BHI Weekly Newsletter Archives

Relevant Health, a newly launched innovative health technology startup accelerator focused on bringing products to market, announced that it is now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class. Additionally, the accelerator launched its website and the portal to its streamlined application process. U.S. and international startups are encouraged to apply.

Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. The new accelerator will be based out of a brand-new cowork space in the Rockville Innovation Center, centrally located in the heart of the Montgomery County (Maryland) life sciences corridor. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to the cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem.

Baxalta Incorporated, a $6 billion global biopharmaceutical leader dedicated to delivering transformative therapies to patients with orphan diseases and underserved conditions, has completed the acquisition of the Oncaspar (pegaspargase) portfolio from Sigma-Tau Finanziaria S.p.A.

The acquisition includes Oncaspar, an important biologic treatment for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the novel investigational biologic calaspargase pegol, and established global clinical and commercial resources. Baxalta previously announced plans to acquire the portfolio for approximately $900 million.

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, and the University of Sheffield announced today that they have entered into a multi-project research collaboration to generate breakthrough research in cell factory technology, the process by which living cells can be controlled and manipulated to make specific proteins with therapeutic benefits.

As part of the five-year collaboration, MedImmune will provide funding and in-kind contributions to support University of Sheffield post-doctoral and doctoral research projects to address key challenges in cell engineering. The aim is to produce tools to ensure that manufacturing success is “designed in” from a much earlier stage than occurs with current screening-based strategies, to improve the development and production of biologic medicines. The collaboration will focus on harnessing expertise from both MedImmune and the world-leading group in the University’s Advanced Biomanufacturing Centre to advance research specifically in mammalian cell factories.

Vaxin Inc. today announced that it has added key patents to its expanding Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio. The clinical stage vaccine and immunotherapeutics company confirmed that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for two patents that protect important elements of its Densigen platform technology for immunotherapeutic treatment of Hepatitis B virus infection, and its RespirVec non-invasive adenoviral vector influenza vaccine. The patents include U.S. Application Serial No. 13/977,265 (the ‘265 application) entitled “Fluorocarbon-Linked Peptide Formulation”, and U.S. Application Serial No. 13/426,037 (the ‘037 application) entitled “Rapid and Prolonged Immunologic-Therapeutic”.

A Notice of Allowance is issued after the USPTO makes a determination that a patent can be granted from an application. Vaxin now has 37 patents protecting its products in 13 countries.

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:Notices:

• Request for Information (RFI): Inviting Comments and Suggestions on the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program (the National Children’s Study Alternative)
• (NOT-OD-15-117) National Institutes of Health

Request for Applications:

• Collaborative Projects to Accelerate Research in Organ Fibrosis (R01)
• (RFA-HL-16-003)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Application Receipt Date(s): October 22, 2015 and October 21, 2016, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
• Sickle Cell Disease Implementation Consortium (SCDIC): Using Implementation Science to Optimize Care of Adolescents and Adults with Sickle Cell Disease (U01)
• (RFA-HL-16-010)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Application Receipt Date(s): November 12, 2015
• Data Coordinating Center for Sickle Cell Disease Implementation Consortium (SCDIC): Using Implementation Science to Optimize Care of Adolescents and Adults with Sickle Cell Disease (U24)
• (RFA-HL-16-011)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Application Receipt Date(s): November 12, 2015
• Facile Methods and Technologies for Synthesis of Biomedically Relevant Carbohydrates (U01)
• (RFA-RM-15-007)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Application Receipt Date(s): October 15, 2015
• Novel and Innovative Tools to Facilitate Identification, Tracking, Manipulation, and Analysis of Glycans and their Functions (R21)
• (RFA-RM-15-008)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Application Receipt Date(s): October 15, 2015
• Novel and Innovative Tools to Facilitate Identification, Tracking, Manipulation, and Analysis of Glycans and their Functions (U01)
• (RFA-RM-15-009)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Application Receipt Date(s): October 15, 2015

Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.

I’m a huge fan of R&D collaborations between pharma and academia, so I should be thrilled by Sanofi’s latest tie-up with seven top-tier centers – so why do I have mixed feelings?

On first glance, there’s a lot to like: Sanofi has committed $2.4M per year to seven top centers, including Johns Hopkins, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Columbia, to fund about 20-25 seed projects annually, with no strings attached and a wide-open scope. Who knows what will emerge – but it won’t take much for this to look like a pretty good investment for Sanofi.

The truism about biopharma being a global industry has never been truer than when it comes to the top 20 IPOs for the first half of this year.

The U.S. had exactly half of the therapeutic, diagnostics, and tools/tech IPOs that were completed or began trading their first shares on public markets during January-June 2015. The rest of the world accounted for the other half, with Europe being home to seven of the 10 ex-U.S. top IPOs, followed by China, Canada, and Bermuda with one each.

Jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) represent some of the best opportunities for workers in today’s economy. The work can be rewarding as well as coming with high pay and good benefits (like a 401(k) and health insurance). Diversity in STEM, however is a problem, one that has captured the attention of CEOs like Jeff Bezos and policymakers including the president himself.

Synthetic Biologics, Inc. (nyse mkt:SYN), a clinical-stage company focused on developing therapeutics to protect the microbiome while targeting pathogen-specific diseases, today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of shares of its common stock. All of the shares in the offering are to be sold by Synthetic Biologics. The Company intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15 percent of the share amount sold to cover over-allotments, if any. The offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.

The White House is getting ready to honor five years since the creation of Challenge.gov — the central web portal for government competitions intended to spur innovation and solve problems — with a forward-looking celebration.

Touting the $72 million in prizes awarded across 400 challenges in the last five years, the Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a special event this fall that will highlight some of the major breakthroughs and civic issues solved through the program.

The University of Maryland students who join the Startup Shell incubator are all working hard to turn their ideas into successful businesses. As the new executive director of Startup Shell, 20-year-old Chris Szeluga is working just as hard to help make that possible. Now in his third year at UMd, the finance major has been involved in helping grow Startup Shell since it began, during his freshman year. His new role puts a new responsibilities on him though, making Startup Shell rather more than just a club or hobby.

“I consider Startup Shell to be pretty much my full-time job,” Szeluga said. “I definitely spend at least 30 to 40 hours a week working on it in some way.”

Venture-backed biotechs continue their blistering pace of funding. According to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), with data from Thomson Reuters, over $2.1B was invested in biotech companies in 2Q 2015, bringing the year to date total to almost $4B(covered here, here). Four of the last five quarters are amongst the largest record-setting quarters in ten years.

It’s one of the best periods for biotech funding in the history of the industry, offering an opportunity for emerging companies to scale and develop their pipelines more significantly than ever before.

It is no secret that 2015 has been a highly active year for deal-making in the life science space. However, what is often overlooked is exactly where in the space those deals are taking place. Life Science Nation’s financing rounds database contains detailed information on over 250 of these rounds that have taken place since January 1 of 2015. We track this data from a variety of sources however as many companies and investors chose not to disclose this information this should be viewed as a sample of the entire data set of financings. With this article will highlight what our data tells us about the rounds that have taken place thus far in 2015 for therapeutics companies around the globe.

Johns Hopkins University tops the list of private, non-government employers in the Baltimore region, although three of the top five Baltimore-area employers are health systems — an unsurprising fact given that most workers in the Baltimore area are in health care or education.

Health care and education employees make up 19 percent of workers in the Baltimore area, more than any other supersector, according to May data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, there are large employers of many different industry types in the Baltimore area. Subscribers can check out the full list here.

The shift from fully integrated pharmaceutical companies (FIPCOs) to virtually integrated pharma companies (VIPCOs) has made biopharmas more reliant on external R&D. Often, that external R&D comes from startups nurtured through the venture funds of biopharma giants.

This year’s List offers three significant changes since last year’s ranking of corporate venture funds. One is the exclusion of Novo Ventures and Novo Seeds from the list, since the funds do not invest for the benefit for Novo Nordisk, but for its holding company Novo A/S.

Bioscience companies up to 7 years old can now apply for state funding that was formerly available only to younger companies.

BioInnovation Connecticut, managed by Connecticut Innovations, a state financing entity, invests in bioscience companies to speed the path to commercialization through its CT Bioscience Innovation Fund. Until July 1, only companies 3 years old and younger were eligible to apply, said Margaret Cartiera, vice president and fund manager for BioInnovation CT.

Since Medicaid’s creation in 1965, it’s become the largest health insurer in the country, covering more than 70 million Americans. Initially covering only poor, single parents and their children, the program now also offers government-subsidized insurance to disabled people, able-bodied adults without kids and some elderly.

The program’s expansion may slow down a bit, but it’s not likely to stop anytime soon, and there’s a whole lot of reform going on, along with major shifts in coverage.

It was Coney Island in the early 1900’s. Beyond the Four-Legged Woman, the sword swallowers, and “Lionel the Lion-Faced Man,” was an entirely different exhibit: rows of tiny, premature human babies living in glass incubators.

Barkers, including a young Cary Grant, called out to passersby, enticing visitors to come see the preemies.

Researchers who are developing miniature models of human organs on plastic chips have touted the nascent technology as a way to replace animal models. Although that goal is still far off, it is starting to come into focus as large pharmaceutical companies begin using these in vitro systems in drug development.

“We are pretty excited about the interest we get from pharma,” says Paul Vulto, co-founder of the biotechnology company Mimetas in Leiden, the Netherlands. “It’s much quicker than I’d expected.” His company is currently working with a consortium of three large pharmaceutical companies that are testing drugs on Mimetas’s kidney-on-a-chip. At the Organ-on-a-Chip World Congress in Boston, Massachusetts, last week, Mimetas was one among many drug and biotechnology firms and academic researchers showing off the latest advances in miniature model organs that respond to drugs and diseases in the same way that human organs such as heart and liver do.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) awards a two-year $19.7M contract to Emergent Biosystems (NYSE:EBS) to develop and manufacture cGMP (current good manufacturing practice) lots of three Ebola monoclonal antibodies in CHO (Chinese hamster ovary) cell lines at a scale of 2,000 liters.

Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ: UTHR) today announced a collaboration to build and operate a lung restoration center on the Mayo campus. The goal is to significantly increase the volume of lungs for transplantation by preserving and restoring selected marginal donor lungs, making them viable for transplantation. The restored lungs will be made available to patients at Mayo Clinic and other transplant centers throughout the United States.

The Francis Crick Institute, the UK’s newest biomedical research facility, and GSK, the UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, are to partner on an open innovation collaboration exploring new avenues of medical research and drug discovery across a broad range of diseases, with a view to achieving breakthroughs in the understanding of human disease.

This is the first collaboration to be established between the Crick and a pharmaceutical company.

We are excited to be returning to Growlers in Gaithersburg this month for BioBuzz MoCo with our Sponsor Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), a TEDCO program, as we host one of their “Meet TEDCO Program Managers Happy Hour“. The networking event will feature a short presentation followed by happy hour allowing you to network with program managers and your peers. MII is designed to foster the transition of promising technologies with significant commercial potential from the Maryland academic research institutions: Johns Hopkins, Morgan State, and University of Maryland College Park, Baltimore and Baltimore County campuses. The program is designed to promote commercialization of research conducted in the partnership universities and to leverage each institution’s strengths.

Johns Hopkins works not only to foster startups whose products have the potential to improve the well-being of people all over the world, but also to produce savvy investors with business acumen and a strong sense of market dynamics.

Earlier this year, a team of Johns Hopkins University graduate student investors-in-training won the Entrepreneurs’ Choice award at the 2015 mid-Atlantic regional final of the Global Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), during which judges evaluate the competencies of teams of student venture capitalists.

William (Brit) Kirwan has been a top university administrator over nearly three decades of vast change in higher education.

During that time he’s seen the rise of online learning, a change in the funding dynamic of public colleges, an increased emphasis on obtaining a college education and much, much more. The 77-year-old Kirwan retired last month from his 13-year chancellorship of the University System of Maryland.

Symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease include tremor, muscle stiffness, and slowed movement that make it difficult to execute such simple tasks as holding an eating utensil steady, and patients currently have few options for relief outside of a hospital or clinic. Some medications can help, but over time they tend to become less effective. To give Parkinson’s patients another in-home option, a research team of Johns Hopkins University graduate students have invented a headband-shaped device that delivers noninvasive brain stimulation to help suppress symptoms.

Last fall, David Narrow and his colleagues reached a critical juncture in the development of their fledgling medical technology company, Sonavex. As Narrow puts it, their brainchild needed nurturing, and a suitable—and affordable—environment for it to happen in.

The company’s core concept, he says, was worth the TLC. Narrow and Johns Hopkins Hospital plastic surgeon resident Devin O’Brien Coon, who met while studying in Johns Hopkins’ biomedical engineering graduate program in the Whiting School’s Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, had identified a clinical problem that needed addressing. Each year, more than 550,000 people in the United States undergo medical procedures—soft-tissue reconstruction, organ transplants, bypass surgeries—in which arteries or veins are surgically connected, exposing the patient to the risk of a blood clot. Detecting the clot in a timely manner, before it blocks the vessels and leads to catastrophic complications, becomes paramount. What’s needed, Narrow says, is a real-time clot-monitoring device that can be used by nurses post-surgery.

The May 15 groundbreaking ceremony for Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures’ new FastForward East location at 1812 Ashland Ave. was about more than just the much-needed additional space the new location will provide the innovation hub.

The ceremony represented the robust growth of the Johns Hopkins innovation culture that is driving economic development in Baltimore, and it signified Baltimore’s strong prospects for becoming a home for tech-savvy companies, offering a wide range of new jobs to Baltimore residents and cultivating a booming, technology-based economy.

American companies continued to attract eye-watering sums of money from venture capitalists in the last quarter, according to a report released Friday.

U.S. firms picked up more than $17 billion in 1,189 deals through the second quarter of 2015, the highest amount since 2000, according to the report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, which is based on data from Thomson Reuters.

Sharath Mekala’s two-person tech startup isn’t a textbook government contractor.

Village Defense, spawned through a startup incubator called 1776, develops a free app that lets neighbors send real-time alerts to one another if they notice suspicious activity. A premium version, which costs $125 a month, is designed for homeowners associations.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 10:00am – 12:30pm

Throwing a perfect pitch to potential investors is a skill. Learn how to develop a concise description of your business along with some tips for presenting it. This is an interactive workshop where you will have the opportunity to present and pitch. Fee: $25.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 04:30pm – 06:30pm

Dr. Gordon Dammann, DDS, founder of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine (NMCWM), will be available to discuss the importance of Frederick both strategically and medically in the Civil War. He will also offer a brief history of the NMCWM. The museum exhibits will be open to visit during the event.

July 14-15, 2015 – Bethesda, MD

MedCity ENGAGE has quickly become a destination for fresh thinking and the latest solutions for patient engagement and healthcare delivery. That’s due in large part to speakers who are both established and up-and-coming leaders, and includes those in the trenches of healthcare.

Here are just some of the ENGAGE speakers, who will cover an array of topics that will make you better able to implement your own patient engagement solutions.

Trophogen, Inc., a U.S.-based emerging biotechnology company founded in 2001, today announced that it was awarded the second year of its Phase 2 Fast Track component of $756,000 for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop novel VEGF analogs for targeted imaging of undifferentiated thyroid cancer. The two principal investigators, Dr. Mariusz W. Szkudlinski, Vice-President & CSO and Dr. Bruce D. Weintraub, President and CEO, have now brought their total NIH and FDA highly competitive SBIR funded grants to 10 for a total of nearly $10 million.

The Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea announced an agreement with industry partners, Marathon Oil Corporation, Noble Energy Inc. and AMPCO, to sponsor the clinical development of Sanaria® PfSPZ Vaccine against malaria, including a series of clinical trials from 2015 until 2018.

Malaria is one of the leading causes of infant and childhood mortality in the world, particularly in Africa. The World Health Organization estimated that in 2013 there were 198 million clinical cases and 584,000 deaths caused by malaria, primarily by Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Malaria directly reduces the Gross Domestic Product of African countries by at least 1 percent annually. This economic impact is estimated based on lives lost, healthcare costs, reduced learning capabilities by students, loss of worker productivity, and a range of other factors.

Baltimore gene analysis firm Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. has raised $4.32 million in a larger financing round underway.

The new funding is a convertible note that is part of a Series A financing round the company expects to complete later this year. Officials declined to give details about investors, the total amount the company seeks to raise or a timeline for closing the round.

Southern Research has been awarded a seven-year contract of up to $22 million to support research that could contribute to the cure of HIV disease. Under this contract, Southern Research will develop and standardize assays that quantitate latent reservoirs of HIV.

“This is a revolutionary area in HIV research that is opening up new avenues for us in infectious diseases,” said Southern Research President and CEO Art Tipton, Ph.D. “It supports our 24-year legacy in HIV drug discovery and development for government and pharmaceutical clients.”

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) and Guidepoint today announced BD & Guidepoint Mentor, a new program providing selected start-up healthcare companies with free access to Guidepoint’s expert network services.

BD is currently mentoring several start-ups that are developing cutting-edge technologies to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes and, with the help of a dedicated Guidepoint research manager, each start-up entrepreneur will be able to directly engage with industry experts across the entire healthcare ecosystem, gaining insights that help them shape their strategic plans.

GlaxoSmithKline is bringing on board the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Centre to work on a programme aimed at eradicating cancer stem cells to treat leukaemia and other diseases.

The bench-to-bedside project is part of GSK’s Discovery Partnerships with Academia programme, where academic partners become core members of drug-discovery teams to expedite promising basic research into drug discovery and development.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has provided critical contributions to critical challenges with systems engineering and integration, technology research and development, and analysis. Our scientists, engineers, and analysts serve as trusted advisors and technical experts to the government, ensuring the reliability of complex technologies that safeguard our nation’s security and advance the frontiers of space. We also maintain independent research and development programs that pioneer and explore emerging technologies and concepts to address future national priorities.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly today in favor of a bipartisan bill that would speed the development of lifesaving drugs and medical devices and provide additional funding for biomedical research.

The bill, called the 21st Century Cures Act, includes provisions that attempt to make the drug approval process less unwieldy and also calls for an additional $8.75 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health. The bill passed by a 344-77 vote on Friday morning; it now moves to the Senate.

Learn about the Target Product Profile (TPP) – a tool used by many biomedical innovators to define, stage, and allocate resources to different aspects of product development work, to frame discussions with stakeholder groups, and to track regulatory interactions and milestones.

Ask questions via the chat window during the live event!

Dina Link may not be a household name, but she holds one of the most important jobs in the American economy: high school science teacher. At Northwest High School in Germantown, Md., she helps mold the next generation of scientists so that they can compete for jobs in an economy dominated by science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

The Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Health System is now accepting proposals for its “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition. Two top prizes of $50,000 each will be awarded to the winning presentations at the Third Annual Pediatric Surgical Innovation Symposium in October.

The competition invites proposals from innovators – researchers, entrepreneurs, clinicians, and patient families – who have identified a significant, yet unmet medical device need within the pediatric population. For competition details, click here.

Secretary of Commerce Mike Gill is looking for an energetic and focused individual to lead the State’s activities in the life sciences arena. This is a highly collaborative role. Its objective is to advance Maryland as the premier center for biotechnology innovation and entrepreneurial vitality in the nation. The position is based within the Department of Business and Economic Development, and reports to the Managing Director of Business and Industry Sector Development.

We are excited to be returning to Growlers in Gaithersburg this month for BioBuzz MoCo with our Sponsor Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), a TEDCO program, as we host one of their “Meet TEDCO Program Managers Happy Hour“. The networking event will feature a short presentation followed by happy hour allowing you to network with program managers and your peers. MII is designed to foster the transition of promising technologies with significant commercial potential from the Maryland academic research institutions: Johns Hopkins, Morgan State, and University of Maryland College Park, Baltimore and Baltimore County campuses. The program is designed to promote commercialization of research conducted in the partnership universities and to leverage each institution’s strengths.

This morning as the House considers H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, more than 100 patient groups and organizations are voicing their support for the bill’s Innovation Fund to help boost research and support scientists. Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) has led this effort for a year and a half, keeping patients at the forefront from the beginning. Speaking in support of the bill last night, Upton said, “There is not a single person in this chamber or watching at home today who has not been touched by disease in some way. And it’s time we did something about it.” H.R. 6 is that something. The patient groups listed below voiced their opposition to any attempts to undermine these investments.

Tuesday, July 14th, 12 p.m. ET

In Silicon Valley, Big Data drives decisions. In health care, half the country runs on paper charts. In Silicon Valley, the biggest tech companies collaborate to drive innovation. In health care, applications barely talk to each other.

According to athenahealth EVP and COO, Ed Park, that needs to change. In this special webinar event, he’ll discuss:

Relevant Health, a newly launched innovative health technology startup accelerator focused on bringing products to market, announced that it is now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class. Additionally, the accelerator launched its website and the portal to its streamlined application process. U.S. and international startups are encouraged to apply.

Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. The new accelerator will be based out of a brand-new cowork space in the Rockville Innovation Center, centrally located in the heart of the Montgomery County (Maryland) life sciences corridor. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to the cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem.

MedCity ENGAGE has quickly become a destination for fresh thinking and the latest solutions for patient engagement and healthcare delivery. That’s due in large part to speakers who are both established and up-and-coming leaders, and includes those in the trenches of healthcare.

Here are just some of the ENGAGE speakers, who will cover an array of topics that will make you better able to implement your own patient engagement solutions.

Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland, College Park, will this month open a shared $30 million high-power data center.

The 3,786-square-foot facility, called Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center (MARCC) will be used by researchers from the two universities for work involving big data and is expected to be fully functional by the end of July. The facility, located near Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, was paid for with $30 million in state funding. Hopkins and University of Maryland will share ongoing costs for maintenance, staffing and power.

While we’ve seen how 3D printing has dramatically revolutionized the medical industry by allowing surgeons to print replicas of organs and their surrounding areas in order to better understand them before an actual surgical procedure, the next evolutionary step is to look into 3D printing the organs themselves to replace a patient’s existing failing organ.

Chancellor of the University System of Maryland William “Brit” E. Kirwan is serving his last day of his 13-year tenure Tuesday before Robert L. Caret takes over on July 1.

Caret is returning to Maryland after serving as president of the University of Massachusetts system. He was president of Towson Univeristy from 2003 to 2011.

Montgomery County Department of Economic Development offers a program that provides free one-on-one business assistance to entrepreneurs, business owners, and start-ups.

A business development specialist will be available at locations throughout Montgomery County to meet directly with business owners. Experts will provide information about county financial initiatives and other programs, make introductions and identify the connections your business needs.

This program is open to any entrepreneur and/or business located within Montgomery County. Montgomery County works hard to support local businesses and has a variety of resources including industry sector experts in IT, cybersecurity, life sciences, green, international, government contracting, and more. Support is also available for navigating the county procurement and Local Small Business Reserve Program.

REDI…SET…WATCH…5 Questions with Michael Stiefvater, Business Development Manager at Rockville REDI

The University of Maryland is part of the reason that Maryland, as a state, is producing some really innovative entrepreneurial talent. Their student-run incubator and co-working space Startup Shell (shell, because the UMD mascot is the Terrapin -very clever, guys), which opened in 2012, is home to a lot of really interesting student-led projects. Most of the startups focus on students’ issues or problems related to fields that students are studying.

Has your lab had a successful technology partnership or program experience with its state or local government office? If so, we want to hear about it! The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is now accepting submissions for its 2015 edition of the Federal Laboratories & State and Local Governments: Partners for Technology Transfer Success publication.

The goal of this publication is to highlight the value that state and local government entities can obtain for their regions by forming strategic partnerships with federal laboratories. Federal labs play a significant role in creating technology-based regional economic development. The State & Local Government (S&LG) publication works to raise awareness about the impact federal labs can have on their surrounding areas.

Innovator of the Year was created in 2002 to honor Maryland businesses and/or individuals who have had a positive effect and tremendous impact in Maryland.

To nominate someone for this prestigious award, please submit a short description addressing how your nominee meets the criteria.

Nominations are due July 10, 2015.

A process that accelerates the separation of bacteria could be the answer to the food industry’s prayers.

Food contamination, which refers to the presence of unwanted chemicals and bacteria in food, has been plastered across the news lately. Dozens of products have been recalled in the past 60 days. For example, Blue Bell Creameries had a massive recall of all ice cream products due to an April listeria outbreak, according to the FDA’s website.

Over the past two weeks, in their respective FY 2016 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies appropriations bills (known as Labor-H), House and Senate appropriators have shown support for biomedical research funding by recommending NIH budget levels higher than even the Administration had requested. But controversy still reigns over other parts of the bill, particularly patient-centered outcomes research associated with the Affordable Care Act.

eHealth Initiatives’s iTHRIVE Innovation Challenge, August 12-13 in Washington DC, is a competition and event that convenes business leaders, government officials, innovators, investors and promising entrepreneurs looking to shape how health technology can improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare. The Challenge invites startups from around the world to submit proposals that tackle healthcare system problems head-on, focusing on three critical areas of the eHealth Initiative 2020 Roadmap: consumer-oriented health IT; population health management; and interoperability between providers, payers and across the delivery system.

If you have an idea about how health technology can improve the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare, notice gaps in the system that offer easy fixes, or wish to share your vision for better healthcare delivery, join the competition and the conversation.

External models of R&D innovation are the rage in Pharma today, as they should be – the future of our industry depends on a great deal more rather than less collaboration.

In a very healthy way, lots of experiments are being done across the ecosystem and the final scorecard for what worked and what didn’t is years from being tallied up; however, the early biomarkers are positive and it’s a widely-held belief that a critical element of exceptional R&D organizations in the future will be creative BD engagement. In short, great BD and R&D are becoming synonymous with each other.

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest: Notices:

Notice of Correction to PAR-15-280 “Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV/AIDS and Aging (R01)”(NOT-AG-15-009) National Institute on Aging Notice of Correction to PAR-15-282 “Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV/AIDS and Aging (R21)”(NOT-AG-15-011) National Institute on Aging Program Announcements:

Pre-application: Opportunities for Collaborative Research at the NIH Clinical Center (X02)(PAR-15-286) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): December 15, 2015; December 15, 2016; December 15, 2017, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization. Opportunities for Collaborative Research at the NIH Clinical Center (U01)(PAR-15-287) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): April 11, 2016; April 11, 2017; April 11, 2018, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.

AstraZeneca has joined forces with the University of Cambridge for three more joint schemes designed to develop the next generation of world-class scientists.

The schemes will support more than 80 PhD scholarships and eight clinical lectureships over the next five years spanning translational science, basic and clinical research.

Proteus Digital Health won FDA approval for what the company calls “the only device with an FDA-sanctioned claim for measuring medication adherence.” Proteus technology, the development of which we’ve been covering for a number of years now, uses tiny injestible sensors attached to drug tablets and a patch that can detect when they’ve been swallowed. The patch then uses its built-in Bluetooth antenna to share when every pill was swallowed with the matching smartphone app, which in turn passes the readings to family, caretakers, and the patient’s physician.

When Milton Wright III got his third cancer diagnosis, he cried until he laughed. He was 20 and had survived leukemia twice before, first when he was eight and again as a teen. Each time he’d suffered through years of punishing chemotherapy.

But now he had checked himself in to Seattle Children’s Hospital. An aspiring model, he had taken a fall before a photo shoot and found he couldn’t shake off the pain in his ribs. When the doctors started preparing him for a spinal tap, he knew the cancer was back. “I said, Oh, man, they are going to tell me I relapsed again,” he recalls. “They’re going to give me my six months.”

The State Entrepreneurship Index tracks core trends and reflects states’ entrepreneurship environments, growth in business formation and technological innovation. Each state index is calculated by comparing five key economic components and determining how much their performance deviate above or below the “median state,” which is assigned a value of 1.0.

Medicare and Medicaid, the two mainstays of government health insurance, turn 50 this month, having made it possible for most Americans in poverty and old age to get medical care. While the Affordable Care Act fills the gap for people who don’t qualify for help from those two programs, there are important improvements still needed in both Medicare and Medicaid.

At the time the two programs were enacted in July 1965, advocates of Medicare, which today covers 46 million Americans over the age of 65 and nine million younger disabled people, expected that it would expand to cover virtually all Americans. Although polls between 1999 and 2009 showed consistent majorities in favor of expanding Medicare to people between the ages of 55 and 64 to cover more of the uninsured, it never happened.

Scientists may apply online until September 22, 2015 at http://www.openinnovationinscience.at for the ‘Lab for Open Innovation in Science’ continuing studies programme taking place in Vienna.

Health sciences’ two greatest challenges are the lack of incentives for investigating new research questions and the complexity of current research findings, according to a recent survey of international researchers and scientists conducted by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG). These findings provided the impetus for launching the LBG’s Tell us! crowdsourcing project in their Open Innovation in Science initiative. This initiative invites patients, families, and professionals to actively contribute to the development of scientific research questions in the field of mental illness. Findings from this unique research approach will impact the world’s first educational programme for the application of Open Innovation in science, known as ‘Lab for Open Innovation in Science’ (LOIS).

Chinese investment in the Puget Sound region is about to go beyond real estate.

A Chinese venture capital group wants to open an office in the Seattle area so it can invest in the region’s tech and biotech industries, the director of the city of Seattle’s economic development office Brian Surratt confirmed Wednesday.

The corridor between NYC and Washington DC is rich in life science talent, technical know-how and business development expertise. Although many regions throughout the country vie to attract talent and capital, the unique ecosystems that exist in the east coast’s major metropolitan cities, including Washington DC, New York, and Boston, mean that health tech founders can immediately access resources and build the strategic partnerships to support their rapid growth.

This event will focus on New York City and Washington, DC, two key areas offering a number of advantages for health tech founders. The event will be an opportunity to learn from people leading region-wide initiatives in NYC and Washington DC as well as network with peers building health technology startups. Come join us to learn more about unique opportunities and funding in the NYC and DC regions focused on supporting the transformation of healthcare.

Come to this information breakfast to learn about Relevant Health, the new accelerator now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class!

Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to a cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem. The accelerator will be located in the Rockville Innovation Center.

Relevant Health, a newly launched innovative health technology startup accelerator focused on bringing products to market, announced that it is now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class. Additionally, the accelerator launched its website and the portal to its streamlined application process. U.S. and international startups are encouraged to apply.

Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. The new accelerator will be based out of a brand-new cowork space in the Rockville Innovation Center, centrally located in the heart of the Montgomery County (Maryland) life sciences corridor. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to the cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem.

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2015 8:30 am – Institute for Bioscience & Biotechnology Research (IBBR)

Manufacturing Science Analytics: Predictors of Biotherapeutic Product Quality

Industrial, federal, and academic researchers will gather to discuss the current trends in process modeling and its relation to the biotherapeutic “fingerprint.” On Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 8:30 am join the thought-leaders, policy-makers, and creators of biosimilars as we present current trends, ideas, and predictions.

The Washington DC/Baltimore chapter of Women In Bio invites you to our July 8, 2015, networking happy hour, hosted by our newest sponsor BioHealth Innovation Inc. in Rockville, Maryland. We will be welcomed by Mr. Richard Bendis, Founder, President and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, Inc., followed by an evening of networking. Please come out and meet our new and exciting professionals from the DC/MD/VA area and learn more about the burgeoning biohealthcare industry in Maryland. Numbers are limited – register early!

MedCity ENGAGE is an executive-level event featuring the most innovative thinking from payers, providers, policymakers, health IT and beyond to highlight best-in-class approaches to one of the biggest challenges in healthcare: patient engagement. It will feature speakers discussing the current attempts to innovate in care delivery and reimbursement, along with the innovations that will form the backbone of technological infrastructure.

United Therapeutics Corp., one of the region’s largest bioscience firms, is planning a major expansion of its Silver Spring campus with plans to hire about 100 employees in the next three to six years.

The publicly traded firm, with about 200 D.C.-area employees and $340 million in net income in 2014, wants to develop a six-story building at the southwest corner of Spring Street and Colesville Road connecting to its existing corporate presence in the immediate area. The 121,724-square-foot building, to include new office, lab and retail space, would be developed on the site of what is now a Montgomery County-owned, three-story parking garage that is under contract for sale to United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR).

Bayer HealthCare and Johns Hopkins University entered into a five-year collaboration to develop ophthalmic therapies that target retinal diseases. They will work together on discovery and development of drugs for treatment of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, among others.

BioBuzz is an ongoing monthly networking group of professionals from all sectors of the Biotech/Pharma/Life-sciences industries. Each month we host a FREE event for like-minded people to come together and network, reconnect with past coworkers, build stronger relationships and share stimulating conversations in a welcoming atmosphere.

This month’s event is made possible by our sponsor, Breezio (@brzio), who is helping to advance the pace of research and discovery through their Research Collaboration Platform. Join us at the upcoming Bethesda event – June 25th at Barking Dog Bar – to meet them and learn about Team Science.

Pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline could reportedly become the latest takeover target in the industry.

According to the Daily Mail, market participants are speculating that the company may face an approach from Switzerland’s Roche or US company Johnson & Johnson at about 1900p per share.

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today launched new Investigator® STR assay kits for analysis of DNA evidence in forensic laboratories in the United States. The new genetic fingerprint kits provide an integrated solution to simultaneously analyze multiple key genomic markers (short tandem repeats or STRs) for DNA matching. They incorporate the Investigator® Quality Sensor to evaluate the quality of DNA in each sample, a novel QIAGEN technology that enables labs to decide quickly which evidence may provide valuable results – solving cases while saving time and money.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore, will build a new interdisciplinary education facility thanks in part to a gift from a Baltimore construction company.

The university announced Wednesday that it’s getting $3 million from the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company. The money will go toward renovating a vacant building on the university campus in downtown Baltimore. When the work is finished, it will be home to the university’s Interprofessional Education Center.

This is the first in a 3-part series about the use of crowdfunding in health and biotech start-ups. We start with the story of a tech start-up which set records for funding through a Kickstarter campaign, triggering interest in crowdfunding by entrepreneurs in capital-intensive industries. Part 2 will discuss the JOBS Act and the government’s attempt to overcome regulatory hurdles facing companies which want to use crowdfunding to raise equity investment capital. Part 3 will address some Potential Dangers inherent in the system of crowdfunding being devised. We hope you find the series educational and invite you to contact the authors with questions.

Same acronym… new innovative meaning. The Biotechnology Industry Organization… better known as BIO will soon become the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. This news release from BIO says the change is to highlight the scientific innovation the group brings.

“I’m pleased to announce that the BIO Board has approved a change to BIO’s name… from the Biotechnology Industry Organization to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization,” said BIO’s new Board Chair, Ron Cohen, CEO of Acorda Therapeutics. “Still BIO, but now with a name that better expresses the essence of what our member companies represent.”

Growing companies seeking to raise up to $50 million have a new financing option, starting Friday: a process that will open some private businesses to a wide pool of new investors.

More than three years in the making, the regulatory change, an expanded version of a rule known as Regulation A, is intended to let promising companies — the kinds typically backed by venture capitalists and wealthy angel investors — raise money by selling equity stakes to people of more modest means.

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:

Notices:

• Applicant Responsibilities in Maintaining the Integrity of NIH Peer Review
• (NOT-OD-15-106) National Institutes of Health
• Deadline for Final Reports Required for Grant Closeout
• (NOT-OD-15-111) National Institutes of Health
• Registration Open for the 2nd NIH Regional Seminar on Program Funding & Grants Administration – San Diego, CA – October 14-16, 2015
• (NOT-OD-15-113) National Institutes of Health

Program Announcements:

• Strategies to Increase Delivery of Guideline-Based Care to Populations with Health Disparities (R01)
• (PAR-15-279)
• Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): October 21, 2015; June 21, 2016; October 21, 2016; June 21, 2017; October 20, 2017; and June 21, 2018, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
• Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV/AIDS and Aging (R01)
• (PAR-15-280)
• Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement.
• Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV/AIDS and Aging (R21)
• (PAR-15-282)
• Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement.

Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.

Thank you for joining us at Health Datapalooza 2015! The event was a huge success, bringing together more than 1,600 consumers, providers, payors, researchers, innovators, policy makers, and many more health data thought leaders for three days of networking and learning.

This year’s event highlights included a new series of main stage panel discussions as well as the announcement of the Obesity Challenge, a groundbreaking initiative to improve health and well-being in both the U.S. and U.K.

One of the exciting and frustrating things about convergence, particularly in healthcare, is that it’s tough to predict how the hybrid technologies will find their way to market. The process of reaching that goal is filled with unexpected obstacles, twists and pivots.

Lake Whillans, in an effort to help level the playing field for entrepreneurs in the new world of healthcare investing, has partnered with MedCity News to deliver independent research on corporate venture capital in the life sciences. MedCityNews.com reached out to its 400,000 monthly readers, and more than 450 healthcare innovators familiar with corporate firms shared their insights.

Medical care today is episodic. We’re assessed by our doctors at our annual physical exams, and we’re treated by our doctors when symptoms of ill-health become manifest. In the periods in between, we’re unmoored and untended, perhaps engaging in behaviors that will sabotage our health. And because medical care today is driven by data derived from physician encounters, it becomes an explicitly physician-focused dynamic. If health care data were to be continually collected and assessed independent of physician encounters, medical care might finally be transformed to become a patient-focused dynamic instead, yielding efficiencies, improved outcomes, and lower costs.

From SBIR Gateway:

There are a number of items I want to discuss with you but tonight there is only time for a few very time sensitive items that may be of interest to you. Item #1 is the DoD SBIR submission site because Tuesday is your last full day to submit for the DoD 15.2 SBIR and 15.B STTR, (submission closes Wednesday June 24, at 6:00am edt). Item # 2 is all important patent legislation which is supposed to be voted on this week in the House (H.R. 9 “Innovation Act”) and the Senate’s version (S. 1137 “Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship” [PATENT] Act). Both of these items have the potential for causing small businesses plenty of grief.

Victor and Lynne Brick, owners of Brick Bodies Fitness Services, Inc., a chain of coed and women-only health clubs, established the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation (501c3) to support research and education in mental health. Honoring Victor’s brother John, who suffered from schizophrenia and eventually succumbed to complications from the disease, the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation is dedicated to advancing research towards a comprehensive scientific understanding of relationships between exercise and mental health. The John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation will support a program of studies for that purpose, and the dissemination and application of results.

Hundreds of people from more than 140 life sciences organizations based in Maryland are traveling to the BIO International annual conference taking place next week, June 15th-18th, in Philadelphia.

Stop by our Booth (#301), enjoy a cup of espresso, meet key industry leaders, and learn more about the many resources and experts available in Maryland to help you grow your business!

Only a year after its founding, Bethesda-based health tech company Aledade Inc. raised $30 million in a Series B fundraising, it announced Monday.

ARCH Venture Partners led the funding round with an investment from Series A investor Venrock, which first invested $4.5 million in Aledade to start the company last June.

A new health technology accelerator is looking for applicants for its five month program.It is the latest in a steady growth of organizations helping entrepreneurs navigate the long sales cycle and other unique challenges healthcare industry startups face.

Relevant Health, based in Rockville, Maryland, was formed through a partnership between BioHealth Innovation, Montgomery County’s Economic Development department and Product Savvy, which will run the day-to-day operations.

−Drs. Steve Wolpe and Ethel Rubin Named EIRs for National Institutes of Health; Dr. Albine Martin to Serve as EIR Working with Johns Hopkins University and Maryland-Based Health-Technology Companies

−BHI Continues Search for Neurology and Neuroscience Experts to Fill Roles of EIRS for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, June 8, 2015 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) announced today the hiring of three new entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs): two for the NIH and one to work with Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and Maryland-based health-technology companies. Additionally, BHI is actively recruiting neuroscience and neurology experts for EIR positions within the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

Entrepreneurs beat long odds when they launch a company, scale it up and sell it to investors. Smith School alumnus Jason Cohen has done it five times in 15 years with brands such as Sensible Portions low-calorie snacks, Rickland Orchards yogurt, SkinnyPop popcorn and Mrs. Thinsters cookies. Now Cohen and his partners are focusing on identifying high-potential startups that need capital and expertise to grow. Their latest project is a jerky company called Chef’s Cut. “If we invest in your business, then we believe it can be a $50 million to $100 million business,” says Cohen, who lives in New Jersey. “And you’ll get a roadmap from an entrepreneur who has been in your shoes.” Part of that roadmap includes the following seven secrets of Cohen’s success.

There are a couple of common analogies for startups wooing potential investors, said entrepreneur Brian Razzaque — it’s like herding cats, or getting one lemming to lead the others. Most investors are wary of bankrolling an unproven company without someone else’s seal of approval.

Pieris Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: PIRS), a biotechnology company advancing its proprietary Anticalin® biotherapeutic technologies, announced today the completion of enrollment of healthy subjects in a blinded, placebo-controlled Phase I clinical trial for the Company’s PRS-080 program, a hepcidin antagonist to treat anemia. This study was conducted at a single site in Germany.

Startup Maryland (www.startupmd.org), a venture development community forged with Maryland Pride, By Entrepreneurs … For Entrepreneurs, today announced the schedule for the 2015 Raise Your Game entrepreneur bootcamp. Raise Your Game provides the Maryland entrepreneur community with a structured educational program designed to help startup CxOs and founders understand and employ the building blocks of strong startups and startup communities.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today expressed continuing opposition to The Innovation Act (H.R. 9) as amended and reported by the House Judiciary Committee today, and believes that, without substantial changes, the bill will jeopardize America’s leadership in medical, agricultural and environmental innovation.

BIO consistently has urged Congress to proceed cautiously when addressing any changes to the patent system that could unduly shift the legal balance against legitimate patent owners. Despite some improvements to the bill, the latest version of the Innovation Act remains unacceptable in certain respects, and includes new provisions that require additional careful vetting for potentially negative unintended consequences for patent owners. BIO remains concerned that the bill would impose unreasonable challenges for innovative start-up and other small companies seeking to protect their intellectual property in a timely and efficient manner, and could chill the investment and collaboration that is so critical to the biotech innovation ecosystem.

H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, includes vital resources for the National Institutes of Health and important policy – See more at: http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/21st-century-cures-renews-commitment-biomedical-research-america#sthash.2aIzVevb.dpuf changes that will allow America’s most promising scientists and researchers to unleash the next generation of cures and therapies. As Greg Satell writes in Forbes, “science is what made America a technological superpower” and the 21st Century Cures Act would help to “renew our commitment to science and competitiveness.” The Alliance for Aging Research adds, “the pace of scientific discovery since the turn of the century has accelerated at a speed that was not possible a generation ago. [H.R. 6] was developed after the realization by leaders in Congress that the current health care innovation infrastructure needed improvement to accommodate those advances in science.”

Johns Hopkins University was among seven research institutions selected by French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to play a larger role in helping decide which projects it should fund.

Sanofi on Wednesday unveiled a new grantmaking program that will support up to $2.4 million in research grants a year. The program aims to encourage collaboration among research groups to advance the development of new drugs. A scientific steering committee with representatives from seven research institutions will review proposals for the Sanofi Innovation Program, which will award grants of about $100,000 each.

Scientific American has released its list of the 100 most influential people in biotechnology.

I am honored to be included in this exclusive list and recognized for my thought leadership on the business of biotechnology.

The event will focus on the most innovative life sciences clusters in Europe. It will bring together top level representatives from universities, research labs, science parks, incubators, venture capital, hospitals, start-ups and government agencies, all having a role to play in these regional innovation ecosystems.

There is always talk, sometimes tongue-in-cheek but mostly sort of serious, that a lot of jobs will be replaced by robots or computers. Maybe that new iPhone I just bought will replace me by year end. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla thinks that the most doctors’ current functions will be replaced by algorithms; many believe that lots of white collar jobs, such as lawyers, accountants, and bankers will be replaced by machines with warmer personalities. Venture capitalists have already been “supplemented” with algorithms and, no doubt, there are plenty of people who would like to see us replaced by nearly anything metal—spatula, can opener–if they had their way. In Iron Man we see a world of robot-based soldiers going to war and in real life the echo of that is not so far off.

Two years ago, a television cartoon in Pakistan made waves for its star, a superheroine named “Burka Avenger,” who promotes positive social change while clad in the titular billowing black silk outfit. With the tagline “don’t mess with the lady in black,” the show presents plotlines promoting gender equality, environmentalism and health.

Dubai based startup Fetchr has raised Series A funding worth $11 million led by New Enterprise Associates and participation from Delta Partners, Dhabi Holdings, Triple Point Capital, Ben Narasin, Roland Berger and 500 Startups, reports the Wall Street Journal. Fetchr will use the funds to launch its mobile app on Android and iOS and product development.

When Open Works makes its debut in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District next year, Will Holman hopes it will become just the kind of place where he can set up shop. An architect by training and furniture maker, Holman is also the project director for Open Works, a $10 million incubator Baltimore Arts Realty Corp. is developing in a warehouse across from Greenmount Cemetery.

Come to this information breakfast to learn about Relevant Health, the new accelerator located in the Rockville Innovation Center, now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class. Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to the cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem. Interested applicants should visit http://www.relevanthealth.md to complete the online application. The final deadline for application submissions is July 31, 2015. Free, breakfast will be served. Park in designated GIC parking spots only.

Hundreds of people from more than 140 life sciences organizations based in Maryland are traveling to the BIO International annual conference taking place next week, June 15th-18th, in Philadelphia.

Stop by our Booth (#301), enjoy a cup of espresso, meet key industry leaders, and learn more about the many resources and experts available in Maryland to help you grow your business!

The Incubator Company of the Year Awards is an opportunity to highlight Maryland’s impressive incubator system and recognize the breadth and depth of technology talent that we have throughout Maryland. In determining the winners, judges considered factors such as technology and product development, increase in employee numbers, growth in revenue, and the attraction of outside investors. The Incubator Company of the Year Awards represent some of the best companies in Maryland that have recently been started and have gone through incubator programs. With BioHealth Innovation’s assistance, Avhana Health has been able to create a category-defining product, triple it’s workforce and gain funding from outside investors.

Tech award season rolled on in Maryland on Thursday night at the American Visionary Art Museum. The Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards recognized startups in a host of categories like life sciences, health technology and technology services.

Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development Secretary Mike Gill offered the keynote address, detailing a few specifics of how Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration wants to make the state more business-friendly. That will include a new name for the department, and will likely mean a new title for Gill.

Personal Genome Diagnostics has raised $4.3 million in private financing, the firm said in a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the firm said that the financing was in the form of a convertible note funding and is part of a larger Series A round currently underway. No further details were disclosed.

Gemstone Biotherapeutics, a Baltimore company developing treatments to promote wound healing, has raised $2.45 million in a seed round of investment, company officials said.

The company plans to use the money to further test its technologies and pursue regulatory review and clinical trials. It is developing biosynthetic “scaffold” technology that has shown in animal tests it can help skin regenerate and prevent scarring when applied to burn wounds.

Investment to accelerate momentum behind cloud-based electronic health record software for behavioral health market

June 2nd, 2015 | Rockville, MD – Credible Behavioral Health, Inc. (“Credible”), a leading provider of electronic health record (“EHR”) and practice management Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solutions to the behavioral health market, today announced that it has secured a $30 million minority investment from Goldman Sachs. The investment will allow Credible to further pursue its mission of helping behavioral health agencies improve their quality of care by scaling its presence across the clinic, community, residential, and inpatient behavioral health market. Credible plans to accelerate product development, build out its sales and marketing team, and opportunistically pursue acquisitions.

Gaithersburg-based Novavax Inc. — known for its work developing vaccine candidates for the flu, a pediatric respiratory illness and Ebola — expanded into a new 54,000-square-foot research and development space where it plans to house its vaccine work.

“It’s a very important signal of our continued growth,” said Buck Phillips, chief financial officer of Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX) of the new space at 21 Firstfield Road, across the street from its headquarters.

OpGen, Inc. (Nasdaq:OPGN), an early commercial-stage molecular testing and bioinformatics company, today launched its expanded, comprehensive molecular testing and bioinformatics program for detecting and managing Gram negative multi-drug resistant organisms, or MDROs. These products and services are designed to enable healthcare providers to rapidly identify and help manage hospital patients who are colonized or infected with life-threatening, drug resistant organisms.

OpGen also announced that it has been selected to participate in the White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship, being held today in Washington, D.C. The event brings together key federal and private-sector constituencies involved in the development, promotion and implementation of antibiotic stewardship activities to ensure the responsible use of antibiotics nationwide. A live stream of the opening session will be available beginning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time via www.whitehouse.gov/live.

Strand Life Sciences is hoping for a bigger seat at the table in the U.S. next-generation sequencing (NGS) market with the launch of an expanded version of its Stranddvantage pan-cancer genomic profiling test.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the University of Maryland (UMD) and the headquarters of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China’s top science and technology research and educational organization.

Signed on June 2nd by UMD President Wallace D. Loh and CAS President Bai Chunli at CAS headquarters in Beijing, the MOU encourages joint research activities, student exchanges, and other related and mutually beneficial activities. CAS is composed of 104 research institutes, two universities, 12 academies, and over 100 key national labs.

For decades, a postdoctoral appointment in a university laboratory has been the “default” next step for new Ph.D. researchers in biomedical sciences and, increasingly, in other sciences as well. In those positions, scientists encounter such well-known issues as low pay, long hours, and little or no preparation for career opportunities outside academe.

Governor Larry Hogan joined Maryland companies RTKL and Marriott International, as well as officials from the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, for a ceremony during which agreements were signed with Chinese companies and educational institutions. Among the partnerships, Marriott International has agreed to work with R&F Real Estate Development in China to operate the 350-room Ritz-Carlton in Harbin; and global design firm RTKL signed an agreement with Beijing Thaihot Jiaying Real Estate Development Co. to provide design consulting services for the Shijingshan Galaxy Business Area. In addition, two emerging Chinese companies – Shanghai Tongji Biological Product Co. and Ankang Shimao Biotechnology Co. – announced plans to set up U.S. operations in Maryland’s International Incubator at the University of Maryland, College Park, which is already home to a number of Chinese firms.

For at least three days this month, Philadelphia will be the Silicon Valley of biotech.

Nearly 40 startups and small businesses funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with innovative biomedical technologies based on fundamental research will be in Philadelphia June 15-18 at the 2015 BIO International Convention, the world’s largest gathering of the biotechnology industry.

The big data movement is redefining the way we approach biotech – opening up new opportunities for engineers and mathematicians. It also is helping entrepreneurs launch an entirely new kind of biotech startup – one at the nexus of tech and biotech.

So there’s a lot of talk about how best to entice the tech-savvy into the life sciences – because the silos remain very real. How do we bridge the gap between tech and biotech?

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:Notices:

• Clarifying Publication Reporting Instructions for Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) and Renewal Applications
• (NOT-OD-15-091) National Institutes of Health
• Reminder of Timeline for Administrative Changes to NIH Domestic Awards to Transition to Payment Management System Subaccounts
• (NOT-OD-15-105) National Institutes of Health
• Request for Information: NIH Precision Medicine Cohort – Strategies to Address Community Engagement and Health Disparities
• (NOT-OD-15-107) National Institutes of Health
• Delays in Grant Application Submission due to Severe Summer Weather and other Natural Disasters/Emergencies
• (NOT-OD-15-108) National Institutes of Health

Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.

Revolution LLC plans to raise $450 million for its next fund, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The raise comes right as the previous fund — which backs growth-stage companies and was also valued at $450 million — is reaching its limit for initial investments. D.C.-based Revolution has invested in 11 companies from that fund since its 2011 inception, with one or two more new investments expected.

Take a poll of most of biotech’s venture capitalists—the ones that survived the financial crash, anyway—and you might find that just about all of them have reloaded with new funds over the past few years. Today, you can add Clarus Ventures to the list.

Clarus—a VC firm with offices in the bi-coastal biotech hotbeds of Cambridge, MA, and South San Francisco, CA—has raised its third fund, a $500 million haul called Clarus Lifesciences III LP that’ll it’ll use to invest in both early and mature drug developers.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities will break ground next week on The Alexandria Center, an 11-story biotech building at 400 Dexter Ave. N.

Juno Therapeutics will be the anchor tenant, taking about 90,000 of the 285,000 square feet. Juno will lease the top four floors and has an option on three more.

The Human Genome Project was one of mankind’s greatest triumphs. But the official gene map that resulted in 2003, known as the “reference genome,” is no longer up to the job.

So say scientists laying plans for a new universal map they say will combine the genomes of hundreds, and eventually thousands, of people to create a true reference that reflects all of humanity.

The TechConnect World Innovation Conference is an annual event uniquely designed to accelerate the commercialization of innovations out of the lab and into industry. The Technical Program spotlights applications focused innovations, materials and devices emerging from industrial, government and academic laboratories worldwide. The Innovation Partnering Program gathers market-ready, commercially-viable, innovations into the largest global technology accelerator program.

Early-stage companies are reviewed and selected by our board of corporate and investment partners. Technical submissions are reviewed and selected by our symposium chairs and program review committee. The 2015 TechConnect World Innovation event encompasses the 2015 SBIR/STTR National Conference, the 2015 National Innovation Summit and Showcase, and Nanotech2015 – the world’s largest nanotechnology event.

One of the two boards that oversee the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park has adopted bylaw changes and added members as part of a plan to support innovation in the entire Richmond region economy.

The Virginia Biotechnology Park Corporation Board, which is the nonprofit leadership entity for the 34-acre park in downtown Richmond, has changed its named to the Innovation Council — a “placeholder” name, for now, that is expected to change as the council works on a rebranding program.

Lawmakers on the Legislature’s powerful budget committee trimmed Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million two-year funding cut to the University of Wisconsin System to $250 million, which if it stands would be tied for the largest cut in System history and would mark the fifth time in the last six budget cycles that the universities took a significant funding cut.

Entrepreneurs and other private-sector innovators will soon, for the first time, have access to voluminous federal healthcare data stores, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday. This reverses a longstanding rule that researchers could not use CMS data for commercial purposes.

Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt presented the new policy Tuesday at Health Datapalooza, an event focused on open healthcare data.

June 18th at 1:30pm

This webinar is intended to help enhance the productivity of scientific research–most of which is conducted in teams– by creating awareness of the National Research Council’s recently published report, “Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Sciences.”.

Bioresearch just got a shot in the arm. On March 23, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that three proof-of-concept hubs would join three already existing Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH).

Those new REACH awardees are:

• The Long Island Bioscience Hub: Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory
• The University of Louisville
• The University of Minnesota

Partnering with other pharma companies and academic institutions has been a cornerstone strategy for Eli Lilly and Company for close to a hundred years. One of the first major collaborations in the industry occurred in the 1920s when Lilly partnered with Frederick Banting and Charles Best from the University of Toronto. Banting and Best discovered insulin, and Lilly used its resources to develop and commercialize it. Today millions of people continue to benefit from the result of that successful collaboration.

BioMarker Strategies, LLC, today announced the appointment of Samuel Broder, M.D., as Chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board and his election as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately.

“We are privileged to bring a leader of Dr. Broder’s distinction and scientific experience back to our Company. His record of accomplishment in internal medicine and oncology are well known, and we look forward to benefiting from his scientific and strategic insight in the years ahead,” said Jerry Parrott, President and CEO, BioMarker Strategies. “I am particularly pleased that Dr. Broder has agreed to take on the important role of Chairman of our Scientific Advisory Board. We expect to announce the members of our newly constituted SAB in the near future.”

MedImmune and the University of Cambridge today said they have launched a new five-year, multiproject collaboration with the school’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) focused on research in biopharmaceutical development including cell engineering. The value of the collaboration was not disclosed.

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced the commercial launch of its QIAGEN Clinical Insight® (QCI™) bioinformatics content and software platform for clinical testing labs to interpret and report on genomic variants identified in next-generation sequencing (NGS). The first two supported applications for the bioinformatics platform are in oncology, for somatic and hereditary cancer testing. QIAGEN will demonstrate the QCI software at the upcoming ClinGen/DECIPHER Meeting (May 27-28, Washington D.C.), ASCO Annual Meeting (May 29-June 2, Chicago), and European Society of Human Genetics Conference (June 6-9, Glasgow).

ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. (PLI)(otcqx:PFSCF) (“ProMetic” or the “Corporation”) announced today that it has entered into an agreement for the acquisition of Emergent BioSolutions’ (“Emergent”) plasma collection center located in Winnipeg, Canada. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

Emergent’s plasma collection center is an FDA and Health Canada licensed plasma collection facility. The plasma collection center is conveniently located in close proximity to the existing Emergent Winnipeg based cGMP manufacturing facility, which was recently announced as providing ProMetic with up to 250,000 liters of annual plasma processing capacity. The plasma collection center will start operating under ProMetic’s ownership upon granting of the regulatory licenses, in ProMetic’s name, by the requisite regulatory authorities. All existing center employees will then transition to be employed by ProMetic.

Technology Digest Inc., an information technology consulting and product development firm, has made its new home at Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus.

The firm is the brainchild of Sarah Iranpour, a first-generation immigrant to the United States from Iran. Iranpour spent years working for others in the IT field. When her son went to college, she decided to “go after my dream developing something substantial for health and medical.”

New Enterprise Associates is planing on making a $5 million investment in Speedinvest’s newly launched second fund. NEA is anticipating that it will provide $50 million in follow-on funding for Speedinvest’s portfolio companies. Speedinvest’s second fund will focus on backing European startups.