BHI Weekly Newsletter Archives

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.

On Thursday, April 14, 2016 from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM senior leaders and recruiters will be on site at GSK Rockville, MD to get to know you and your career aspirations.

GSK is proud to be an employer that seeks to attract and retain the most talented individuals and encourage you to visit their event portal to create your profile in order to connect with them at this event.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) and MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN, SSE: AZN, NYSE: AZN), today announced that they have entered into a licensing agreement under which Regeneron will use MedImmune’s pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD)-based warhead and linker technology to produce antibody- drug conjugates (ADCs) as potential cancer treatments.

Ted Leonsis is teaming up with Georgetown University to start the Leonsis Family Entrepreneurship Prize, seeded with a $1 million cash gift. Who can compete? Georgetown students and recent alumni with great business ideas.

Thursday, April 28th from 5 – 7 PM

BioBuzz hosts a FREE event for like-minded professionals and students to gather and network, reconnect with past coworkers, build stronger relationships and share conversations in a welcoming atmosphere.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced today that 17 companies have received over $1.7 million in funding from the organization’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) and Cyber Security Investment Fund (CIF)in the last six months. The funding will be used to advance the companies’ technology and product commercialization efforts.

With college football season in full swing, it’s easy to get caught up rating your alma mater by tallying up the win and loss columns. Between BCS rankings and March Madness, we seem to be constantly ranking our universities on achievements in athletics. Maybe we should also rank our favorite institutions of higher learning based on how they contribute to the nation’s economic growth. After all, the core aim of universities across the country is to increase the intellectual capital of society.

Startup founders will have another tool for raising early stage capital starting next month. On May 16, the SEC is allowing companies to use crowdfunding to raise money.

The greater Washington region has an accelerator problem and we have to fix it if we want to grow the next generation of technology businesses.

A business accelerator is a term used to describe a broad range of business models that share characteristics: assisting a founder form a new businesses through mentorship, partnership connections, access to related expertise (for example, how to set up a limited liability company or a sales team) and access to investors.

Nearly 40% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes, with about 1.7 million of those cases expected in 2016 in the United States (according to the National Cancer Institute). These patients are hoping for better treatments and, hopefully someday, cures. They could also be valuable resources, helping experts develop better therapies, if only staff at research centers like Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston could study their unique cases. Even patients with the same diagnosis, such as breast cancer, have different genetic makeups, both in their healthy cells and in their tumors. These differences provide clues to new genetic factors that may cause the disease, why some patients respond especially well to certain treatments, why some tumors are so resistant to treatment, and how people of different ages or ethnicities are affected.

More and more, pharma companies are making real bets in digital health, and reorganizing their businesses to put some power behind those efforts. The space is, in some ways, quieter than it was this time last year, but there’s reason to believe that quiet is a calm before a storm of activity, driven more by pharma’s tendency to keep early-stage projects close to the chest than by a lack of activity. The executives we spoke to for this report talked about initiatives with real potential for broad commercialization.

By now, we all know the varied challenges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — device tax introduction, reimbursement contraction, provider and payer consolidation, and pricing compression, just to name a few. But several years ago, the ACA’s potential impact was only speculation. We were looking into our educated crystal balls, but we didn’t have the data to see what trends would develop, or what those trends could lead to in the coming decade. Now, part of that picture is starting to take shape.

The United States ranks 1st in how its domestic policies support worldwide life sciences innovation, according to an analysis released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a global technology policy think tank. Released on World Health Day, the findings come in a new report assessing 56 countries—which together comprise close to 90 percent of the world’s economy—on the extent to which their scientific research, drug pricing, and intellectual property policies contribute to global biopharmaceutical innovation.

The United States ranks 1st in how its domestic policies support worldwide life sciences innovation, according to an analysis released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a global technology policy think tank. Released on World Health Day, the findings come in a new report assessing 56 countries—which together comprise close to 90 percent of the world’s economy—on the extent to which their scientific research, drug pricing, and intellectual property policies contribute to global biopharmaceutical innovation.

U.S. R&D investment currently accounts for 2.7% of GDP, according to the newest R&D Funding Report put out by AAAS. While the United States still invests the most dollars into R&D globally, there has been a huge uptick in investments among Asian countries. China aims to invest 2.5% of its GDP in R&D by 2020 and is also expected to catch the U.S. in real dollars invested in R&D by 2020 as well.

Eight seed accelerators — 500 Startups, Alchemist, Amplify LA, Angelpad, Chicago New Venture Challenge, MuckerLab, Techstars and Y Combinator — landed the coveted top spots in the 2016 annual Seed Accelerator Rankings announced today at South by Southwest (SXSW) by entrepreneurship and management experts from Rice University, MIT and the University of Richmond.

Group urges state support of next phase of pharmaceutical industry’s focus and growth

More often than not, when talk in New Jersey turns to the pharmaceutical industry tones turn serious and the discussion centers around whether pharma will continue to support the state’s economy in the way it has for more than a century.

Tests on a drug with the potential to stop Alzheimer’s in its tracks are being funded by raffles, pensioners’ donations and a sponsored walk – because the research team cannot find money for pre-clinical safety tests any other way.

Over the years, Microsoft has opened more than 100 Innovation Centers around the world to engage with startups, raise technological skill levels, and boost innovation. In the US, the company opened its first in 2014 in Miami, which was followed by a second one in Atlanta a year later. But Microsoft has just announced that the company is teaming with venture capital fund SeventySix Capital, innovation hub University City Science Center, and real estate investment and development company Wexford Science & Technology to open a new MIC in Philadelphia this summer.

The chief executive officer of the state’s orthopedics initiative says a new accelerator will support the “lifeblood” of the industry. Sheryl Conley says the AcceLinx Medical Device Business Accelerator from Warsaw-based OrthoWorx will provide entrepreneurs with in-house and industry partner expertise, assist with access to capital and offer working space. Conley says concepts in the orthopedics industry can take more than six years to hit the market.

Our mission: improve newborn survival and health in the developing world

We are developing cutting edge healthcare technologies for where they’re gravely needed and will have an incredible impact—vulnerable populations in low-resource countries. Annually, over 46 million newborns in developing countries around the world need interventions for complications that happen at or around birth, 600,000 in Uganda alone. Every Neopenda device has the potential to save the life of a newborn for less than $1, once it is produced at scale.

May 11, 2016 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

The MITRE Corporation McLean Campus, MITRE 2 7515 Colshire Drive McLean, VA 22102

Please join us at the MITRE Corporation on the evening of May 11, 2016, for an event that will bring together cyber technology providers, entrepreneurs, investment companies, and others interested in hearing about the latest in available cyber technologies and products.

Reasons to attend:

• Discover emerging technologies that could be game changers
• Hear pitches and get demos on innovative technologies from MITRE and other regional companies
• Learn about U.S. government’s need in the cyber domain Network with individuals, investors and companies impacting the region’s technology ecosystem

Johns Hopkins is launching an immunotherapy center for cancer research with a $125 million gift from longtime Hopkins donors Michael R. Bloomberg and Sidney Kimmel, along with other donors.

Johns Hopkins is setting its sights on an end to cancer with its new Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

Are you a local engineering firm, technology-based company, or biohealth startup? Are you a STEM-based business in the Tri-State area? The Federal Laboratory Consortium is coming to Hagerstown on April 12, 2016 to share the latest technologies and research capabilities of the federal labs. NIST, NSA, NASA, NIH, & USDA will all be at Hagerstown Community College for the Small Business Forum from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Connect with representatives from each lab and discover how you can benefit from working with their lab.

Eight small and mid-sized Montgomery County companies have been awarded ExportMD grants by the Maryland Department of Commerce to help promote their products and services in the global marketplace. The state awarded a total of 16 grants and the lion’s share went to local businesses. The companies receiving grants are: American General Supplies; Care Systems, Inc.; MagBio Genomics; Molecular Transfer, Inc.; Patton Electronics Co.; PW Communications; Rife International, LLC; and Washington Laboratories.

Ramani Duraiswami is the first person to admit that you have to try his technology to truly understand what it is.

The Alexandria Center for Life Science currently houses some of the most ambitious biotech startups in New York, not to mention some outposts for pharma companies like Roche and Pfizer. Not bad for something that, as Alexandria Real Estate Equities CEO Joel Marcus said, “was a contaminated laundry site” just a short time ago.

Johns Hopkins Medicine has performed the nation’s first liver and kidney transplants from a donor infected with HIV to recipients also infected with the virus, a triumph for one of the transplant surgeons, who fought for six years for federal approval of the life-saving surgery.

As part of the Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First), the NIH invites applications to use whole genome sequencing at a Kids First-supported sequencing center to elucidate the genetic contribution to childhood cancers, and to investigate the genetic etiology of structural birth defects. These data will become part of the Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Data Resource (Kids First Data Resource) for the pediatric research community.

GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd is looking at launching two or three combination vaccines in India in the near future, to address a host of paediatric disease. The company is also organising programmes to spread awareness about the need of vaccination among public.

There is an element of synchronicity associated with blogging at this time on my work and career path at the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA). On March 28th, I will celebrate 28 years with the Philadelphia Regional Office of EDA so in some ways, I AM living history here at DOC, part of the EDA institutional knowledge base. EDA is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2016 and I am proud to carry the torch cheerleading for and at EDA, a DOC program that has invested and leveraged billions of dollars in its role as the only federal agency focused exclusively on economic development.

The Washington-based start-up incubator known as 1776 has received a $7.2 million investment from Steve and Jean Case and others to help the for-profit consultant find and grow more small businesses throughout the world.

Leading the investment in 1776 is the Pepper Group, a technology investment firm based in Australia. Several unnamed investors also participated.

I stand, a cyborg micronaut, in front of the biggest human heart any person has ever seen.

It is Arch Obler huge, a flesh pump the size of a skyscraper, but I manipulate it with god-like facility, rotating it in midair with my hands and bisecting it with just a flick of the finger. Through ventricles and thundering aorta I dive, floating through heart chambers so enormous, they become corpuscle cathedrals.

Nearly six years after developing the first self-replicating life form with a chemically created genome, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla have cut that bacterium’s genome nearly in half. The result is a creature with a smaller genome than has ever been found in nature.

When someone with a high fever walks into a rural African clinic, diagnosis could be murky. The symptoms could be those of dengue, Ebola, West Nile disease, malaria or flu, and blood work results from distant labs, if available, often takes days. Now a handful of researchers are separately working on inexpensive, paper-based diagnostic tests that accurately pinpoint the cause of a disease in minutes and could speed up treatment and prevent its spread. The lack of funds and commercial partners however, means most might languish in labs.

The cybersecurity industry is predicted to double by 2020 and the DC metro area is the center of cybersecurity innovation in the US. Therefore it should be no surprise that the premiere accelerator for information security startups and entrepreneurs calls this area home. The accelerator is Mach37 and they’ve just announced their most recent cohort.

Physician entrepreneurs or wannapreneurs ask a lot of questions about the processes of biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship. Given their lack of training in medical school, it comes as no surprise and most have to get the information on their own. Maybe these answers to your FAQs will help:

Best Pharma Brands, a global study, identifies the biopharma companies that are addressing healthcare professionals’ (HCPs), payers’, and policy makers’ needs. The study examines what value means to HCPs and illustrates the influence the corporate brand has in conveying that value. It reveals how leading companies are beginning to deliver on what matters to HCPs.

Our mission: improve newborn survival and health in the developing world

We are developing cutting edge healthcare technologies for where they’re gravely needed and will have an incredible impact—vulnerable populations in low-resource countries. Annually, over 46 million newborns in developing countries around the world need interventions for complications that happen at or around birth, 600,000 in Uganda alone. Every Neopenda device has the potential to save the life of a newborn for less than $1, once it is produced at scale.

Join us on March 30th for an evening of networking around innovation and commercialization at the BioBuzz @ Relevant Health. Meet with the organizations fueling commercialization in Maryland – BHI & TEDCO – and mingle with the first cohort of companies in the regions newest BioHealth accelerator – Relevant Health.

The Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) was officially designated as the County’s Economic Development Organization by the County Council, marking a big and bold step toward achieving greater economic competitiveness and prosperity in Montgomery County. As the County’s new lead economic development organization, MCEDC is replacing both the County Department of Economic Development (DED) and the Montgomery Business Development Corporation (MBDC) effective July 1, 2016, as the primary point of contact for the local, regional, national and international business community.

Intralytix, Inc., announced today that the company has received a SBIR Phase II grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), to develop a bacteriophage (or phage) cocktail effective against the larval shellfish pathogens Vibrio tubiashii and Vibrio coralliilyticus. This research will be a continuation of collaborative efforts between Intralytix and Dr. Gary Richards, the Lead Scientist at the USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) laboratory in Dover, Delaware, where these phages were originally isolated and characterized. A spokesperson for the company noted that, in developing this proposed technology, Intralytix will be working closely with Dr. Chris Langdon at the Hatfield Marine Station, Oregon State University, in Newport, Oregon, and Dr. Claudia Hӓse at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University, in Corvallis, Oregon. In addition, the company will receive continuing research support from Dr. Richards’ group at the ARS USDA.

Roche Holding AG, the world’s largest producer of cancer drugs, is opening the door to more external partnerships as its latest and most promising tumor-fighting treatment heads for approval this year.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced today that 17 companies have received over $1.7 million in funding from the organization’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) and Cyber Security Investment Fund (CIF)in the last six months. The funding will be used to advance the companies’ technology and product commercialization efforts.

DATE: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 (FINAL EVENT) TIME: 3:30-5:00PM

LOCATION: Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, 111 Rockville Pike, Suite 800, Rockville, MD 20850

We would like to offer one of our best and brightest as our final speaker for the Tech Transfer Speakers Series. Launching one successful company is challenging, but founding six or more is an art. Plan to attend our final program on April 13 with one of our area’s prolific entrepreneurs. Specific points of interest and discussion will include: fundraising, launching the idea, identifying a technology that will sell, working with tech transfer officers to license the technology, and the future of innovation investment in the United States, Asia and Europe. Bring your best questions. This will be an exciting conversation!

For the last several years, Martine Rothblatt has been positioning United Therapeutics to manufacture transplantable human organs. This week, the founder and CEO of the Maryland biotech cornerstone told the state’s tech community to get ready for a new industry to sprout from the idea.

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: RNN) announced today that additional data supporting the Company’s novel, investigational anti-cancer therapeutic, Supinoxin™ (RX-5902), for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer, were presented at the 14th Annual Targeted Anticancer Therapeutics Congress (TAT 2016), held in Washington, DC March 21- 23, 2016.

SPIRIT OF INNOVATION: “We spend a lot of effort in recruitment to find the right culture fit,” says Gorkem Sevinc, CTO of emocha Mobile Health. What’s more, the solutions developed by Sevinc and his team help patients with medication and care plan adherence, a task that can literally save lives. “This drives our team to go above and beyond,” he says.

Maryland universities have ramped up efforts in recent years to help students and faculty turn their discoveries into growing businesses but lag far behind many colleges around the country in spinning off companies and pulling in millions of dollars in licensing revenue.

A Baltimore health startup is among the new class of companies entering Dreamit’s accelerator program.

Timonium-based Kermit was developed by a team that consulted for hospitals on the purchase of implantable medical devices for knees, hips and other body parts.

An investment firm targeting seed stage investment in health IT and other software startups is raising a $50 million fund, according to a report by Fortune.

Two of the investors behind Refactor Capital’s fund have worked for Google: David Lee, who also co-founded SV Angel and Zal Bilimoria, who has worked for Andreessen Horowitz.

The Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP), within the Directorate for Engineering at the National Science Foundation, announces a nationwide search to fill multiple Program Director positions for the Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program.

Formal consideration of interested applications will continue until these positions are filled.

Attempting to free people with diabetes from frequent finger-pricks and drug injections, researchers have created an electronic skin patch that senses excess glucose in sweat and automatically administers drugs by heating up microneedles that penetrate the skin.

You thought the Shark Tank was tough… wait until you enter the the first annual Maryland Crab Trap!

Submit your application to our business plan competition for a chance to be named the company with the most commercial potential at the Regional Biotech Forum and have the opportunity to win $10,000 and an incubation space! Pitch your idea to industry experts on April 19th and 5 Finalists will have the chance to win the Grand Prize. This competition will be focused on companies in the following sectors: Therapeutics, Diagnostics, Medical Devices, Healthcare Services, E-Health, Mobile Health, Electronic Medical Records, Health Informatics, and BioHealth Cyber Security.

Companies will be scored on: Product, Technical Feasibility, Marketing/Strategy, and Leadership team.

Deadline for entries is March 25th – Finalists will be announced by April 4th -Regional Biotech Forum Event: Panel Presentation is on April 18th

Apply here: crabtrap.regionalbiotechforum.com

Medical device company Senseonics Holdings Inc. raised about $45 million last week in the first Greater Washington IPO of the year.

Senseonics (NYSE: SENS) originally planned to raise about $60 million by offering 18.2 million shares at a range of $3.10 to $3.50, but ultimately lowered the proposed deal size for the IPO.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Miltenyi Biotech said they will partner to develop new cell and gene therapies through a collaboration whose value was not disclosed.

The collaboration is designed to combine GSK’s expertise in developing cell- and gene therapy–based treatments with Miltenyi Biotec’s global leadership in cell processing and related technologies in cell therapy, the companies said.

Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore CEO Thomas Sadowski has taken a high-ranking economic development position with the state’s public university system.

Sadowski, who has headed the business advocacy group known as the EAGB since 2008, is becoming the vice chancellor for economic development at the University System of Maryland. He’ll start May 2 at the public education system, which is made up of a dozen institutions with 163,000 students.

Blueprint Medicines is collaborating with Roche on the discovery, development and commercialisation of up to five targeted cancer immunotherapies, in a deal potentially worth more than $1 billion.

Baltimore health IT startup Tissue Analytics has raised $1.9 million in debt to scale up its wound analysis business.

The funding comes from unnamed investors.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 06:00pm – 09:00pm

March is Women’s History Month. To honor this special time, WIB-DC/Baltimore presents an educational event on the topic of financing with biotech entrepreneurs Wendy Perrow, M.B.A. (CEO at Alba Therapeutics) and Audra Stinchcomb, Ph.D. (CSO and Founder of F6 Pharma), who will share their knowledge and experience with funding a biotech enterprise. Entrepreneur Iris Sherman, M.B.A. (President and Cofounder of Kitchology) will serve as moderator for this discussion.

Every year TEDCO makes dozens of investments in the State’s most promising tech startups – this volume of deal flow makes TEDCO the “go to” seed stage funding source for Maryland entrepreneurs.

You may have heard about TEDCO’s TCF (Technology Commercialization Fund) and CIF (Cybersecurity Investment Fund) Programs and found yourself wondering “What are they?”, “What is TEDCO looking for?”, and “How can I maximize my chance of getting funded? – well…now help is on the way!!

Join us for an “entrepreneur only” workshop to learn how you can prepare a powerful application for these two TEDCO flagship funding programs. The first part of the workshop will cover the TCF/CIF process, application requirements and the key points every reviewer is looking for in an application. In the second half, entrepreneurs will have the chance to discuss their specific situations & questions with experienced TEDCO review committee members.

Montgomery County’s Bethesda Hyatt will be the venue for the CONNECTpreneur XVIII Forum on April 28. The event, which will be held 7:00 to 11:00 am, features a “fireside chat” with serial entrepreneur and CEO Mark Walsh.

With more than 250 CXO’s and investors, along with a strong lineup of speakers and presenters, the Big Idea CONNECTpreneur XVIII Forum is shaping up to be a record-setting event.

Virginia Bio, the premier statewide non-profit association representing life science industry in the Commonwealth of Virginia, elected Dr. Reg Seeto, Vice President, Head of Partnering and Strategy at MedImmune, the biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, as a new member of their Board of Directors for a term of three years.

Venture capitalists had a big year in Maryland in 2015.

In the fourth quarter of last year, they invested more than $451 million in 14 different Maryland companies — the largest quarter ever in the state since 2006.

While most agencies try to imitate advances in the private sector, the Department of Health and Human Services instead is emulating the process that fuels many recent innovations: startup accelerators.

The White House on Friday appointed an executive director of its Cancer Moonshot Task Force: Gregory C. Simon, a leukemia survivor with experience in government, nonprofits, and the corporate world.

Entrepreneur Vivek Garipalli has a dim view of the way health insurance companies treat providers and patients. Patients develop trust with doctors and hospitals, and he thought insurers should be the “glue” between them instead of creating friction.

Microscopic robots, powered by bacterial flagellation, are a curious branch of robotics research, potentially leading to devices that can deliver drugs, perform surgical tasks, and help out with diagnostics. While bacteria has been harnessed in the past to power small devices, having those devices actually navigate to a desired target has been a challenge. At Drexel University researchers are now using electric fields to help their bacterial biobots detect obstacles and float around them on their way to the final destination.

Johns Hopkins University graduate programs in nursing, education, medicine, and biomedical engineering remain among the best in the nation, according to the newest U.S. News & World Report rankings of “Best Graduate Schools.”

The list, released on Wednesday, moves the university’s School of Nursing master’s degree program up from a tie for second place last year to the No. 1 spot this year.

The biotech investment climate sank into deep insecurity by the close of 2015, as shown in EP Vantage‘s new “Pharma & Biotech 2015 in Review” report. The flutterings around companies raising capital, via venture capital or IPO, diminished – which invites a retrospective on the investment environment in years past. Perhaps this will help inform how cash-hungry companies will fare this year.

Whether you are talking to peers, competitors or investors, you as an active entrepreneur will be judged on your familiarity with today’s startup and funding jargon. I’m not recommending that you saturate your discussions with lingo, but responding with a blank stare once-too-often won’t convince anyone that you can build the next world-changing business or outpace the market.

Looks like ARCH Venture Partners is gearing up for its ninth fund, with aims to raise $400 million, according to a regulatory filing. The Chicago-based early stage venture firm has a deep history in tech and life sciences investments – with some notable recent plays like Illumina offshoot Grail, Harvard 3D printing spinout Voxel 8, and Doug Williams’ brainchild Codiak Biosciences.

You thought the Shark Tank was tough… wait until you enter the the first annual Maryland Crab Trap!

Submit your application to our business plan competition for a chance to be named the company with the most commercial potential at the Regional Biotech Forum and have the opportunity to win $10,000 and an incubation space! Pitch your idea to industry experts on April 19th and 5 Finalists will have the chance to win the Grand Prize. This competition will be focused on companies in the following sectors: Therapeutics, Diagnostics, Medical Devices, Healthcare Services, E-Health, Mobile Health, Electronic Medical Records, Health Informatics, and BioHealth Cyber Security.

Companies will be scored on: Product, Technical Feasibility, Marketing/Strategy, and Leadership team.

Deadline for entries is March 25th – Finalists will be announced by April 4th -Regional Biotech Forum Event: Panel Presentation is on April 18th

Apply here: crabtrap.regionalbiotechforum.com

The Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking an outstanding individual to serve as Director of the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), Office of Intramural Research, Office of the Director. The OTT provides support to the technology transfer functions of the NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) that manage the patenting and licensing of inventions made by scientists in the NIH intramural research program. The OTT is responsible for negotiating amendments to these licenses and for patent license enforcement activities. OTT also manages the administration of royalties ($138M in FY2014), which are distributed to inventors, ICs where the inventions were made, and to co-inventors under Inter-Institutional Agreements. OTT manages multiple IT systems which track the NIH invention lifecycle including data and documentation workflows. It manages the docketing of all patent correspondence from contract law firms, receiving and processing new invention disclosures, marketing of NIH licensing opportunities, central reporting of NIH-wide technology transfer data, and necessary training in the use of the centralized database. The incumbent has overall responsibility for strategic and tactical operational planning, and financial management for the OTT. The Director of OTT reports to the Deputy Director for Intramural Research, NIH.

Maryland-based biotechnology firm MaxCyte Inc Thursday said it plans to list on London’s AIM market later this month.

The company expects to be admitted to AIM March 29, and plans to raise GBP10 million on admission. It expects to have a GBP30.4 million market capitalisation.

Congratulations to Montgomery County Innovation Network Director John Korpela for receiving a service award from the Maryland Business Incubator Association on March 4 at the Germantown Innovation Center during its annual meeting. The award was presented by MBIA President Robert Snyder and recognizes John for his 12 years of service, leadership, and mentorship.

Inner Harbor is the latest site of a new Baltimore incubator.

With Harbor Launch, the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) has designated areas of office and lab space specifically for biotech and environmental startups at Columbus Center (the big building with the sails on it near Pier Five).

MedImmune has secured orphan drug designation from the the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its MEDI-551 neuromyelitis optica drug.

MEDI-551 is an anti-CD19 monoclonal antibody indicated to treat neuromyelitis optica and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders.

Every year in March, Women In Bio celebrates Women’s History Month (WHM) with events highlighting the most pressing issues for women in the biosciences/technology field. This year’s theme is “Expanding the 50-50 Challenge,” and our WIB-DC/Baltimore chapter WHM event will identify opportunities, barriers, and challenges for women who are becoming investors in their own right, as well as challenges for women entrepreneurs to access investment. On a broader note, our panel will discuss how women can identify and tackle with gender disparities in the professional environment through “investing” in their own and their female colleague’s professional goals.

Companies founded on technology licensed from Johns Hopkins University have raised $1 billion since 2010. And 90 percent of those companies are no longer in Maryland.

Christy Wyskiel, who leads Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, the university’s commercialization arm, hopes to reverse that trend with a new partnership with Village Capital and the Abell Foundation.

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, today announced it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its BD Totalys MultiProcessor and BD Totalys SlidePrep instruments.

The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) is interested in proposals to lease a bio-manufacturing facility configured to produce biologicals under cGMP conditions in compliance with FDA requirements for phase I/II clinical trials. The facility is also equipped to perform process development research, preclinical manufacturing for material necessary for IND-enabling toxicology studies, Point of Concept (POC) studies, and process demonstration in advance of GMP manufacturing. The Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility is located on the University of Maryland’s Shady Grove campus at 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD 20850.

When March 30th from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Where: Relevant Health 155 Gibbs St. #529 Rockville, MD 20850

Join us for an evening of networking around innovation and commercialization at the BioBuzz @ Relevant Health. Meet with the organizations fueling commercialization in Maryland – BHI & TEDCO – and mingle with the first cohort of companies in the regions newest BioHealth accelerator – Relevant Health.

BHI, who operates the relevant health accelerator, is an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant bio-health innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding. This is your chance to get to know some of their TEAM and Entrepreneur’s in Residence to help you bring your product to market.

This event will be TEDCO’s bi-monthly “meet the program managers” event. Take this opportunity mingle with the program managers and learn about how you can navigate through TEDCO’s funding programs. TEDCO is State’s go-to resource for funding start-ups that need guidance as they bring innovative concepts to market.

As venture capitalists focus more on bigger deals, a growing demand is developing for business accelerators and incubators to fund startups, Dreamit Ventures LLC CEO Avi Savar said Saturday at South By Southwest.

Who has the hot hand in venture capital?

To identify today’s top venture investors, CB Insights, a research firm that tracks the venture capital industry, created a data-driven list. The firm based its report on factors like connectedness, since people with access to the best information hear about hot companies first, and exits, meaning the returns generated when a start-up is sold or goes public. For exits, the firm considered the valuation and when the investor first put money into the company.

Health Wildcatters got recognized for the first time in an annual report ranking seed accelerators. It scored a Silver ranking while Healthbox attained a Gold in the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project.

Hubert Zajicek is the head of the Dallas-based Wildcatters accelerator, which has been around since 2012. It has 32 portfolio companies and is currently looking for applicants for its Fall class later this year.

South Korean venture capital companies turn their eyes to promising biotech firms overseas, looking for a vehicle to accelerate their investment goals.

KTB Network recently joined hands with three Chinese venture capital companies to invest a total of 36 billion won ($30.1 million) in the country’s biopharma company CARsgen Therapeutics. The biotech company is highly praised for its immune cell therapy platform. It is working on a new method to treat patients with glioblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma with a goal to conduct a clinical trial next year.

Becton Dickinson’s (NYSE:BDX) decision to spin off its respiratory devices into a joint venture with Apax Partners will allow it to offload an underperforming segment and concentrate on its core business of diagnostics. And the agreement also highlights the growing involvement of private equity in the medtech industry.

J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century for his numerous contributions to genomic research. In addition to his past key positions, he is founder, current chairman, and CEO of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit, research organization dedicated to human, microbial, plant, synthetic, and environmental genomic research, and the exploration of social and ethical issues in genomics.

A University of Maryland startup is among the finalists in Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s Cupid’s Cup, a competition offering a $100,000 prize of the winner.

Angel investment funding in healthcare increased in 2015, compared with the previous years, according to a new report from the Angel Resource Institute and PitchBook. The 2015 Annual Halo Report found that healthcare deals accounted for 23 percent of angel investment.

When Inova Health System announced it would create a $100 million venture fund— unveiled as part of a splashy White House event last month highlighting precision medicine investments— it was just the kind revelation Inova has gotten so good at making in the last year.

Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, arthritis—chronic conditions such as these account for 84% of health care spending. Yet many are preventable. An estimated 40% of all premature deaths can be attributed to lifestyle, such as smoking and inactivity. How can the health care system shift focus (and dollars) from acute to preventative care?

Almost every day, we see announcements about yet another “connected” product that is hailed as creating a “smarter” home environment. These types of products promise an easier, more convenient way of living, but they aren’t always connected to our lives—or all that smart.

It was one major issue U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and National Urban League President Marc Morial discussed with entrepreneurs Monday.

Pittsburgh-area entrepreneurs will soon have another funding option for growing early phase startup companies.

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has thrown its support behind the creation of a $100 million venture capital fund, which will help meet a need for early stage business startup capital in the Pittsburgh area. Philadelphia-based SG3 Ventures anticipates awarding its first round of funding in about a year, according to Brian McVeigh, vice president of worldwide business development transactions and investment management at GSK.

For the last few years, the spotlight in start-up investing has largely shone on those who poured money into a company when it was already well along on a growth path. It turns out that spotlight may have been misdirected.