’s Centrexion Therapeutics ready to make its mark as an emerging pharmaceutical company in the field of pain management.

A new report by the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and BioHealth Innovation Inc. says Maryland must pick up the pace on entrepreneurship to be the national leader in biohealth

Please join us at http://greaterbaltimore.adobeconnect.com/springupdate/ on April 28 at 3:00 PM for a discussion of the region’s successes. The Central Maryland region has a strong foundation to support a BioHealth innovation ecosystem. The region is teeming with talent, world-renowned research universities, and a growing number of large firms. However, Central Maryland is catching up to its peers in terms of startup creation. The EAGB and BioHealth Innovation have partnered to publish the Central Maryland BioHealth Innovation Index, a report that benchmarks the region among the country’s top markets and identifies strengths and opportunities for continued economic growth. Read more …

Partnerships with private corporations can be valuable for universities looking to speed up the process of translating academic research to commercial products, services and companies.

Dedicated rules for conducting research with private companies could be a new revenue source for USM and could avoid another chocolate milk debacle.

For the second consecutive year, President Jay A. Perman, MD, addressed the Regional BioTech Forum to discuss advances in research and commercialization by the University of Maryland, Baltimore and its partners in academia and the private sector.

Throughout the year, we publish new Lists on the top companies, executives and deals in the Washington region based on our research. This week’s Lists included the region’s biggest venture capital deals in 2015, ranked by deal value, and the region’s largest venture capital firms and largest private equity firms, both ranked by assets under management. Here are three things of note about the venture capital lending in our region.

Join us on April 27 from 4 to 7 p.m. to watch Montgomery College student entrepreneurs compete in our second annual Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition!

Modeled after ABC’s Shark Tank, this year we are excited to have five student finalist teams who will be present their service or product to a panel of judges for the potential to win a portion of more than $5,000 in total seed money! This prize money will give these MC students the chance to expand or initiate their very own business.

AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, have chosen Cambridge as the base for a pioneering new genomics research centre.

AstraZeneca is making a bold genomics play that places it at the forefront of the precision medicine game: Company-wide, it’s going to use data insights from a huge swath of genomes to inform the future of its drug development.

Thursday May 19, 2016 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM EDT

Join us as we gear up for the BIO International Convention held in San Francisco this June! Life Science Professionals planning to attend BIO, along with those unable to make it to San Francisco, are invited to join us as we showcase the strengths of the I-270 biohealth corridor in Maryland.

Register to attend the Celebration of Innovation and Partnerships at the University of Maryland

When: May 9, 2016 Time: 4:00-6:00 pm Where: Orem Hall, Riggs Alumni Center, University of Maryland

These new inventions will be honored at a special Celebration of Innovation and Partnerships event on May 9 as part of the University of Maryland’s “30 Days of EnTERPreneurship.” Each year, UMD honors exceptional inventions that have the potential to make an important impact on science, society, and the free market. The Invention of the Year award nominees come from three categories: Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Information Sciences. One invention from each category is selected to win the Invention of the Year Award.

The search for a new president and CEO for the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore ended before it began as the alliance appointed the woman it initially gave the post on an interim basis.

Shannon Landwehr, the alliance’s executive vice president, will replace Tom Sadowski, its current top executive, who has been apppointed vice chancellor for economic development for the University System of Maryland, starting May 2.

From Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland has the talent and institutions to become one of the biggest hubs of the bio- and health-technology industry. But the region needs more entrepreneurship to get there.

Since World War II, the U.S. has been an innovation superpower. In virtually every advanced field, whether it’s information technology, biotechnology, agriculture, or renewable energy, America holds a leading position. Other nations may challenge in one field or another, but no one can match its depth and breadth.

The NIH is the premier biomedical research center for the world. Its 27 Institutes and Centers employ approximately 18,000 employees doing a vast array of jobs, all supporting efforts for a healthy nation. For information on the NIH mission, goals, and Institutes and Centers, visit NIH Overview

This position is located in the Technology Transfer Center (TTC) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Technology Transfer Center of the National Cancer Institute is seeking exceptional, dynamic candidates for the Invention Development and Marketing Supervisor. The Supervisor will mentor, empower and lead the newly formed Invention Development and Marketing Unit, and drive the strategy to accelerate and increase the volume of NCI inventions matched with partners who can commercialize federal inventions to improve public health. The ideal candidate will have an understanding of research and development in a federal setting, but bring the mindset and energy of an entrepreneur to lead the team, please visit http://ttc.nci.nih.gov/.

Over the last five years, electronic health records (EHRs) have been widely implemented in the United States, and health care systems now have access to vast amounts of data. While they are beginning to apply “big data” techniques to predict individual outcomes like post-operative complications and diabetes risk, big data remains largely a buzzword, not a reality, in the routine delivery of health care. Health systems are still learning how to broadly apply such analytics, outside of case examples, to improve patient outcomes while reducing spending.

The German conglomerate that invented aspirin over a century ago wants to take over much more of your medicine cabinet. Bayer AG is boosting its presence and brand in the U.S., the world’s biggest medicine market. Bayer is increasing everything from marketing and research operations in the U.S. to the number of its nonprescription medicines in pharmacies and grocery stores.

The Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University and the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the research arm of Northwell Health, announced that the Feinstein Institute will be joining the Long Island Bioscience Hub (LIBH).

A new report by the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and BioHealth Innovation Inc. says Maryland must pick up the pace on entrepreneurship to be the national leader in biohealth

The NIH is the premier biomedical research center for the world. Its 27 Institutes and Centers employ approximately 18,000 employees doing a vast array of jobs, all supporting efforts for a healthy nation. For information on the NIH mission, goals, and Institutes and Centers, visit NIH Overview

This position is located in the Technology Transfer Center (TTC) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Technology Transfer Center of the National Cancer Institute is seeking exceptional, dynamic candidates for the Invention Development and Marketing Supervisor. The Supervisor will mentor, empower and lead the newly formed Invention Development and Marketing Unit, and drive the strategy to accelerate and increase the volume of NCI inventions matched with partners who can commercialize federal inventions to improve public health. The ideal candidate will have an understanding of research and development in a federal setting, but bring the mindset and energy of an entrepreneur to lead the team, please visit http://ttc.nci.nih.gov/.

Gov. Larry Hogan called the state’s life sciences industry the “backbone of Maryland’s economy” and said the state must do more to drive new business here.

Hogan spoke at the close of the first day of the BioHealth Capital Region Forum, a two-day event taking place at MedImmune’s Rockville headquarters Monday and Tuesday.

Everyone knows what Silicon Valley and Research Triangle Park are. What about the BioHealth Capital Region?

That’s how MedImmune and a collection of regional stakeholders say Greater Washington should brand itself to better promote its biotech and life sciences industry. The name was introduced Monday as part of the BioHealth Capital Region forum at MedImmune headquarters in Gaithersburg.

MedImmune has introduced the phrase “BioHealth Capital Region” to brand Greater Washington’s biotech and life sciences sectors and hopes the name will grow organically.

More than 700 leaders from life science companies, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, investment funds and government entities across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. (MD-VA-DC) will convene today and tomorrow for the second annual Regional BioTech Forum. The event will showcase the region’s biotechnology accomplishments and its commitment to advancing cutting-edge research in the MD-VA-DC corridor. Notable speakers will include: Dr. Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health; Maryland Governor Larry Hogan; Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe; and Congressman John Delaney.

Lazy is a small, Rockville, Md.-based startup that competes in the extremely lucrative healthcare IT market, which is poised to be valued in excess of $228 billion by 2020 according to MarketsandMarkets. Co-founded by Chris Millet, Bobby Jones and Dolly Singh, the small company recently graduated from the newly established Relevant Health business accelerator.

The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum is a Community of over 3500 Business leaders, CEOs, Entrepreneurs, VCs and angels in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Each quarterly CONNECTpreneur Forum mashes up 350+ top founders, angels, CXOs, VCs, and business leaders for a morning breakfast event featuring awesome networking, newsmaking speakers, and a showcase of 6-7 exciting companies.

This UNIQUE EVENT is like NONE OTHER in our region, due to the high quality of our attendees and participants, as well as our programming and unprecedented networking.

QIAGEN N.V. today announced introduction of its unique RNA-seq Explorer Solution, a bioinformatics-driven approach to analysis and interpretation of “omics” data from liquid biopsy-based research. RNA-seq Explorer Solution is a new tool which integrates Ingenuity® Pathway Analysis™, Biomedical Genomics Workbench® and other QIAGEN bioinformatics solutions to generate clear insights for research into improved detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The solution will be demonstrated at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

Baltimore-area companies accounted for eight of the 10 biggest venture capital deals in the state during the first quarter of 2016.

Maryland companies raised a total of $109.8 million in 19 deals during the first quarter, up from $97 million invested in 14 deals the same quarter last year, according to a MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters. The amount invested in Maryland is up 13 percent and the number of deals is up 36 percent, compared to the year-ago quarter.

Epigenomics AG (Frankfurt Prime Standard: ECX, OTCQX: EPGNY), the German-American cancer molecular diagnostics company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Company’s lead product, Epi proColon® , the first and only FDA-approved blood-based colorectal cancer screening test.

TriFusion Devices from Texas A&M University emerged as the top startup company in the Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) tonight at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. The annual event is the world’s richest and largest student startup competition.

Selected by 275 judges from the investment sector as representing the best investment opportunity and taking home nearly $400,000 in cash and prizes, TriFusion Devices bested 41 other competitors hailing from some of the world’s top universities. TriFusion Devices offers breakthrough 3-D printed products and services aimed at revolutionizing the health care and sports-equipment industries in powerful and profitable ways.

Significant new prizes this year and the teams that won them include the following:

* $25,000 Rice Brown School of Engineering Tech Innovation Prize – Leuko, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

* $100,000, Cisco Internet of Everything Innovation Challenge Prize – Neopenda, Columbia University.

Ahead of the Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab’s Impact and Innovation Forum on April 21, we’re profiling the entrepreneurs that are part of the current cohort.

Here’s a look at three startups focused on building health solutions in Baltimore:

Register to attend the Celebration of Innovation and Partnerships at the University of Maryland

When: May 9, 2016 Time: 4:00-6:00 pm Where: Orem Hall, Riggs Alumni Center, University of Maryland

These new inventions will be honored at a special Celebration of Innovation and Partnerships event on May 9 as part of the University of Maryland’s “30 Days of EnTERPreneurship.” Each year, UMD honors exceptional inventions that have the potential to make an important impact on science, society, and the free market. The Invention of the Year award nominees come from three categories: Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Information Sciences. One invention from each category is selected to win the Invention of the Year Award.

Partnerships with private corporations can be valuable for universities looking to speed up the process of translating academic research to commercial products, services and companies.

Dedicated rules for conducting research with private companies could be a new revenue source for USM and could avoid another chocolate milk debacle.

In a commentary published today by Bloomberg View, Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels calls attention to increasing strain being placed on America’s public research universities, a fact that Daniels says has left them less well positioned to fulfill their traditional missions.

Each spring Johns Hopkins honors exceptional graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at the annual Young Investigators’ Day celebration. The day is meant to celebrate the achievement and hard work of not only the award winners, but of all Johns Hopkins’ research trainees. This year two BME PhD candidates and a BME MD PhD candidate were selected to receive distinguished awards. The awards, named after notable researchers, including many who were former faculty members or graduate students at The Johns Hopkins University, were granted in recognition of outstanding research

Precision for Medicine, part of the Precision Medicine Group, announced today that it has executed a binding agreement to acquire ACT Oncology, the leading contract research organization (CRO) specializing exclusively in the field of oncology. ACT Oncology provides drug development services focused on the design and execution of clinical trials on behalf of innovative life sciences companies and not-for-profit patient organizations.

Pharma Major Lupin Limited (Lupin) announced today that its US subsidiary, Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc. has launched its Donepezil Hydrochloride Tablets, 23 mg having received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier to market a generic equivalent of Eisai Inc’s Aricept® Tablets, 23mg.

This ranking is based on eight metrics, organized into four categories: concentration, which is the number of software developers per 1,000 workers in the metro area; prosperity, as measured by the regional price parity-adjusted average salary for developers in the area, the growth of wages from 2010-14, and job growth over the same span; talent, based on the number computer science degrees awarded per 10,000 workers, the percentage of of the over-25 population with computer or math degrees, and the replacement rate of IT degree holders in 2014; and the amount of venture capital investment per employee in 2015. Concentration received a 30% weighting with the remaining seven factors being equal at a 10% weighting. The study was conducted by BW Research Partnership for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp.

No. 6: Baltimore-Towson, MD Concentration: 13.0 software developers per 1,000 employees

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan visited United Therapeutics headquarters in Silver Spring on Thursday afternoon.

He was joined by Montgomery County Council President Nancy Floreen and Council member Tom Hucker.

Montgomery County Department of Economic Development has played an active role in the cultivation of new and innovative technologies developed in federal laboratories and academia, known as technology transfer.

Chris Vizas, Chairman of SmartSenseCom, Inc., wraps up DED’s Tech Transfer Speakers Series The term “technology transfer” entered the public lexicon in 1986 through the Technology Transfer Act. This vehicle gave promise to millions of scientists and entrepreneurs who wanted to work with these innovative and sometimes disruptive technologies to commercialize them and bring them to the marketplace.

Cydan Development, Inc. raised $31 million in Series A funding from New Enterprise Associates, Pfizer Venture Investments, Lundbeckfond Ventures, Bay City Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments. Cydan raised the capital to launch Imara, Inc., which is developing treatment for sickle cell disease.

The Tom Tom Founders Festival held a Youth Summit at the Paramount Theater Thursday to support and highlight local student innovation.

The summit featured student-led presentations and several student entrepreneurial competitions. Wes Bellamy, vice-mayor of Charlottesville, gave the keynote address, and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a bill to protect the rights of student innovators.

Maryland legislators recently approved a $42.3 billion fiscal year 2017 spending bill that incorporates many of the funding levels included in Gov. Larry Hogan’s proposal. Gov. Hogan made education a main focus of his proposal, and the final bill would hold university tuition increases to no more than 2 percent. In addition, legislators formalized the growing strategic partnership between University of Maryland campuses in Baltimore and College Park. The unification is intended to bolster the state’s research profile, and drive high-tech industries in the Baltimore region.

Cancer doctor Cassian Yee remembers how in 2010 he was called to Los Angeles to meet the Internet billionaire Sean Parker. Parker wanted Yee to help the Hollywood producer Laura Ziskin, then fighting breast cancer, with an immune-cell treatment never before used to treat that condition. “We’ll give you whatever you need, we’ll put you on an island to do it,” Parker told Yee. A few weeks later a very big check arrived by mail to buy some crucial equipment.

May 23-25, 2016 – Washington, DC

SBIR/STTR programs are the nation’s largest source of early stage / high risk R&D funding for small business. At this conference you’ll learn how to participate and compete for funding in these two programs that encourage small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) and to commercialize your technological innovations.

The fastest-growing sector in Greater Washington is business and financial services jobs, which grew by 39 percent between 2003 and 2014. And nearly 1 in 12 jobs in the region in 2014 was in information technology.

Illumina is committing $100 million over 10 years to a new venture capital firm whose investment priorities will be in line with the company’s vision.

Illumina said the new firm—to be called Illumina Ventures—will be managed independently of the sequencing giant. However, Illumina will be the majority limited partner in the firm’s first fund as a result of its commitment.

The Washington, D.C. mayor has called for a vote this year on statehood for the nation’s capital.

Speaking Friday at an event commemorating the district’s emancipation from slavery, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said, “I propose we take another bold step toward democracy in the District of Columbia,” according to the Washington Post. “It’s going to require that we send a bold message to the Congress and the rest of the country, that we demand not only a vote in the House of Representatives. We demand two senators—the full rights of citizenship in this great nation.”

You probably know Steve Case best as the man responsible for America Online. But two decades later, Case is continuing the charge to help the new generation of technology and business leaders define the critical path of Internet and innovation to become much more useful to society.

Nearly 50 new medicines are projected to be launched each year by 2020, a new report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics says. As such, a number of new drug brands will be available on the market. The majority, unsurprisingly, will be designed to treat cancer.

Much has been made of China’s efforts to close the gap between western high technology sectors, and in the case of certain spaces, to actually bridge the gap and become a global leader. In form, these efforts represent the potential – but not the inevitability – of similar outcomes in other high technology sectors. One of the sectors that has received significant interest by the Chinese government are life sciences; however, as we found in a nearly two year survey of various Chinese officials, entrepreneurs and multinationals, the unique requirements to re-create the innovative ecosystem for the life science space remain immature in China. While the potential for China to disrupt how and where life science innovation takes place globally, there are reasons to believe the country’s policies to develop domestic success stories may fall short of similar endeavors in other high technology segments such as clean-technology.

Two key supporters of Baltimore health startups are putting resources into a new accelerator.

The partnership between Johns Hopkins Tech Ventures and the Abell Foundation that earned support from Village Capital is set to develop a new health-focused startup accelerator in Baltimore.

A University of Maryland, College Park startup that makes high-nutrient coffee captured the top prize on Thursday night in Kevin Plank’s annual Cupid’s Cup entrepreneurship contest.

MEDICAL technology company BD Diagnostics is sponsoring the Manufacturing Business of the Year Award 2016 – for the third year running.

The Roborough-based firm was named Plymouth’s top manufacturer at the 2013 Herald Business Awards and has since then supported the category.

PathSensors, Inc., a leading biotechnology and environmental testing company, has relocated to the Columbus Center in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The company now occupies over 4,000 square feet of laboratory, office, and manufacturing space. The new facilities represent a space increase of more than double over the University of Maryland BioPark, where the company was previously located.

Montgomery County Department of Economic Development and Maryland Technology Development Corporation are collaborating to assist Montgomery County life sciences companies to make progress toward commercialization.

With this collaboration, Montgomery County companies selected for TEDCO’s Life Sciences Investment Fund will become automatically eligible to receive a financial supplement of $25,000 from DED’s Life Sciences IMPACT Grant Program.

GSK will be hosting a career fair at the GSK US R&D Centre at 14200 Shady Grove Road, Rockville, MD 20850.