BHI Weekly Newsletter Archives

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced the launch of the QIAsure Methylation Test, a novel CE-marked molecular diagnostic test for use in differentiating patients’ risk of developing cervical cancer.

POSITION TITLE: Chief Executive Officer

REPORTING TO: Board of Directors

THE COMPANY: TEDCO (Maryland Technology Development Corporation)

“The economic contribution to the Maryland economy of TEDCO’s five core research, technology transfer, and commercialization programs totaled almost $1 billion in 2015, generating a total of 4,358 jobs” – Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, Report on Economic Impacts of TEDCO

TEDCO was created by the Maryland State Legislature in 1998 to facilitate the transfer and commercialization of technology from Maryland’s research universities and federal labs into the marketplace and to assist in the creation and growth of technology-based businesses in all regions of the State. TEDCO is an independent organization that strives to be Maryland’s lead source for entrepreneurial business assistance and seed funding for the development of start-up companies in Maryland’s innovation economy. In Maryland and beyond, TEDCO is a resource of mentoring, funding and networking for entrepreneurs and start-ups that need guidance as they bring innovative concepts to market. TEDCO is more than an early stage funding resource. It is the hub of Maryland’s entrepreneurial network where start-ups find mentors, organizational assistance, facilities for daily operations, and a roadmap for success.

Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. (PGDx), a provider of advanced cancer genome testing products and services, today announced that co-founders Luis Diaz, MD, and Victor Velculescu, MD, PhD, have won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2016 Award in the Maryland region.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. is a global specialty pharmaceutical company, which offers specialized products to governments and healthcare providers. The company derives most of its revenue from one product, BioThrax, which is the only FDA-licensed vaccine for the prevention of anthrax disease. In 2015, about 56% of the company’s revenue came from the sale of BioThrax with the remainder coming from the sale of their other biodefense products, biosciences products, and contract manufacturing.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review Emergent’s supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) seeking approval of the manufacture of BioThrax® (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed) in Building 55, the company’s large-scale manufacturing facility. FDA has set a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) target action date of August 15, 2016.

As cities continue to invest more in smart city technologies, questions surrounding how to staff those moves can puzzle city leaders.

Martin O’Malley, the former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, suggested during remarks at the Smart Cities Innovation Summit that during his leadership — both at the city and state levels — having a chief innovation officer close to the executive was key to driving government away from the status quo and into new possibilities.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the owner and developer of the Alexandria Center for Life Science on the East Side of Manhattan, has just launched an incubator space for biotech start-ups.

The new life science laboratory and office platform, which will be called Alexandria Launchlabs, promises 15,000 s/f of space that provides “the necessary resources and collaborative environment to start transforming novel ideas into innovative, early-stage companies that develop products to improve human health.”

Join us for a thrilling evening of start-up pitches from multiple sectors in healthcare including: Services, Health IT, Biotechnology, Medical Devices and Diagnostics. Applications are still being accepted, so if you not afraid of getting nipped by one of our judges, send your information to jhausfeld@sopenet.org.

The approval of Professor Patrick O’Shea’s selection by UCC’s governing body is the first external appointment to the role in 50 years.

Most of his academic career has been at University of Maryland and elsewhere in the US, but he stays in touch with the Irish higher education system. The UCC physics graduate is a director of the Wild Geese Network of Irish Scientists, and he hosted University College Dublin president Andrew Deeks earlier this year.

We were pleased to see the interest in our recent blog on the unique number of investigators applying for and receiving NIH research project grants (RPGs). Some of you (through the blog page or through other media) have asked about whether we have similar data for our Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. We have generated analogous figures for SBIR and STTR grants, and today’s post shares this investigation of the question, “How many unique researchers are seeking SBIR/STTR funding?”

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:

• Form Correction Made for All NIH Fellowship Opportunities
• (NOT-OD-16-106) National Institutes of Health
• National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of General Medical Sciences
• Notice of NHLBI Participation in PA-16-305 “Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowship for Students at Institutions With NIH-Funded Institutional Predoctoral Dual-Degree Training Programs (Parent F30)”
• (NOT-HL-16-325)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Notice of NHLBI Participation in PA-16-306 “Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowship for Students at Institutions Without NIH-Funded Institutional Predoctoral Dual-Degree Training Programs (Parent F30)”
• (NOT-HL-16-326)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Program Announcements:

• Administrative Supplements for Research on Dietary Supplements (Admin Supp)
• (PA-16-319)
• Office of Dietary Supplements, John E. Fogarty International Center, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Cancer Institute, National Eye Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

The venture fund working to make sweetgreen and CustomInk into household names has raised more than half a billion dollars to double down on its strategy.

Rep. Steny Hoyer and other Democratic lawmakers plan to outline a broad strategy for expanding U.S. manufacturing in Baltimore on Monday, at a time when Washington has stalled on measures sought by the industry.

Merck has added a month-long Silicon Valley stay to the pot on offer for start-ups participating in the next round of its accelerator programmes in Germany and Kenya. The programmes seek to support healthcare, life science and performance materials start-ups, with a particular focus on those developing digital solutions.

The Pentagon has made an unprecedented push to cozy up with Silicon Valley over the past two years, opening satellite offices on the West Coast and Boston in an effort to import fresh insight, ideas and innovation from the private sector to the military.

Global epidemics are outrunning globally accessible containment and cures. There are now more ways to spread diseases worldwide than safe, effective ways to counter them. Biomedical stakeholders are engaged in finding solutions. Now rumored recommendations pending at a UN High Level Panel may make matters worse. Appointed by outgoing Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, the Panel is said to be preparing to release its examination of world “Access to Medicines”. Amazingly it is rumored to be encouraging international flouting of U.S. Bayh-Dole-based patent protection and producer pricing prerogatives. This inevitably will undermine our nation’s life science innovation ecosystem, effectively destroying world hopes for effective response to evolving epidemics.

The UK biotechnology sector continues to build on the success of previous years, raising an unprecedented £900m on the London Stock Exchange in 2015 and recording the highest level of venture finance in recent years, according to the latest report Money, momentum and maturity: UK biotech financing and deals in 2015/16 compiled by the UK BioIndustry Association (BIA) in partnership with Evaluate and the London Stock Exchange.

Imagine the workplace during flu season. Some people get sick and display clear symptoms—a warning sign to coworkers to avoid contact and for that individual to stay home. Others are infected, but never or only belatedly exhibit the tell-tale signs of sickness, meaning they can infect coworkers without knowing it. If healthcare professionals had the ability to test in advance whether a person is likely to spread a disease following infection, they could recommend specific measures to treat the person or limit exposure and perhaps keep an outbreak from growing into an epidemic or pandemic.

When David R. Tabatadze’s small biotechnology venture ran out of money in 2013, he almost gave up on it.

He went to pharmaceutical companies and “angel” investors, those individuals willing to put modest amounts of money into new businesses. None were interested in funding his research into potential genetic medicines.

Gaithersburg-based Novavax Inc. plans to create up to 850 new jobs as part of its planned Montgomery County expansion and will receive state and county financial assistance to support the growth, it was announced Wednesday.

The Kansas City, Mo.-based Kauffman Foundation recently released its 2016 Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship and found — to the authors seeming surprise — that the Washington, D.C. metro area topped a list of U.S. metro areas with the most growth entrepreneurship.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I trained as a physician and scientist, having received both an MD and a PhD. I did my residency in pathology and about 11 years ago I decided to make the transition from academia to industry. Since then, most of my work has been focused on immunotherapy, which is a new and very exciting area of cancer research. Nine months ago I joined MedImmune, the global biologics arm of AstraZeneca, as the head of oncology development.

Digital health technology leader WellDoc® today announced results from a real-world study designed to evaluate the feasibility and reach of using a lay coach in conjunction with BlueStar® mobile prescription therapy to provide ongoing self-management support for people living with type 2 diabetes in a primary care setting. The data were featured via a poster presented today at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) 76th Scientific Sessions, taking place now at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.

It’s no secret that one of the biggest things holding New York City’s biotech ecosystem back is lack of lab space for startups. The problem will take a broad effort to solve, not just a few buildings or incubators. But one of the city’s biggest real estate players, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, has announced a plan today to help out.

Innovation is the foundation of the 21st Century bioscience industry. It is an industry borne from scientific innovations involving techniques to understand and manage the machinery of living things. The advent of biotechnology in the 1970s, enabled work at the molecular and cellular level including moving genetic information from one living cell to another and tracing the pathways of disease. Over the last 40 years, bioscience innovation has advanced at an astonishing speed. Advances

DATE: Thursday, June 23, 2016 TIME: 8:30 a.m.

Therapeutic proteins represent a number of the currently top 10 best-selling drugs and have combined sales of almost $64 billion per year. The enormous market potential for biosimilars or biobetters has created a crowded field of developers. As a result, there is a growing emphasis on emerging analytical techniques and their lifecycle appropriate application. Industrial, federal, and academic researchers will gather to discuss available open innovation resources and technological advancements for fueling biopharmaceutical development. On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 8:30 AM join the thought leaders, policy makers, and developers of therapeutic proteins as we present current trends, ideas, and predictions on the use of open innovation biomanufacturing resources and emerging technologies.

The University System of Maryland plans to establish a $25 million fund to invest in startup companies created by students, faculty and recent graduates.

Two Fast Forward companies have been recognized as finalists. The companies are emocha Mobile Health: a mobile health platform that streamlines the continuum of care. and Sonavex Surgical; improving outcomes for surgical patients by using cutting-edge imaging technology to provide clinicians with visualization of critical data — directly at the point of care.

To be held June 23-24 2016 at the NCCOE facility located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway in Rockville.

There is a considerable body of knowledge, governance structures, tools and techniques that have been developed to address regional resilience from a physical infrastructure perspective. However, there has been little done to date to understand and address cyber resilience at a regional level. Even the definition of what constitutes regional cyber infrastructure and whether that is a useful context for examining regional resilience are open questions. As a result, a number of regional consortia, organizations, and programs have begun to focus on this regional cyber challenge and are considering options for addressing regional cyber resilience in a meaningful manner. Please join us on June 23-24 2016, for the inaugural Regional Cyber Resilience Workshop. The workshop will be held at the NCCOE facility located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway, Rockville, MD 20850.

The Maryland Department of Commerce is joining with the state’s top research universities and other life sciences partners and stakeholders to create two or more Centers of Excellence around the state to support cell, gene and regenerative therapies, as well as medical devices and 3-D printing. This partnership with The Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park will help position Maryland as a leader in commercialization and clinical translation of next-generation medicines and medical devices and ensure the state remains a leader in healthcare innovation. Additional partners include the Center for Medical Technology Policy and biotechnology, pharmaceutical, contract manufacturing, and medical device companies.

The cover of Ernst & Young’s 2016 biotech report has a picture of a parachutist and the subtitle, “Returning to Earth.” According to EY, the biotech industry has experienced explosive growth over the past few years, but that appears to have slowed in 2015. On its own, a 13 percent increase in biotech revenue looks impressive – unless it’s compared to the 18 percent increase in 2014.

Omicia has raised $23 million from Roche’s ($RHHBY) venture fund and other investors. The Series B round will support the expansion of Omicia’s NGS interpretation and reporting capabilities into new sectors, including clinical trials and life science research.

When Gabe Otte went to college, he already had an Apple internship under his belt. In undergrad, his computer-science professors told him to diversify and pick out another area to focus on so he wasn’t bored in class, so he chose biology.

The next Kendall Square just might be located in Allston.

The gritty Boston neighborhood, across the Charles from Harvard University’s main campus, is the site of various construction projects aimed at building up an innovation epicenter over the next five to 10 years. Just don’t tell Jodi Goldstein about the Kendall comparison.

Longitude Capital, an investment firm focused on venture growth investments in biotechnology and medical technology, closed its third fund, at $525m in partner commitments.

Three experts explain synthetic biology and discuss its potential to affect fields as varied as medicine, oil, agriculture, and even fragrances.

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced today $3.4 million in funding to support 48 Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF) awards representing targeted areas of promising research commercialization, including cybersecurity, energy, data analytics, unmanned systems and life sciences.

BioLogic, the Cincinnati region’s only life science incubator, is trying to turn local entrepreneurs’ ideas for improving human health into reality. Now the incubator has a new format, officially becoming a nonprofit a few weeks ago.

The incubator offers the only “wet-lab” space for lease within 100 miles, which allows startups to access expensive material and equipment typically limited to universities and hospitals.

OpGen Inc. (NASDAQ: OPGN) raised $10.4 million in a recent funding round led by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, the venture capital arm of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.

When you think about the headliners at a music festival, it’s unlikely that the first person to pop into your head would be Martine Rothblatt—the founder of Sirius XM, the one-time highest-paid female CEO in the world who made a robot clone of her wife, and the founder of the Terasem religion, which believes we’ll live forever by uploading our consciousness to the cloud. But Moogfest, a four-day citywide festival of music and technology in Durham, North Carolina, was not the average music festival. Unlike other festivals that make cursory overtures to technology, Moogfest dedicated as much time to explaining how technology influences creativity as to the creative output itself, even listing headline ‘technologists’ alongside its top-billed musical acts.

Bio-Trac®, in partnership with Montgomery College, is proud to offer graduate/post graduate level hands-on laboratory training workshops for research scientists within the Pinkney Innovation Complex for Science and Technology (PIC MC), an integrated academic, business and research campus.

For those in the health and life sciences industry, May is known as National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, more than 50 million Americans suffer from allergies, and more than 24 million Americans are affected by asthma. And while there still isn’t a known cure for these conditions, one Rockville biotechnology company is working to change that.

Greenspring Associates raised $200 million in a new fund that focuses on investing in venture capital fund limited partners and managers that in turn invest in growth-stage companies.

Qiagen is closer to completing its DKK683 million ($104 million) acquisition of Exiqon, a provider of RNA analysis solutions, but has decided to extend for a second time the offer period for Exiqon’s shares.

County Executive Isiah Leggett announced that Montgomery County is moving forward on its vision of creating a local community in East County that provides opportunities to live, work and play in a walkable, mixed use transit-oriented development. The County has reached an agreement with Global LifeSci Development Corporation (GLDC) to develop Viva White Oak, a 300-acre joint mixed use development project.

The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area is the hottest spot in the country for entrepreneurship according to a new report from the Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship. The ranking is based on a combination of how many new startups there are, how startups in the area have scaled in the course of a decade and how many companies show rapid growth. All told, D.C. easily beats out Austin, Columbus, San Jose and Nashville, the next ranked cities, and far ahead of Boston, New York or other hubs of innovation.

There’s been a lot of talk about bolstering institutions like universities as places to drive the entrepreneurship Maryland needs to become a BioHealth hub. In North Baltimore, Sinai Hospital doesn’t have a connected university, but it still sees an opportunity to turn research into startups.

Did you miss the first I-270 Bio Corridor event last month? If so, you missed out on learning about and connecting with some of the top bio and life science companies and experts as well as resource partners like REDI, the MD Department of Commerce, the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp, Frederick County Office of Economic Development, Frederick City, the City of Gaithersburg Office of Economic Development and Montgomery College.

Over 100 attendees enjoyed a happy hour and discussion of how best to help the I-270 corridor grow with more bio and life science companies at CRB’s new headquarters in Rockville.

This event was scheduled as a precursor to the BIO International Convention taking place this month in San Francisco, REDI, our I-270 Corridor partners, will be there in the Maryland pavilion with information and resources for those companies that may be looking for the perfect location for their bio and life science businesses, promoting the I-270 corridor a hub for this niche market.

When the federal government agreed to a major price hike for Nuo Therapeutics Inc.’s lead wound therapy product last October, officials at the Gaithersburg biotech felt it was the game changer they’d been waiting for.

Twenty-two finalists have been selected for the Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards.

bwtech@UMBC leads the incubator list with eight tenant companies up for awards. Previous winners include Emerging Technology Centers-based SocialToaster, Spark’s Avhana Health and Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship’s Milestone Sports.

The U.S. health care system has a tremendous need for novel high- (and low-) tech solutions to increase its quality, agility and affordability.

To meet this need, the National Science Foundation (NSF) supports research and early-stage development of novel biomedical products, processes and services.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Health and Human Services IDEA Lab are looking for a “talented, awesomely connected” entrepreneur-in-residence to shepherd creation of a new pre-certification process for IT vendors interested in working with states.

America wouldn’t be what it is today without innovation.

So says Steve Case, the entrepreneur who co-founded AOL, the company that helped introduce the public to the Internet. Now the chief executive of investment firm Revolution LLC, Mr. Case sat down with Dennis Berman, financial editor of The Wall Street Journal, to discuss the next wave of the Internet’s evolution and how midsize companies might take advantage of it.

Newly released research from the Kauffman Foundation finds that in 2016, Washington, D.C., Austin, San Jose, Columbus, and Nashville were the five highest ranked metropolitan areas for the Index of Growth Entrepreneurship. The five highest ranked states were Virginia, Utah, Maryland, Arizona, and Massachusetts. As described in the SSTI Digest last week, The Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship measures the growth of entrepreneurial businesses in the United States, complementing the foundation’s recently released Index of Startup Activity and Index of Main Street Entrepreneurship.

The Baltimore-area slipped 10 spots on a new report ranking entrepreneurship growth.

Too often, it seems, the mark of a “good” scientist is the ability to give an excruciatingly embarrassing and incomprehensible scientific presentation – the sort of presentations that litter academic conferences.

Thursday, June 23, 2016 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. • Washington, D.C.

Join the Maryland/Israel Development Center for its second annual MIDC Day at the Israeli Embassy for an exclusive networking event and interactive panel discussion.

Imagine being 15 years from the traditional retirement age and deciding to start your own company. Or deciding to enter a completely different industry—at age 60. Or spending your twenties deferring further study to find out what really drives you.

Few industries are facing as much external change as pharmaceuticals and medical products, whether it be sustained global demand and the need for drugs and devices, accelerating cost pressures on health systems, growing complexity in emerging markets, or the disruptive effect of new technologies in therapy and care provision.

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.