BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a Montgomery County, Maryland innovation intermediary which translates market-relevant research into commercial success by bringing together among other things management, funding, and markets, is seeking an experienced life science professional with entrepreneurial experience to serve as its Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) financially supported by the China Fortune Land Development Company, LTD (CFLD), focused on advancing China-U.S. partnerships. The EIR will collaborate with a life science commercialization expert who has an interest in relocating to the Peptide Valley to assist CFLD in Chinese life science commercialization. BHI will work with the CFLD EIR on this recruitment as well as provide training to them. The EIR will lead in the scouting of technologies in both markets with a preliminary focus on therapeutic vaccines, antibodies, medical devices, proteins and peptides and diagnostics. Further, the EIR will build partnerships in life science hubs in the U.S. and China which support the progression of these technologies for manufacturing or at the preclinical testing stage of development, the primary focus of the Peptide Valley. This EIR will evaluate life science technologies in both markets, provide a strategic plan for start-up companies, advise on opportunities for new ventures, and lead the commercial strategy for mature assets. The EIR will oversee primary and secondary research and will provide strategic recommendations and insights on the direction of potential assets that have potential for Chinese commercialization in the Peptide Valley or other CFLD research parks.
Each year, Speakers Platform recognizes five speakers within ten popular topic areas. Excellence in speaking is based on: expertise, professionalism, client testimonials, presentation skills and original contribution to the field. The only substantive requirement is that the candidates’ standard keynote presentation fee be under $30,000USD. Once the nominees are chosen, online voters determine the final Top5 honorees. Women secured more honoree slots this year than any year in the past – almost sweeping some categories such as “Communication / Diversity”. Job well done!
Over 12,000 votes were received at Speaking.com for the initial 165 nominees- from business leaders, educators, association members and others from around the world. Many voters praised the nominees for having a profoundly positive impact on their lives; a living testament to the far reach and valuable work of all the nominees. Please join us in congratulating your 2014 honorees!
Richard Bendis was listed in the top 5 in the Innovation / Creativity category. Thanks to all those who voted and helped spread the word! —Ed.
DreamIt Ventures‘ Baltimore accelerator is adding another prestigious partner to its ranks: Kaiser Permanente will join the organization’s leadership team, alongside Johns Hopkins University, Northrop Grumman Corporation and BioHealth Innovation.
“We look forward to working with these very promising new healthcare technology companies where we can provide access to industry leading health professionals and a real world laboratory to test the usability and effectiveness of next generation technology solutions” Kim Horn, president of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Inc., said in a statement.
Underwriters have snapped up another 1 million shares of GlycoMimetics Inc. stock, the Gaithersburg biotech announced this week, marking the close of its $64.4 million initial public offering.
GLYC debuted on the Nasdaq last week in the Washington region’s first IPO of 2014, selling a total 8 million shares at $8 apiece. Net proceeds to the company will be around $57.4 million, much of which will pay expenses to advance one of its oncology drug candidates through the clinic.
First there was a blizzard of new drug deals. Now comes the forecast for sunnier financial weather ahead.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot arrived at JPMorgan with a message: The pharma giant ($AZN) has beefed up its late-stage pipeline and is now ready to prove it can start to grow again in the near future as it pushes through one of the industry’s most radical R&D reorganizations. As of today, AstraZeneca counts 11 drugs in late stages of development–just about double what Soriot inherited when he was named CEO a year ago–with another 27 coming up behind it. And it’s mapped out a combo strategy for immunotherapies designed to get the company in the race to gain approvals and start growing oncology revenue.
Johns Hopkins University’s board of trustees has voted to renew the contract of President Ronald J. Daniels, keeping him at the helm of the nation’s first research university for another five years. The unanimous board action today signaled a strong and clear endorsement for Daniels, who has been instrumental in leading and advancing the mission of the university.
The reappointment, announced by board chairman Jeffrey H. Aronson, extends Daniels’ contract to 2019.
A gleaming, state-of-the-art, wonder-what’s-going-on-in-there mansion smack in the middle of a rundown Baltimore neighborhood. Hopkins has always been involved in Baltimore to some extent. The university and the health system employ roughly 50,000 people in the Baltimore area, making them the two largest employers here. Their construction projects inject millions into the local economy. But Hopkins’ reputation is as a world-renowned medical research giant
Venture capitalists more than doubled their investment in companies based Baltimore- and Washington, D.C.-area companies in 2013.
Venture firms invested more than $1.5 billion in the region in 2013, making that the biggest year for investment since 2001, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Maryland companies took in 43 percent of that investment money.
New data show that local venture-capital deals have come roaring back after the economic downturn.
Investors pumped $1.54 billion into Washington area companies last year, the largest sum in more than a decade. The figures suggest that venture capitalists may be more bullish on the state of the economy and are loosening their purse strings as a result.
DreamIt Health, a relative newcomer to the digital health incubator scene, has proven itself no slouch at recruiting big name provider partners. It launched its first Philadelphia-based class with the support of Independence Blue Cross and Penn Medicine and brought on Johns Hopkins for its second class, based in Baltimore, last fall. Now the incubator is adding provider and payor Kaiser Permanente as an additional strategic partner. Northrop Grumman will also support the class.
As in last year’s program, companies will have access to a working space, up to $50,000 per team for living expenses, and access to a range of professional and legal services in exchange for an 8 percent stake in the company. That’s in addition to DreamIt’s signature offerings: one-on-one mentorship and introductions to local and national payors and providers.
Gov. Martin O’Malley on Wednesday unwrapped his eighth and final budget, a $39 billion plan that increases spending on tax credits for cyber security, biotechnology and research and development while holding the line on taxes.
For fiscal 2015, O’Malley has proposed hiking the biotech and life sciences tax credit by 20 percent, to $12 million. He wants to increase the cyber tax credit by 33 percent, to $4 million and raise the credit for research and development by 12.5 percent, to $9 million.
For more than a dozen Maryland technology startups, dreams of expansion and development are becoming a reality with the help of awards from the state-sponsored Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO).
TEDCO announced on Tuesday that 13 startups received total funding of $1.3 million, $100,000 each, between July 2013 and January 2014, through the organization’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). The companies range from i-Lighting, an InvestMaryland Challenge winner and lighting system innovator, to Graftworx, a high-tech medical device developer.
The 8th Annual Postdoc Conference and Career Fair is April 24, 2013 at the Bethesda North Marriott Conference Center. The event draws and average of 500 postdoctoral fellows from federal and university laboratories who are finishing their fellowships in the STEM fields and are seeking professional employment. The conference portion of the event runs concurrently with the career fair, and focuses on such topics as preparing for an interview and exploring non-traditional careers. The conference is organized by a symposium of government, private, educational and economic development organizations. Company registration for the career fair portion is now open and starts at $500.
Shark Tank is a one-of-a-kind event where industry experts pose stimulating questions to CBID MSE student teams about their medtech projects. A mid-year design project showcase and reception will follow the challenging throw down.
A Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) and I-Corps presentation, “Linking Innovative Technology with University System of Maryland Resources,” with Mr. Joe Naft, Director, MIPS will take place on Thursday, February 6, 11:15 am – 12:30 pm in Wyle Building 1 North conference room, 22309 Exploration Dr., Lexington Park, MD 20653. This program, sponsored by The Patuxent Partnership, is free and open to the public. Check-in begins at 11:00 am; attendees are welcome to bring their lunch.
Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute’s (Mtech) MIPS program accelerates the commercialization of technology in Maryland by jointly funding collaborative R&D projects between companies and the faculty of Maryland’s public universities. With more than 500 Maryland companies participating in project awards since 1987, MIPS-supported products have generated over $25.2 billion in sales, added jobs to the region, and infused state-of-the-art technology into the global marketplace. To be sponsored by MIPS, projects must show strong potential for commercialization and economic impact. These projects cover the gamut of state-of-the-art technologies in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, clean energy, robotics, information technology and all types of engineering.
Five Baltimore companies are among the startups that will be the first through a new health IT accelerator in the city.
A total of nine companies from around the world were selected for DreamIt Health Baltimore’s inaugural program, which officially begins Jan. 20. The accelerator program lasts four months and includes seed funding, mentorship from veteran entrepreneurs, workspace and other resources to help participants’ businesses take off. It is designed help startup companies power through early problems and prepare for the market.
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.
Researchers and physicians at The Johns Hopkins University will collaborate with Belgian nanoelectronics research center imec to advance silicon applications in health care, beginning with development of a point-of-care device to enable a broad range of clinical tests to be performed outside the laboratory. The collaboration, announced today, will combine the Johns Hopkins clinical and research expertise with imec’s technical capabilities. The two organizations plan to forge strategic ties with additional collaborators across the value chain in the health care and technology sectors.
“Johns Hopkins has always prioritized innovative and transformative research opportunities,” said Landon King, M.D., the David Marine Professor of Medicine and executive vice dean of the school of medicine. “Our new collaboration with imec is such an opportunity, and we very much look forward to leveraging our respective strengths across the university in biomedical and nanotechnology research to improve patient diagnosis and care throughout the world.”
American innovation, badly damaged last year by federal budget tightening and the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration, appears to be getting partial relief with the bipartisan budget deals struck last month and Monday night. The progress is praiseworthy, but it will not counteract the decades-long decline in federal funding for research and development that is so essential to our economic future and critical to accelerating treatments for today’s major health care challenges, including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
It’s rare for me to hear a panel discussion on digital health and not hear the same conversation repeated and reiterated over and over again. In a discussion between health IT company CEOs at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference, some of the most interesting points raised were the ones the healthcare industry is struggling with the most. Of course, there were a lot of sound bites too. Here are five of the most interesting digital health insights.
If you control the capital, you control the data and if you control the data, you control the product. This is a sound bite, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Providers’ relationship with their digital health companies revolves around this balance. Digital health companies are using their technology to help providers deliver better patient care. But investors have an impact in shaping business model. With the shift to outcomes-based care, data generated by digital health tools will become even more critical to care delivery.
Thinking about Big Pharma’s relationship with the biotech industry last week at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco reminded me of an old physical education teacher I had in 7th grade.
This guy was feared for his patented “pinch.” He would grab misbehaving teenage boys by the clavicle, and squeeze so hard that his thumb and index finger almost completely wrapped around the bone. He would then drag the pimply, 100-pound punk to his office for a scolding.
From wearable technologies that track back posture, blood pressure and brain waves to connected cars and homes, the 152,000 attendees at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show were treated to some of the most innovative wireless technologies global innovation has to offer. So dazzling and ubiquitous were the wireless innovations not just on display –but in use– that the event easily could have been rebranded as the Consumer Mobile Show.
While many gadgets offer great fun, many more actually save lives. I was honored to lead a conversation on the coming wave of mobile innovation in digital health through next generation wireless sensors which we are implanting inside our bodies called “The Internet of You.” Panelists Dr. Fran Kauffman, the Chief Medical Officer of Medtronic Diabetes and Dr. Christian Holz, a Research Scientist in the mobile innovation group at Yahoo! Labs brilliantly described the progress being made in this next powerful frontier of mobile innovation.
The approaching March deadline for individuals to enroll in a health insurance plan is a useful reminder that provisions of Obamacare will continue to roll out this year. The Affordable Care Act and related legislation are putting a huge demand on the health system, from accelerating the shift to electronic medical records to creating a need for more efficient communication tools between physician offices, patients and insurers. A handful of industry insiders offers a glimpse of the kind of targets that will shift into focus in 2014 and the groups that will be looking to buy them.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
Happy New Year! Thanks to two recent, major life sciences announcements spotlighted in Site Selection magazine, Montgomery County shows that our biotech sector is well-poised for accelerated growth in 2014!
The December 2013 Site Selection web exclusive features details on the attraction of Brazilian-based Brace Pharmaceuticals’ new U.S. headquarters to the County’s Rockville Innovation Center and its plans to invest $200 million. Brace is focused on the late stage clinical development of pharmaceutical products with the potential for near-term commercialization.
Kauffman FastTrac® has just joined with Montgomery College to support future and current business owners before, during, and after the startup process. Entrepreneurs will receive the information, resources, and networks necessary to start and grow successful businesses.
Last Sept. 22, the chief executive of a startup called CoFoundersLab Inc., Shahab Kaviani, sat up at the moment the clock chimed midnight, ready to tweet.
At that time, a ban on what’s known as “general solicitation” was officially lifted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which meant startups like his could tell the general public, and not just accredited investors, that they were raising money.
Entrepreneur Office Hours for University of Maryland Students, Faculty and Staff, and Regional Entrepreneurs with Tech-Based Startups or Ideas
Get answers now from experienced entrepreneurs and legal/business professionals on how to build a successful startup company. Receive free and impartial advice, brainstorm business strategies, investigate funding opportunities and learn about the vast resources available to entrepreneurs.
DATE: Tuesday, January 14, 2014
PLACE: Room 1103, Technology Advancement Program building (directions)
AstraZeneca today announced that Granta Park-based MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, has entered into a cancer research collaboration and licensing agreement with Immunocore, an Oxford biotech company.
The approach will be to use the power of the body’s own immune system to find and kill diseased cells, avoiding damage to healthy cells.
Intrexon Corporation (NYSE: XON), a leader in synthetic biology, announced today that it has entered into a research and development collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Innovation and its affiliate Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Products Worldwide, a division of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc., to advance new skin and hair care products.
“We look forward to advancing new skin and hair beauty products that have measurable impact for consumers,” said Randal J. Kirk, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Intrexon. “By combining Intrexon’s synthetic biology approaches with the capabilities at Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Products Worldwide, we believe that there are multiple areas for new product exploration.”
Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE MKT: CUR) announced today that it has entered into agreements with leading institutional investors for a registered direct placement (the “Offering”) of 6,752,744 shares of common stock at a price of $2.91 per share, resulting in aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $19.65 million.
In addition, the Company will issue to each investor a warrant to purchase a number of shares of common stock equal to one-half of the number of shares purchased by the investor in the Offering. The warrants have an exercise price of $3.64 per share, and are exercisable from the issuance date, for a period of five years.
Elliott Sigal has opened the next chapter of his career. The former R&D chief at Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY), who helped squire a number of blockbuster programs through the clinic, is joining David Mott as a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates.
Bristol-Myers’ R&D group had its setbacks, particularly in 2012, but during Sigal’s tenure at the top of the research arm he guided an amazing 14 drugs to an approval, including Abilify, Erbitux and Onglyza. Those were all part of Bristol-Myers’ “string of pearls,” which earned the company a rep as one of the leaders in innovation in the field. Few other R&D chiefs–including a number who had much larger budgets to work with–even came close.
GlaxoSmithKline plc [LSE/NYSE: GSK ] announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Mekinist® (trametinib) for use in combination with Tafinlar® (dabrafenib) for the treatment of patients with unresectable melanoma (melanoma that cannot be removed by surgery) or metastatic melanoma (melanoma which has spread to other parts of the body) with BRAF V600E or V600K mutations. These mutations must be detected by an FDA-approved test.1 Tafinlar is not indicated for treatment of patients with wild-type BRAF melanoma.2
The approval of the combination is based on the demonstration of response rate and median duration of response in a Phase I/II study. Improvement in disease-related symptoms or overall survival has not been demonstrated for Mekinist in combination with Tafinlar.1 The combination was approved through the FDA’s Accelerated Approval programme and reviewed under a Priority Review designation.3 This accelerated approval is contingent on the results of the ongoing Phase III trial (referred to as MEK115306 or Combi-D), which is designed to evaluate the clinical benefit of the combination in this patient population.
The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association, released its 2014 Policy Platform, which outlines the organization’s specific priorities in the areas of advanced technology, life sciences, taxation, transportation, higher education and workforce development. TCM’s advocacy efforts during the 2014 session of the Maryland General Assembly, which begins January 8, will focus on further improving the business climate to encourage technology and biotechnology companies to grow and flourish in the state.
Specifically, TCM’s 2014 Policy Platform urges policymakers to increase funding for innovation incentives, such as the Research and Development Tax Credit, the Biotech Tax Credit and the Stem Cell Research Fund, and reject onerous changes to the tax structure, such as combined reporting, to provide more certainty for the technology and life sciences business communities. In addition, TCM would like to see implementation of continued long-term funding and policy solutions for development of Maryland’s transportation infrastructure, higher education institutions and next-generation workforce.
BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, announced today that it has acquired Alverix, Inc., a privately-held diagnostic instrument company known for its optoelectronics expertise. Since 2008, BD and Alverix have collaborated in the point-of-care diagnostic market with the design and development of the BD Veritor™ System, which has been very well received in hospitals, laboratories, physician offices and clinics.
“Point-of-care testing is increasingly an integral part of patient healthcare in both developed and developing countries and BD is committed to expanding in this space,” said William A. Kozy, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, BD. “This acquisition enables BD to continue to strengthen and grow our point-of-care testing position.”
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center will receive $90 million in new funding as part of a $540 million gift from Ludwig Cancer Research to six institutions, the school announced Monday.
The gift is among the largest for a single private gift to cancer research, according to the school. The five other Ludwig Centers to share in the current award are Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago.
The growing popularity of cyber security is leading the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s research and development park to look into expanding its CyberHive incubator.
The new space would be an additional 3,500 to 3,600-square feet and would cost anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000.
WellDoc®, developers of the first FDA cleared mobile prescription therapy, BlueStarTM, announced today that it received funding from its first institutional investors, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Windham Venture Partners, as part of a $20M round of financing that now broadens its capitalization beyond its initial group of angel investors. For a limited time, WellDoc and its investors will also explore the possibility of adding co-investors that bring strategic value to the company.
“Our new investors share WellDoc’s vision of fundamentally changing how people manage their chronic diseases to improve outcomes and reduce costs,” said Ryan Sysko, co-founder and CEO of WellDoc. “This investment will help WellDoc launch and commercialize BlueStar, the world’s first Mobile Prescription Therapy for type 2 diabetes, on a nationwide basis.”
MIMETAS and Galapagos will collaborate to develop miniaturized 3D cell culture models that mimic specific aspects of human diseases. These models will be applied to the identification and improvement of novel compounds. Dr. Richard Janssen, Senior Director of Target Discovery at Galapagos, states: “The MIMETAS platform is the first to combine organ-on-a-chip technology with our high throughput screening of primary human cells. As we see it, OrganoPlates™ make 3D culture as straightforward as traditional cell culture.”
Dr. Jos Joore, MIMETAS’ CBO underscores this notion: “This agreement is a crucial step forward for MIMETAS and for the organ-on-a-chip field in general. Galapagos sets an example as one of the first drug discovery companies worldwide to implement innovative organ-on-a-chip technologies. This collaboration helps us to further validate our technology, by enabling development of unique novel compounds with unique human disease models.”
Nationally, startups seeking venture capital at an early stage saw another great year in 2013 with an abundance of active seed investments being made. And according to data released by CB Insights last week, of the seed investors making deals with young companies in 2013, three D.C.-based VCs were some of the most active. Among the likes of West Coast seed powerhouses 500 Startups and Andreessen Horowitz, Washington-area CIT GAP Funds, New Enterprise Associates and Fortify.vc were ranked in the top 60 venture capital funds for most active nationally.
Six months into its fiscal year, the Maryland Technology Development Corp. has received almost as many applications from state startups looking for funding as it got in all of the previous year.
As a result of the spike in demand, Tedco is asking the Maryland General Assembly for what Tedco President Robert Rosenbaum called “a substantial increase” in funding for fiscal 2015. The General Assembly convened for its annual session in Annapolis on Jan. 8.
Kaiser Permanente will put its longtime IT expertise to work in building a clinical data network aimed at improving patient outcomes in cancer, heart disease and obesity.
Funded with a $7 million grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the network is one of 29 projects approved for a total of $93.5 million to form PCORnet: the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, which seeks to improve the efficiency of health research.
The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest: NIH Guide Notices:
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.
Biomātrica®, Inc., a world leader in ambient temperature biological stabilization technologies, and ATCC, the premier global biological materials resource and standards organization, today announce the completion of a licensing agreement. According to the agreement terms, Biomātrica will supply ATCC with DNAstable® and RNAstable® reagents for the stabilization of DNA and RNA standards.
ATCC is featuring specific cell-based solutions for screening at SLAS2014, the 3rd Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening. Meeting attendees visiting ATCC at booth #1348 will find helpful information on hTERT immortalized cell lines, human stem cells, cancer cell panels, and reagents that are particularly suited for screening and drug discovery research. ATCC, the premier global biological materials resource and standards organization, maintains the largest collection of cells lines characterized and authenticated for use by the research community.
Cell-based screening programs, especially when automated, require a stable supply of cells for extended studies. To aid in this endeavor, ATCC currently maintains over 20 human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) immortalized cell lines of different types, including epithelial cells derived from various human tissues. These cell lines represent a breakthrough in cell biology research that combines the in vivo characteristics of primary cells with the ability to survive continuously in vitro.
A JOLT of caffeine can boost memory, according to a study that provides a scientific motive for students slurping coffee, tea or energy drinks when cramming for exams.
A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, found that caffeine enhances certain memories for at least a day after they were formed.
Evidence for caffeine as a memory booster has been anecdotal until now.
Our community relies on the current crop of PhD researchers to develop the insights, theories and tools to shape the future of innovation management thinking and action. The ISPIM Innovation Management Dissertation Award, sponsored by John Wiley & Sons and Innovation Leaders will reward this endeavour. Authors of the best three PhD dissertations that are completed in 2013 will be able to attend the ISPIM 2014 Conference in Dublin for free. Additionally, the winner will receive a prize of EUR 4000, and the runners-up EUR 2000 each, courtesy of Innovation Leaders, John Wiley and Sons and ISPIM.
One way pharma giant Johnson and Johnson stays ahead of the competition is via its network of Innovation Centers where researchers are working on new approaches to cardiovascular issues, infectious diseases, neuroscience, and more.
The centers are located in San Francisco, Boston, London, and Shanghai – and this week the company announced that Israel was joining the family, in the form of an incubator J&J will be opening in Rehovot, near the Weizmann Institute. Working together with several other partners, the company said, the new incubator “is the latest in a series of recently announced collaborations to fuel entrepreneurship in the world’s scientific hot spots.”
SAVE THE DATE: DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 Kickoff Weekend: January 17th and 18th, 2014 Baltimore, MD
DreamIt Health Baltimore – powered by The Johns Hopkins University, BioHealth Innovation, and Northrop Grumman – is ramping up for the Winter 2014 accelerator class in Baltimore, MD and we want to make sure the kickoff events are on your calendar. More information below.
DreamIt Health Baltimore Kickoff Reception: January 17, 2013 On the evening of Friday, January 17th, 2014 DreamIt Ventures and our partners are hosting a kickoff party to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies and other members of the Baltimore entrepreneurial community. Location is TBD and the event will begin around 5:30/6:00pm eastern time. We will be sending formal invitations to the event in the near future but wanted to get this on your calendar now. Please ink us in!
The kickoff reception will include light snacks and beverages, in addition to networking and your first opportunity to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies.
Sponsored by:
Kickoff Weekend Working Session: Saturday, January 18, 2014 – 9:00am – 5:00pm (INVITE ONLY) We are in the process of identifying potential mentors for the companies as well as pairing them up with their law firm & accounting firm partners. Members of this community should please save the date for our working session that Saturday with the companies. We’ll send out a detailed RSVP for the event soon.
If you have any questions about either of these events or the DreamIt Health Baltimore program please contact Dana Rygwelski (dana@dreamitventures.com).
Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman has appointed a Brooklyn Park woman to a job she used to hold herself: director of the county’s tech incubator.
Neuman announced the hiring Thursday of Laura Willoughby to run the Chesapeake Innovation Center in Annapolis.
The International CES expo in Las Vegas, which kicks off Tuesday, has long been the site of new technology announcements and gadget demonstrations. This year, about 55 Washington area companies plan to exhibit at the show, up slightly from last year’s 53.
The group represents one of the most diverse that the region has sent to Las Vegas, said Jeff Joseph, senior vice president for communications with the Consumer Electronics Association, which puts on the show.
The healthcare industry will continue to command the spotlight in 2014, and healthcare executive search consultants from Witt/Kieffer have some advice for making 2014 a stellar year on the work front, including a recommendation to broaden the role of the CIO.
The recommendations:
Prepare for unplanned CEO turnover – Paul Bohne, managing partner, says, “Technological advancements, physician alignment, market consolidation and government policy changes have all increased the complexities of how large, diverse healthcare organizations operate.” These mounting responsibilities have exacerbated the turnover issue.
New survey data result in an upward revision of the previously published 2011 U.S. research and development performance total and imply a sizable further expansion in 2012. These new data puts U.S. R&D expenditures at $428.2 billion in 2011,[2] an increase of $20.5 billion over the 2010 level ( table 1, figure 1 ). The preliminary estimate of the 2012 U.S. total for R&D is $452.6 billion.
As we go into the last few weeks of the year, my office is busy working up the final numbers on application data for this year. Although the complete set of application data, tables, and graphs will not be available until later in January, I thought I would provide an early snapshot on success rates for 2013 competing research project grant (RPG) applications and awards.
We received 49,581 competing RPG applications at NIH in fiscal year 2013, slightly declining compared to last year (51,313 applications in FY2012).
A 15-minute commute from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., might be a possibility after all.
The Greater Baltimore Committee in 2012 supported a plan to use maglev trains to produce the next generation of high-speed rail in the Northeast corridor.
But the love affair eventually faded and talk of maglev trains coming to the Baltimore area waned. But the Japanese government is promising to lend the United States half the cost of building the first “Super-Maglev” train. The high-speed train would reduce the 37-mile commute between Baltimore and D.C. from one hour to a blazing-fast 15 minutes
From President George W. Bush’s embrace of healthcare IT to the opening of HealthCare.gov, hard work, government incentives, political battles and more have made for broad and rapid changes in healthcare in the past 10 years.
Who are the entrepreneurs pushing hardest for technology advances that will connect patients with better healthcare? They’re people like Sean Duffy, who’s using the Web to help people make behavioral changes that could head off Type 2 diabetes at his startup Omada Health, and Joanne Rohde, whose company Axial Exchange is building systems that help patients stay in touch with their doctors before and after office visits.
That’s according to Rock Health, the San Francisco-based accelerator and seed fund for Health IT entrepreneurs, which named its 2013 “Top 50 in Digital Health” honorees at a downtown ceremony last night. The event helped to kick off the week-long J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and was co-hosted by Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank, and Fenwick & West.
After vanquishing humans on Jeopardy!, IBM says its Watson computer is ready to help save human lives. The company on Thursday announced it has created a new business unit specifically to advance Watson and deliver its artificially intelligent wisdom to research organizations, medical institutions and businesses so that they can process “big data” for detailed answers to complex questions. They won’t actually own a Watson computer—instead its services will rendered via a network connection (the “cloud computing” model).
IBM doesn’t launch new business units every day—or even every decade—chief executive Ginni Rometty noted during the Watson Group announcement. Indeed, the company is making a calculated bet—to the tune of more than $1 billion—on cognitive computing and the role it will play in making big data useful.
The National SBIR Conference and the 3rd annual National Innovation Summit and Showcase will be held in parallel with the 17th annual TechConnect World Conference, at the Gaylord Convention Center, June 15-19, 2014.
National SBIR Conference
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs are highly competitive, encouraging small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) work with potential for commercialization.
National Innovation Summit
In support of the White House and Congressional call for innovation commercialization initiatives, the National Innovation Summit and Showcase delivers the world’s largest showcase of industry-vetted emerging-technologies ready for commercialization. Don’t miss as TechConnect presents the Nation’s top innovations emerging from our federal technology funding programs. All showcasing innovations are vetted by our industry and investment review committees, and all will participate the TechConnect Corporate Acceleration and Matchmaking Programs with our participating Corporate and Investment Partners.
Intellectual property featured prominently in 2013’s public discourse. Gene patents, patent trolls, India’s anti-patent actions, and other developments around the world captured headlines. Here are Patently Biotech’s top blog posts written in 2013 by number of views.
Who knew elephant sharks held potential answers for health problems such as osteoporosis and poor immune systems?
An international team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Germany discovered new insights into human health by sequencing the elephant-shark genome.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, January 6, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) and MIMETAS announced today that Todd Chappell, MBA, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for BHI, has been named General Manager, U.S. Affairs for MIMETAS. A Netherlands-based company, MIMETAS is establishing its offices within BHI’s headquarters in Rockville. MIMETAS and BHI created a U.S. subsidiary of MIMETAS to access the clinical, regulatory and scientific resources available in Central Maryland and to access the U.S. marketplace, the largest life sciences market in the world.
“We’re very pleased to add Todd to the MIMETAS team,” said Jos Joore, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer of MIMETAS. “Todd couples a vast experience in business creation with a profound understanding of biology and disease mechanisms. Most importantly, Todd shares our sense of urgency around enabling better medical treatment by using more predictive cell culture models.”
Previously, Mr. Chappell was the Vice President of Operations for Shape Pharmaceuticals, a portfolio company of HealthCare Ventures, LLC, where he oversaw all day-to-day operations involved in the development of a novel HDAC inhibitor for Cutaneous-T-Cell-Lymphoma. Prior to that, he was at CombinatoRx Inc. for eight years and served as Director of New Products. Mr. Chappell will be combining his role at MIMETAS with his existing EIR position at BHI.
The Montgomery County, MD Department of Economic Development (DED) has invested $75,000 in Brain Sentry, makers of Brain Sentry Impact Sensors™, innovative helmet-mounted devices that alert when an athlete suffers a rapid – and potentially dangerous – acceleration of the head. These sensors, which the company began to produce four months ago, are now being utilized by football, ice hockey and lacrosse teams to help identify players who need to be evaluated for concussion.
The $75,000 Montgomery County DED’s investment (conditional grant) is part of a successful $1,000,000 capital raise for Brain Sentry, with additional funds coming from New York Angels, New Dominion Angels, Hull Street Capital and other private investors. According to the Montgomery County DED the typical amount of assistance – in grant or loan – is $5,000 to $100,000. Priority is given to “high technology companies” and “manufacturing companies” and Brain Sentry fits the bill on both counts. Brain Sentry also meets a third DED criterion as a “private employer providing public benefits.”
University of Maryland Ventures (UM Ventures) announced today that Dr. Martha J. Connolly has been named director of bioentrepreneurship, a new program supported by the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) and the A. James Clark School of Engineering, designed to enhance collaboration between the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) as part of the MPowering the State initiative.
“UM Ventures creates an integrated innovation ecosystem that includes entrepreneurial support resources,” said James Hughes, Chief Economic Development Officer and Vice President at UMB. “Experts like Martha help turn novel ideas into sustainable businesses, and I’m pleased to have her as part of our enterprise.”
As leaders of Montgomery County life science companies, we have a stake in whether local students like science. If they do, they are more likely to work for companies such as ours. If they don’t, our pipeline of future workers gets slimmer. So we have taken special note of a science education gap in our region that we believe will have a long-term impact on our minority students, our communities and our businesses.
Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University are among six institutions sharing a $540 million grant for cancer research from funds established by late real estate magnate Daniel K. Ludwig.
Each center will receive $90 million in new grants from the fund established in 2006, bringing the total bequest to each institution to $150 million, said Ed McDermott, president and chief executive officer of New York-based Ludwig Cancer Research, in a press conference. Other centers getting money are Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Happy New Year! This week’s Top of the List is from our first-ever List of “Largest incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces in Maryland,” ranked by current number of members or tenants.
The National Cancer Institute opened NCI Shady Grove next door to the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus buildings. Employees started arriving in late December 2012, two years after the September 2010 groundbreaking ceremony. The move was completed in Spring 2013. Approximately 2,400 NCI employees work at NCI Shady Grove. Coinciding with the arrival of the NCI employees, six new retail shops opened along the parking garage: Shady Grove Cleaners, Freshii, Subway, West Wing Café & Bakery, Blue Fin and Natural Market.
Meanwhile, 11 new companies decided to locate their businesses on campus. These entrepreneurs and researchers focus on health care research and information technology.
With billions to be made on the back of ill health and notable scandals and cover-ups in its history, it’s fair to say that many see the public face of the pharmaceutical industry as a mask for darker machinations. We rely on the drugs for myriad conditions, but do we trust big pharma?
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is no stranger to accusations of unethical drug marketing tactics. But recent news coverage has included its support for the AllTrials campaign – which calls for clinical trials to be registered and results to be published – and a package of other initiatives, including a new commitment to end direct payments to doctors (and other key opinion leaders – KOLs) that have been one of the industry’s most powerful marketing tools.
SAVE THE DATE: DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 Kickoff Weekend: January 17th and 18th, 2014 Baltimore, MD
DreamIt Health Baltimore – powered by The Johns Hopkins University, BioHealth Innovation, and Northrop Grumman – is ramping up for the Winter 2014 accelerator class in Baltimore, MD and we want to make sure the kickoff events are on your calendar. More information below.
DreamIt Health Baltimore Kickoff Reception: January 17, 2013 On the evening of Friday, January 17th, 2014 DreamIt Ventures and our partners are hosting a kickoff party to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies and other members of the Baltimore entrepreneurial community. Location is TBD and the event will begin around 5:30/6:00pm eastern time. We will be sending formal invitations to the event in the near future but wanted to get this on your calendar now. Please ink us in!
The kickoff reception will include light snacks and beverages, in addition to networking and your first opportunity to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies.
Sponsored by:
Kickoff Weekend Working Session: Saturday, January 18, 2014 – 9:00am – 5:00pm (INVITE ONLY) We are in the process of identifying potential mentors for the companies as well as pairing them up with their law firm & accounting firm partners. Members of this community should please save the date for our working session that Saturday with the companies. We’ll send out a detailed RSVP for the event soon.
If you have any questions about either of these events or the DreamIt Health Baltimore program please contact Dana Rygwelski (dana@dreamitventures.com).
William E. Hanna, Jr. Innovation Center at Shady Grove
PRESENTER:
Courtney Silverthorn, Ph.D.
Partnership Alliance Manager
Federick National Laboratory for Cancer Research
ABSTRACT:
The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) operated under contract to the National Cancer Institute. As a Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated facility, both the opportunities for partnering with outside entities and the mechanisms by which partnerships are formed can be different from Government-Operated facilities. Specific mechanisms and opportunities will be highlighted.
Biography:
Dr. Courtney Silverthorn is the Partnership Alliance Manager at the Federick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, the FFRDC operated by Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc. on behalf of the National Cancer Institute, where she is responsible for coordinating the formation and execution of partnering activities, and managing research services offered under Technical Service Agreements. She currently serves as the Regional Coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Federal Laboratory Consortium. Dr. Silverthorn holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Sweet Briar College.
The disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named the top five global health threats they expect to tackle in 2014:
1. The emergence and spread of new microbes
While it’s rare, CDC scientists do come across new diseases each year. In 2013, the new Heartland virus carried by ticks was confirmed in northwest Missouri. Federal health investigators collected samples in the state after two farmers from St. Joseph were sickened by the virus that carried a novel genetic profile.
Most people know what marketing executives do every day. They try to catch people’s attention through email, ads, tweets, and press releases. As for data scientists, well, their work is not nearly as well understood.
That’s been slowly changing this year as companies slowly loosen up about letting their hard-won data scientists talk about their work.
By Rock Health’s count, 302 investment firms and “notable angels” put money into a digital health startup in 2013. Twenty-seven of them did it three or more times.
That’s a big jump from the eight who did three or more deals in 2012. An influx of digital health exits, final guidance from the FDA on mobile apps, more good opportunities or any number of other factors may have led investors to pony up capital for more of these companies last year.
Ask any investor what they think about Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) , and you’ll probably hear that it’s a diversified pharma company, a blue-chip stock that pays a hefty dividend, and it’s a relatively safe investment for investors looking for exposure to the health-care sector. But you might also hear investors criticize its size. With a market cap of almost $260 billion, Johnson & Johnson is one of the largest companies in the U.S., and it edges out both Merck and Pfizer as the largest pharma company in the Dow. Can a company this massive be nimble and entrepreneurial enough to innovate? Is its size holding back its long-term potential to bring new products to market?
2013 has been another banner year in seed financing for U.S. tech startups. In aggregate, 2013 saw $893 million invested across 843 seed VC deals. In fact, 2013 saw the highest amount of seed VC deals since 2009. Seed VC deal activity in 2013 jumped 11% from 2012 levels and a whopping 173% from 2010 as the number of active seed venture investors continued to stay strong. By way of definition, seed venture capital rounds included in this brief are early stage investments (typically less than $1.5 million) that specifically include the participation of a venture capital and/or corporate venture capital investor (angel rounds were excluded from this analysis).
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
Richard Bendis will be a speaker at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference which takes place from March 8-17 in Austin, Texas. SXSW is a set of film, interactive, and music festivals which occur every year in March. Mr. Bendis will be speaking on March 9th at a session titled “Entrepreneurs in Residence: Not Just for VCs.” In his presentation, Richard will introduce the BioHealth Innovation, Inc. EIR program and speak about some of the commercialization challenges being addressed creatively by the biohealth community in Maryland.
BHI Also Announces Agreement With BD to Create Entrepreneur-in-Residence Position
Rick Ivey, BD Diagnostics
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) today announced the fiscal year 2013-2014 election of officers and a new appointment to its Board of Directors. BHI also announced it has entered into an agreement with BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) to establish an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Technology Transfer. In conjunction with this agreement, BD is entitled to a voting position on the BHI Board of Directors, which will be held by Richard M. “Rick” Ivey, Worldwide Vice President Research & Development, BD Diagnostics – Diagnostic Systems.
“I am pleased to welcome the new roster of officers and a new member to the BHI Board of Directors,” said Richard Bendis, BHI President and CEO. “The officers are a committed group of individuals who already have contributed to the steady growth of BHI, and will continue to be important leaders as the organization further develops.”
“Rick Ivey joins the Board on behalf of BD as part of the terms of an agreement between BHI and BD to establish an NIH EIR position,” added Mr. Bendis. “He represents an important new addition to our Board as he is a seasoned medical technology executive who can offer experience and insights to the growing cadre of start-up diagnostics companies in the State of Maryland.”
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, June 4, 2013 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, is proud to announce the publication of the Central Maryland BioHealth Entrepreneur’s Resource and Finance Guide 2013. The Guide was developed by BHI, the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, in collaboration with the Baltimore Business Journal.
The Guide serves as a compendium of resources to biohealth innovators and entrepreneurs working to start and grow new companies and technologies in the region. This essential entrepreneurial resource includes a compilation of information on financial resources, university facilities and programs, economic development programs, and existing federal laboratory facilities and programs, as well as how to work with these assets. The Guide is one of the many projects BHI is developing to successfully transform the regional environment for biohealth startups through harnessing Central Maryland’s biohealth assets and establishing an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The Guide has been distributed through the Baltimore and Washington business journal subscribers, and is being distributed to all regional partners. For your copy of the guide please download here or contact BioHealth Innovation for details on how to receive a hard copy.
Richard Bendis will speak at the Translational Research Forum during the 2013 BIO International Convention in Chicago. During the forum, speakers will address issues with current translational research models, explore new funding and collaboration opportunities, evaluate how to apply them to federal, academic, and private institutions. The session will take place Monday, April 22, from 4:35 p.m. – 5:25 p.m.
Rich Bendis (BHI) and Paul Vulto (MIMETAS) signing the MOU agreement.
MIMETAS is a Dutch microfluidics company focusing on high-throughput organ-on-a-chip systems for predictive toxicology testing, efficacy screening and personalized therapy.
BHI will support MIMETAS by assisting in establishing a MIMETAS US-based subsidiary, aiding in the application for US- and Maryland-based grants (e.g. SBIR, TEDCO), and identifying potential collaborators and partnerships.
This partnership is important in further expanding Maryland’s connections internationally and expanding Maryland’s biohealth sector.
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, today announced its selection of Ram Aiyar, Ph.D., M.B.A., as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for BHI at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Dr. Aiyar will help advance fundamental research discoveries to new therapeutics, diagnostics and devices that can be used clinically and commercially.
“We’re pleased to add Dr. Aiyar to our roster of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence,” said Rich Bendis, BHI President and CEO. “He is now our third EIR – joining Todd Chappell, who is EIR at NIH, and Ken Malone, our EIR working with the University of Maryland Ventures. The growth of this program will be a benefit to BHI and our partner organizations for years to come, and will result in transitioning more early-stage biomedical technologies to commercial potential. ”
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today the launch of its Commercial Relevance Program (CRP). BHI’s CRP is designed to help life science companies navigate the complicated process of preparing applications for federal funding, inclusive of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), and other federal government awards.
“The federal grant application process can be very complex. Based on 2012 data released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Maryland ranks 32nd out of 50 states with regard to SBIR award success rates. We would like to improve on this – and are confident that the CRP will help companies be more successful with their submissions,” said Ethan Byler, Director, Innovation Programs, BioHealth Innovation, Inc.
“At the end of the day, it’s about helping Central Maryland companies to get the best results possible as they seek out federal grant awards as a means of non-dilutive funding,” he added.
The CRP incorporates a pre-proposal review by knowledgeable BHI staff and advisors prior to a life science company’s submission of a full proposal. Through this review process, applicants will receive a set of recommendations and tips for troubleshooting their proposal for federal funding.
Interested life science companies in Central Maryland should contact BHI today for more information. The following federal agency SBIR/STTR deadlines are fast approaching:
About BioHealth Innovation, Inc. BioHealth Innovation, Inc., is a regional innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant bio-health innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland. Learn more at www.biohealthinnovation.org.
Blue Button Plus (Automated and Interoperable Blue Button) can provide a technology path for startups and innovators to build new products and services to help Americans with their health. But beyond, technology startups and small businesses have to think about practical matters like funding. What are ways that the federal government is trying to help health startups, particularly health tech startups, develop and commercialize businesses?
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a federally-funded program encourages domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) that has the potential for commercialization. Through a competitive awards-based program, SBIR enables small businesses to explore their technological potential and provides the incentive to profit from its commercialization. By including qualified small businesses in the nation’s R&D arena, high-tech innovation is stimulated and the United States gains entrepreneurial spirit as it meets its specific research and development needs.
The Final ReportOn May 20, 2013, the White House Lab-To-Market Inter-Agency Summit was held in Washington, D.C. The Summit was organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The purpose of the meeting was extraordinary: asking national experts outside of the federal agency system to recommend ways to increase the return-on-investment for the $140 billion annual taxpayer expenditure on federally-funded research and development.
The format for the meeting also was unusual. Research agencies nominated 20 national experts experienced in various phases of technology commercialization to participate in the Summit. The Administration placed no preconditions or limitations on the expert Panel and asked it to focus on “transformative” ideas. We were privileged to be asked to serve as the Summit’s co-chairs.
The Administration requested that the Panel address several overarching questions:
How can agencies better align themselves to more effectively promote the commercial development of their research;
How can effective metrics for various stages of these efforts be developed; and
How can we better leverage multi-agency resources to enhance the public’s return-on-investment through the commercialization of more federally-funded technologies?
Scott Carmer (BHI Board Chair), Jerry Parrott, and Rich Bendis (BHI CEO)
On January 24th, 2013 BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) recognized Jerry Parrott, formerly with Human Genome Sciences, for his contributions as a BHI Founding Board member. He served on the board from 2011 to 2013 and will continue to remain active on BHI’s Commercial Relevance Advisory Board (CRAB). We thank Jerry for his service and look forward to a long lasting relationship.
The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore (EAGB) and BioHealth Innovation (BHI) in collaboration with the Baltimore Business Journal are proud to announce the publication of the Central Maryland BioHealth Entrepreneur’s Resource and Financing Guide.
This Guide will be a compendium of resources to BioHealth innovators and entrepreneurs working to start and grow new companies in the region. A wealth of resources exists in Maryland to support emerging BioHealth companies, however, they are not always readily accessible or captured in one place. The Guide will compile information on financial resources, university facilities and programs, economic development programs, and existing federal laboratory facilities and programs and how to work with them.
On the evening of April 15 as part of the InvestMaryland Challenge Award ceremony held at MICA in Baltimore, BHI presented three awards to local companies. Boss Medical LLC of Baltimore, ConverGene LLC of Gaithersburg, and Vasoptic Medical LLC of Columbia were selected for the awards based upon their high quality products under development, which have good possibility for securing federal funding with support and assistance. Each award – valued at $2,500 – consists of consulting services from BHI on Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or federal funding proposals. The SBIR program is designed to support small businesses in commercializing their technological research efforts.
The Global Virus Network plans to move its headquarters to the University of Maryland BioPark in Baltimore, officials announced Thursday.
Emerging pandemic viral threats and current viral killers are a worldwide problem. For this reason, the nonprofit GVN brings together the top medical virologists from more than 30 institutions in 21 countries, to promote international collaborative research, education and advocacy.
Last week, the Baltimore BioPark played host to the Innovation Working Group, which consists of executives from the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. The commission was founded as a joint venture between President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The highly anticipated event is an opportunity for the United States and Russia to find new ways to collaborate on projects in the fields of biotech and science. Members of the group were given a tour of the University of Maryland, College Park and Baltimore BioPark. The event was led by Oleg Fomichev, the Russian Deputy Minister of Economy, and Lorraine Hariton, Special Representative for Business and Commerce of the U.S. Department of State. Among those that joined the three day tour were chief executives of biotech companies from both Maryland and Russia, as well as leaders from the Pushchino BioTech Cluster.
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, today announced its selection of Ken Malone, Ph.D., of Early Charm Ventures, as the first BHI Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) assigned to work directly with UM Ventures. Dr. Malone, a serial entrepreneur who has founded or been an officer of five biotechnology or advanced materials companies, will help advance the commercialization efforts of new start-up companies based upon innovative discoveries coming out of research programs at the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park and Baltimore.
“We’re thrilled to name Ken Malone as an EIR,” said Richard Bendis, BHI President & CEO. “Ken and I have a long history of working together, so I know first hand that he has the experience, drive and perspective to be a true asset to BHI and to the many start-ups he’ll serve from University of Maryland in support of the newly launched UM Ventures initiative.” Dr. Malone will assist any interested UM start-ups once they have been launched.
– Technology Company Awarded Prize at Invest Maryland Challenge Ceremony –
BALTIMORE, MD, April 16, 2013 – University of Maryland (UM) Ventures, an ambitious joint research commercialization effort of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), announced today that it has awarded the first UM Ventures Start-Up Prize to VisiSonics, an Investment Maryland Challenge Semi Finalist company that was founded on intellectual property owned by the University. VisiSonics was recognized during the Invest Maryland Challenge Award Ceremony on Monday, April 15, 2013 at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland.
“Identifying customers and having sales is, of course, a major hurdle for university start-ups,” said James L. Hughes, Director of UM Ventures, and President, Research Park Corporation, University of Maryland Baltimore. “With the significance of achieving more than half a million dollars in sales in 2012, VisiSonics is a worthy recipient of this inaugural prize.”
Richard Moore, BD DiagnosticsROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, August 26, 2013 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today its selection of Richard Moore, M.D., Ph.D., as a new Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). BHI and BD established this position in July 2013. Dr. Moore, an executive with decades of experience in diagnostics development and technology strategy, will help support the development of new start-up companies and product commercialization based upon innovative technologies selected via OTT license agreements.
In this newsletter we proudly present the new Chairman of the Advisory Board: Richard Bendis.
With his expertise on innovation strategy The Technopolicy Network intends to strengthen its position as the global leading network on Science Based Regional Development and Science Based Incubation. In his article he will give you several insights in the opportunities that lie ahead of us.
This is the time to pay tribute to the achievements of our founding Chairman, Prof. Roger Stough. With his advice and support Prof. Stough made The Technopolicy Network to what it now is. In his article he looks back on the growth of The Technopolicy Network over the past decade.
The Tech Council of Maryland called on legislators Monday to triple the funding for the state’s research and development tax credit and double the scope of its popular biotech tax credit, among other measures.
The Tech Council of Maryland places the expansion of the R&D credit from $6 million to $18 million among its top priorities for the 2013 General Assembly session, which convenes in Annapolis on Wednesday. The measure failed to win approval last year despite passing the Senate. The Tech Council also wants to see that credit made available for companies that haven’t yet reached profitability.
As part of the University of Maryland’s 26th Annual Invention of the Year Awards ceremony held at the University of Maryland Golf Course on April 16, BioHealth Innovation sweetened the pot for this year’s three award winners. BHI offered each award winner strategic consulting services on federal grants or SBIR awards – valued at $2,500 per company. The BHI Commercial Relevance Program is designed to support small businesses in commercializing their technological research efforts.
The three winning inventions were: INFORMATION SCIENCE CATEGORY: Winner: Time-Reversal Division Multiple Access for Wireless Broadband Communications Feng Han, Yu-Han Yang, Beibei Wang, Yongle Wu and K. J. Ray Liu
LIFE SCIENCE CATEGORY: Winner: A Method for Early Diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Eva Chin and Dapeng Chen
PHYSICAL SCIENCE CATEGORY: Winner: A Method for Rapid, Inexpensive Prototyping of Microfluidic Devices Omid Rahmanian, Donald DeVoe
Emergent Biosolutions Inc. said it has secured exclusive right to manufacture and sell VaxInnate Corp.’s pandemic influenza vaccine candidate in the United States.
Under a license agreement with VaxInnate, Emergent Biosolutions acquired exclusive U.S. commercial rights to next generation pandemic influenza vaccine candidate.
This license enables Emergent to fulfill the requirement to secure a pandemic influenza vaccine candidate under its contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the company noted.
Lets collaborate on building a vibrant biotech (or any other) community! Nice chestnut, but how does one design a community that functions across industries, geographies, support organizations, academic institutions and federal labs, each with very different missions and views of their (and others’) roles? How do you find a shared vision for these variant groups, one that drives growth for the greater region and doesn’t cause the players for fight over each opportunity as if it is the last scrap of possibility we’ll see? How do you prevent such a vision from becoming another dusty whitepaper, where behaviors weren’t aligned to make it happen? I had a chance to discuss how such a collaboration should be designed with Rich Bendis, President & CEO of BioHealth Innovation (BHI), an organization which spans from Rockville to Baltimore.
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, March 4, 2013 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, today announced that BioHealth Innovation, Inc. President & CEO Richard Bendis is scheduled to present at the upcoming SXSW 2013 conference and the 2013 BIO International Convention this Spring. Mr. Bendis is also serving on the Program Committee for AdvaMed 2013: The MedTech Conference, which will be held in Washington, DC, in September.
Specific information for each event is as follows:
2013 South By Southwest “SXSW” Conference, March 8-12, 2013, Austin Convention Center, Austin, Texas. Mr. Bendis is participating in a panel on Saturday, March 9, entitled, “Entrepreneurs-in-Residence: Not Just for VCs!” Venture capital firms have utilized the services of ‘Entrepreneurs-in-Residence’ (EIRs), seasoned innovators with functional expertise, to help spur entrepreneurship and fill gaps in expertise. This panel will look at the value of combining the ‘innovation mojo’ of EIRs with some of the government’s brightest ‘intrapreneurs’ to solve the nation’s most pressing challenges. Joining Mr. Bendis on the panel will be Arnaub Chatterjee (Associate Director of Health Information Partnerships, Merck – Office of the Chief Medical Information and Innovation Officer), John Paul Farmer (Senior Advisor to the U.S. CTO) and Zachery Jiwa, Health IT Advisor; Innovation Fellow, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Advisor, HIMSS State Advisory Roundtable.
2013 BIO International Convention, April 22-23, 2013, McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Bendis is scheduled to be part of The Translational Research Forum on April 22, 2013, beginning at 1:30 p.m., and a panel discussion focused on effective strategies in developing accelerator models beginning at 4:35 p.m.
AdvaMed 2013: The MedTech Conference, September 23-25, 2013, Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC. Mr. Bendis is reviewing panel submissions in the eHealth IT Track.
Montgomery officials are under no illusions about the county’s image among the Washington region’s young: boring.
“We’re a little sleepy,” said County Council member Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda). “We go to bed early.”
For all its prosperity and family-friendly suburban appeal, Montgomery is in the throes of a midlife crisis. That angst has led to a new item at the top of the public policy agenda: a yearning to be hip.
Partnership with Johns Hopkins and BioHealth Innovation, Inc. will speed 10 healthtech startups to market
Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA — September 18th, 2013—DreamIt Ventures is pleased to announce the launch of DreamIt Health Baltimore, a partnership with The Johns Hopkins University and BioHealth Innovation, Inc. to recruit, invest in, and speed the growth and success of a select group of early-stage health IT companies. The program comes on the heels of a successful health IT program in Philadelphia also built on strong industry partnerships that give participants access and advantages typically out-of-reach to startups.
“The key to making health care more accessible is innovation, and the most fertile focus for health care innovation is in acquiring, storing, analyzing and sharing information,” said Ronald J. Daniels, President of Johns Hopkins. “This accelerator project will have important implications for the future use of information as we use technology to find solutions for the most pressing health problems of our day. Just as important, it sets up Baltimore to become even more central to the health care information revolution through the rapid validation of solutions.”
“Technology holds the potential to transform the way in which we approach health care in this country and around the world,” said Paul Rothman, MD, Dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. “Johns Hopkins has been at the forefront in developing innovative solutions to the most pressing health care challenges. The partnership with DreamIt presents an exciting and unrivaled opportunity to develop the most cutting-edge solutions at the crossroads of information technology and medicine.”
British healthcare firm GlaxoSmithKline has filed for US regulatory approval of its new type 2 diabetes drug albiglutide, which belongs to the same group of injectable GLP-1 receptor agonists as Byetta, Bydureon and Victoza .
GSK announced on Monday that it had submitted the once-weekly medication to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval and confirmed that it also plans to seek European Union regulatory approval for the new product in 2013.
In 1953, Cambridge researchers Watson and Crick published a paper describing the interweaving ‘double helix’ DNA structure – the chemical code for all life.
Now, in the year of that scientific landmark’s 60th Anniversary, Cambridge researchers have published a paper proving that four-stranded ‘quadruple helix’ DNA structures – known as G-quadruplexes – also exist within the human genome. They form in regions of DNA that are rich in the building block guanine, usually abbreviated to ‘G’.
The NHLBI Division of Extramural Research Activities (DERA) is pleased to announce the addition of Dr Lawrence Mahan, as the Director of the Office of Translational Alliances and Coordination (OTAC). Dr. Mahan’s professional experience spans academia, government and industry in both basic and applied biomedical research. Additionally it includes global business and strategic alliance development, strategic planning, technology evaluation, entrepreneurship guidance, and consulting on platform technology development in the life sciences.
Most recently Dr. Mahan served as Director of Innovation and Business Development for Children’s National Medical Center and its research institutes, the Children’s Research Institute and the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, where he managed intellectual property, strategic business alliance development and the advancement of academic entrepreneurship.
Our Entrepreneur-in-Residence Ram Aiyar participated in a tech transfer series featured on BioCentury This Week discussing the need for accelerated innovations and the current lack of commercialization focus on commercially relevant technologies. The program was divided into 3 parts, Stuck in the Lab, Fresh Approaches, and Validation and also featured Dr. Alicia Loeffler and Rosemarie Truman.
The three-part program can be watched by following the link below.
McLean-based Science Applications International Corp., which announced plans in August to split off part of its operations into a separate publicly traded company, has decided on a name for the new business.
The spinoff, which will focus on national security, health and engineering, will be called Leidos.
Time-reversal techniques for optimizing broadband communication networks and rapid prototyping of microfluidics devices were among the Clark School of Engineering inventions recognized as the most promising new technologies at the University of Maryland Invention of the Year Awards.
The University of Maryland’s Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) hosted the 26th Annual Invention of the Year Awards reception on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 from 4:30-6:00 pm at the University of Maryland Golf Course Club House.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
Shares of United Therapeutics surged Monday after regulators approved the company’s newest treatment for high blood pressure, Orenitram.
A Cowen and Co. analyst called the FDA’s move a “surprise” because the FDA had refused to approve the drug twice before and United Therapeutics hasn’t reported any additional data from clinical studies.
MedImmune’s Cambridge UK medical technology hothouse will be part of an historic tie-up between the business and the Brazilian government’s ‘Science Without Borders’ programme.
MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, says that 30 Brazilian post-doctoral fellows will work at its sites in Maryland, California and Cambridge, UK for a period of two years.
There’s a reason why Johns Hopkins University has been named one of the top med schools worldwide and the number one hospital in the U.S. Students at Johns Hopkins are driven and relentless in their pursuit of innovative solutions to every day problems. They tend to be incredibly talented, skilled in their respective fields. Which would explain why the Baltimore school was named one of the top 10 universities with the most creative students by ViewsOnYou this year.
A London-based startup, ViewsOnYou is known for acting as a dating site of sorts for prospective employees and companies hiring. It sets up profiles to help match job seekers with the ideal businesses for them according to their personality type. Taking three components into consideration – energy, interpersonal and intelligence – ViewsOnYou offers a more in-depth connection for both parties.
A group of heavyweight biotech industry executives, including the former CEO of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., have formed a new Baltimore biotech company.
Centrexion Corp. has raised a total of $23.4 million since its incorporation in February, according to recent Form D filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) officials announced a $1 million dollar prize for innovation in the emerging area of bioelectronics research. The prize will be awarded to the scientists who are first able to solve the challenge of creating a miniaturized, fully implantable device that can read, write, and block the body’s electrical signals to treat disease. It is hoped that finding a solution to this challenge will open and accelerate significant avenues of research in this field. The scientific challenge was developed and agreed by a group of approximately 150 leading scientists from around the world, brought together by GSK’S Bioelectronics R&D unit at a summit earlier this month in New York. Collectively, summit attendees agreed that if they create an implantable wireless device that can record, stimulate and block neural signals to a single organ, it will be a critical factor enabling the onward development of bioelectronic medicines as a future therapeutic reality.
GSK’s Bioelectronics R&D unit is pursuing a relatively new scientific field that could one day result in a new class of medicines that would not be pills or injections but miniaturized, implantable devices. GSK believes that these devices could be programmed to read and correct the electrical signals that pass along the nerves of the body, including irregular or altered impulses that can occur in association with a broad range of diseases. The hope is that through these devices, disorders as diverse as inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, asthma, hypertension and diabetes could be treated.
SAVE THE DATE: DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 Kickoff Weekend: January 17th and 18th, 2014 Baltimore, MD
DreamIt Health Baltimore – powered by The Johns Hopkins University, BioHealth Innovation, and Northrop Grumman – is ramping up for the Winter 2014 accelerator class in Baltimore, MD and we want to make sure the kickoff events are on your calendar. More information below.
DreamIt Health Baltimore Kickoff Reception: January 17, 2013 On the evening of Friday, January 17th, 2014 DreamIt Ventures and our partners are hosting a kickoff party to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies and other members of the Baltimore entrepreneurial community. Location is TBD and the event will begin around 5:30/6:00pm eastern time. We will be sending formal invitations to the event in the near future but wanted to get this on your calendar now. Please ink us in!
The kickoff reception will include light snacks and beverages, in addition to networking and your first opportunity to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies.
Sponsored by:
Kickoff Weekend Working Session: Saturday, January 18, 2014 – 9:00am – 5:00pm (INVITE ONLY) We are in the process of identifying potential mentors for the companies as well as pairing them up with their law firm & accounting firm partners. Members of this community should please save the date for our working session that Saturday with the companies. We’ll send out a detailed RSVP for the event soon.
If you have any questions about either of these events or the DreamIt Health Baltimore program please contact Dana Rygwelski (dana@dreamitventures.com).
I am a biotech VC, but not a techie. So I don’t follow stem cells, gene therapy, and other similar “blockbuster” technologies in the life sciences. Rather than looking at all the gosh-and-golly stuff going into the biotech pipeline, I wait to see what is coming out of the other end. So far, very little in the most innovative areas.
People are excited about biotech’s IPO window and money flowing into venture funds as reflected in, for example, Bruce Booth’s blog posts. But what he sees as a new day in biotech, I see as the same fundamentals in a new synthetic financial environment manufactured by Ben Bernanke. I applaud Bruce’s optimism. Without people like him and the enthusiasm they bring to the space, biotech would be afflicted by the same anxieties that are paralyzing pharma today.
A handheld ‘bio pen’ developed in the labs of the University of Wollongong (UOW) will allow surgeons to design customised implants on-site and at the time of surgery.
The BioPen, developed by researchers from the UOW-headquartered Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), will give surgeons greater control over where the materials are deposited while also reducing the time the patient is in surgery by delivering live cells and growth factors directly to the site of injury, accelerating the regeneration of functional bone and cartilage.
In the same way that great advances in our understanding of the human genome sparked new opportunities for biotech companies in the early 2000s, growing knowledge about how microbes in the human body affect health has paved the way for a small class of biotech startups emerging now.
These companies are looking at ways to restore balance to populations of bacteria in and on the body that, when they become disrupted, may promote disease. Although these relationships are still not completely understood, researchers have been studying potential links between the microbiome and metabolic diseases, inflammation and a host of other conditions.
Borrowing concepts from 3D printing, scientists in Australia say they’ve come up with a device and a technique that could allow surgeons to precisely deliver live cells and growth factors directly onto damaged bones to help regenerate bone and cartilage.
The “bio pen” holds and dispenses living cell material that’s housed inside a polymer and protected by a second layer of gel material, according to the University of Wollongong. The “ink” is solidified by a low-powered UV light that’s attached to the device, so it can be layered to construct a 3D scaffold in the wound site. From there, it’s expected that the cells will multiply and eventually differentiate into nerve, muscle or bone cells.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today that Reg Seeto, M.D., has been appointed to the BHI Board of Directors. Dr. Seeto currently serves as Vice President, Head of Partnering & Strategy at MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca.
“It is a pleasure to welcome Reg to the BHI Board of Directors,” said Doug Liu, Chair, BHI Board of Directors, and Senior Vice President of Global Operations for Qiagen. “Reg’s background in business development and partnering strategy will be an important asset to our Board as we give counsel to BHI in its fostering of startups in Central Maryland. We look forward to his contributions to this Board, to the BHI organization, and to the biohealth startup community.”
Dr. Seeto rejoined the MedImmune Leadership Team in 2013 to lead the Partnering and Strategy Group after having spent a year as an executive abroad for AstraZeneca. He is responsible for MedImmune’s Business Development and Strategy teams, which deliver external partnership strategy for the organization.
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has joined DreamIt Health Baltimore, a collaborative startup business accelerator program with the goal of identifying, validating and developing innovative solutions to healthcare challenges.
Northrop Grumman joins The Johns Hopkins University and BioHealth Innovation Inc. in the Baltimore-based accelerator, which was launched in September by DreamIt Ventures, a seed-stage accelerator based out of Philadelphia.
Startups selected for the four-month program receive $50,000 in seed funding; access to potential beta customers, pilot partners, data and systems; accounting and legal support; and expert guidance and mentoring from the accelerator and its partners.
From Sept. 15-25, Montgomery County executive Ike Leggett led a trip for four cities in China: Shanghai, Xi’an, Benxi, and the Gu’an County right outside of Beijing. The trip included over 80 business, education, and government leaders from Montgomery County and the DC metropolitan area including Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) superintendent Joshua Starr, county council member Hans Riemer, and Michael Goldman of the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
This marked the first trade trip to china in five years by the county Executive’s office – the last one was in 2008.
The purpose of this mission was to encourage Chinese investors to consider Montgomery County as an attractive location for their investments, open doors for MoCo businesses there, as well as establish a “Sister City” relationship with the city of Xi’an, said a press release put out by the Montgomery County Office of Public Information.
SAVE THE DATE: DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 Kickoff Weekend: January 17th and 18th, 2014 Baltimore, MD
DreamIt Health Baltimore – powered by The Johns Hopkins University, BioHealth Innovation, and Northrop Grumman – is ramping up for the Winter 2014 accelerator class in Baltimore, MD and we want to make sure the kickoff events are on your calendar. More information below.
DreamIt Health Baltimore Kickoff Reception: January 17, 2013 On the evening of Friday, January 17th, 2014 DreamIt Ventures and our partners are hosting a kickoff party to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies and other members of the Baltimore entrepreneurial community. Location is TBD and the event will begin around 5:30/6:00pm eastern time. We will be sending formal invitations to the event in the near future but wanted to get this on your calendar now. Please ink us in!
The kickoff reception will include light snacks and beverages, in addition to networking and your first opportunity to meet the DreamIt Health Baltimore 2014 companies.
Sponsored by:
Kickoff Weekend Working Session: Saturday, January 18, 2014 – 9:00am – 5:00pm (INVITE ONLY) We are in the process of identifying potential mentors for the companies as well as pairing them up with their law firm & accounting firm partners. Members of this community should please save the date for our working session that Saturday with the companies. We’ll send out a detailed RSVP for the event soon.
If you have any questions about either of these events or the DreamIt Health Baltimore program please contact Dana Rygwelski (dana@dreamitventures.com).
Startups selected for the DreamIt Health Baltimore accelerator program will get $50,000 in seed funding and access to industry heavyweights like Northrop Grumman Corp.
The defense contractor has signed on as a partner for the new health IT accelerator program, where 10 startups will be selected for the program. The first program runs Jan. 17 through May 9.
On Saturday November 16, participants of the first ever Maryland Leaders on Fast Track (LOFT) symposium gathered at Johns Hopkins University in Rockville to explore STEM careers. The event, hosted by MdBio Foundation and Hispanic Heritage Foundation, drew over 150 participants from Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.
The symposium brought together a diverse student body from local high schools and colleges; over 90 percent of students were minorities and more than half were female. The event also attracted numerous community leaders, including Congressman John Delaney, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Montgomery County Council President Nancy Navarro, and Montgomery County Executive, Ike Leggett who was awarded the ‘Maryland STEM Education Leader Award’ at the event.
Emergent BioSolutions wants to exercise an option to buy 8 acres next to its East Baltimore manufacturing facility for an expansion that eventually could add up to 100 jobs, a company official said.
The Rockville-based biotechnology company bought its facility on East Lombard Street for $7.85 million in 2009, and has invested $50 million there since, Chief Financial Officer Bob Kramer said.
The City Council is slated to vote Wednesday on the sale of the city-owned parcel next to the facility near Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
For research universities to produce the ideas and talent the United States needs in order to lead in the 21st century, they “must make a steady and persistent movement to adapt to the times,” according to William (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland (USM).
Kirwan spoke on the future of research universities on Wednesday, Dec. 11, at the University of Delaware. The talk, presented to a group of UD faculty and administrators, was designed to help set the scene and percolate new ideas as UD considers the next phase of its Path to Prominence strategic plan, a process that will begin in the new year.
GSK announced a $1 million dollar prize for innovation in the emerging area of bioelectronics research. This prize will be awarded to the scientists who are first able to solve the challenge of creating a miniaturised, fully implantable device that can read, write and block the body’s electrical signals to treat disease and it is hoped that after finding a solution to this challenge will open and accelerate significant avenues of research in this field.
The scientific challenge was developed and agreed by a group of approximately 150 leading scientists from around the world, brought together by GSK’S Bioelectronics R&D unit at a summit this week in New York. Collectively, summit attendees agreed that if they create an implantable wireless device that can record, stimulate and block neural signals to a single organ, it will be a critical factor enabling the onward development of bioelectronic medicines as a future therapeutic reality.
AstraZeneca, a global and innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business, has signed an agreement to acquire the entirety of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s interests in the companies’ diabetes alliance for an initial consideration of $2.7 billion on completion and up to $1.4 billion in regulatory, launch and sales-related payments. AstraZeneca has also agreed to pay various sales-related royalty payments up until 2025. In addition, AstraZeneca may make payments up to $225 million when certain assets are subsequently transferred.
Upon completion of the transaction, AstraZeneca will own intellectual property and global rights for the development, manufacture and commercialisation of the diabetes business, which includes Onglyza (saxagliptin), Kombiglyze XR (saxagliptin and metformin HCl extended release), Komboglyze (saxagliptin and metformin HCl), dapagliflozin (marketed as Forxiga outside the US), Byetta (exenatide), Bydureon (exenatide extended-release for injectable suspension), metreleptin and Symlin (pramlintide acetate).
MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, is pleased to announce its participation in the Brazilian government program, Science Without Borders.
Thirty Brazilian post-doctoral fellows will work at MedImmune’s three sites in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Mountain View, California and Cambridge, UK for a period of two years. The areas of research will include oncology, respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune diseases (RIA), cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (CVMD), infectious diseases, translational science, antibody discovery and protein engineering, and biopharmaceutical development.
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.
Many medical scientists feel most comfortable at the laboratory bench, developing hypotheses, testing ideas, and running experiments. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), too, almost exclusively funds this type of hypothesis-driven basic research.
However, bringing a drug, diagnostic tool, or medical device to market requires a lot more than basic research. The problem, scientists say, is that federal funding runs out long before a potential product is ready for investors. “If you’ve made a discovery with NIH grant money and you want to run some studies in a mouse model, those can be expensive, and it’s not the type of study that NIH reviewers typically like. There’s this gap in the ability to get money”, says Paul DiCorleto, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute.
Combined capabilities provide scientists with access to new and existing immortalized cell lines for use in broad research applications and clinical markets.
ATCC, the premier global biological materials resource and standards organization, and Evercyte GmbH, a proven developer of immortalized human cells, have entered into a strategic partnership to develop and distribute immortalized cell lines that retain key performance characteristics of primary cells. Immortalized primary cell lines enable scientists to have a sufficient supply of physiologically relevant cells for extended studies in biological, medical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and toxicological research.
Johns Hopkins University has the sixth-most driven student body in the world, according to data compiled by London-based startup ViewsOnYou.
The website uses three components to match people with a company or employer — energy, interpersonal and intelligence. There are more than 20 metrics that fall into those components, one of which is an individual’s drive.
The National Institutes of Health is releasing funding opportunities to build a new arsenal of tools and technologies for unlocking the mysteries of the brain. The NIH action is in support of President Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.
The six opportunities announced today were developed in response to high priority areas(PDF – 536KB) identified by the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director’s BRAIN Working Group in September 2013. Awards are expected to be announced in September 2014 and will constitute NIH’s initial investment of $40 million in the initiative.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just got a physician, big university administrator, and one of the world’s most respected drug developers rolled into one as its new CEO.
Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the chancellor of UC San Francisco since 2009 and the former president of product development at Genentech, has been hired as the new CEO of the Gates Foundation, according to a statement from the foundation. She will start on May 1. UCSF said Sam Hawgood, the dean of the school of medicine, will replace Desmond-Hellmann as interim chancellor.
It’s hard to believe that nearly two years after it picked its inaugural class of entrepreneurs to respond to trends in healthcare. Now the health IT accelerator in New York Blueprint Health is gearing up for class number five.
Looking back on its first graduates, Dr. Brad Weinberg, who co-founded the program with Mathew Farkash, noted that seven of the original nine companies are still in business. Five are generating revenue. Looking at its alumni of 39 companies with which it’s invested, 36 of them are still in operation and 80 percent are turning a profit — a record he would challenge other healthcare accelerators to beat.
This year, conversations about creativity and innovation have been happening all over the world. And while there’s still a long way to go, we’re excited to see just how many schools and communities are embracing the importance of letting a child’s imagination run wild.
A fantastic example of this is when five-year-old Miles Scott became Batkid in San Francisco-turned-Gotham City this November.
When personal genomics and biotech firm 23andMe was founded in Mountain View, Calif., in 2006, the hype over the genetic tests it offered directly to consumers was immediate and irresistible to many. The company promised that for a nominal fee, it could scan your saliva sample and tell you — based on your genetics — everything from who your ancestors were to what diseases you may be at risk of developing many years down the road. 23andMe raised more than $100 million in capital from such big-name investors as Google and Genentech. Today, the company’s website boasts having close to 500,000 “genotyped consumers.”
So it was a surprise to some observers when, on November 22, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) sent a strongly worded letter to 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki demanding that the company stop marketing its test, called Personal Genome Service (PGS), until it secures authorization from the agency. The FDA contends that PGS is a medical device being pitched for the diagnosis and prevention of disease, and therefore it must obtain approval under federal law.
The three months of intense focus. The crafting of the perfect pitch. The big presentation on demo day, followed by press mentions and meetings with investors.
And…then what? What comes after the accelerator?
For the entrepreneurs of Rock Health’s Boston Class, which wrapped up in August of 2012, there have been four follow-on fundings, some pilot tests, a pivot and a few long quiet periods. I checked in with the entrepreneurs just over a year after they completed to program to see how they’re all doing now.
People should stop wasting their money on dietary supplements, some physicians said today, in response to three large new studies that showed most multivitamin supplements are ineffective at reducing the risk of disease, and may even cause harm.
The new studies, published today (Dec. 16) in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine —including two new clinical trials and one large review of 27 past clinical trials conducted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — found no evidence that taking daily multivitamin and mineral supplements prevents or slows down the progress of cognitive decline or chronic diseases such as heart diseases or cancer.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
MedImmune announced on Wednesday a $6.5 million research partnership with Johns Hopkins University, marking the second academic collaboration inked by the Gaithersburg biotech in recent months.
The agreement, which spans five years, will center on projects in oncology, infectious disease, antibody discovery and protein engineering, as well as respiration, inflammation and autoimmunity.
Rockville-based biodefense company Emergent BioSolutions, taking steps to move deeper into the commercial drugmaking world, is paying $222 million to buy Cangene Corp., a Canadian firm, according to the Washington Post.
Emergent emerged as a key biodefense company following the Sept. 11 attacks, when it sold Anthrax vaccines to the U.S. government.
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has joined DreamIt Health Baltimore, a collaborative startup business accelerator program with the goal of identifying, validating and developing innovative solutions to healthcare challenges.
Northrop Grumman joins The Johns Hopkins University and BioHealth Innovation Inc. in the Baltimore-based accelerator, which was launched in September by DreamIt Ventures, a seed-stage accelerator based out of Philadelphia.
Startups selected for the four-month program receive $50,000 in seed funding; access to potential beta customers, pilot partners, data and systems; accounting and legal support; and expert guidance and mentoring from the accelerator and its partners.
BD Diagnostics, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, today introduced two new erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) instruments in Europe that standardise analysis for more accurate, timely results and an efficient workflow in comparison to a manual Westergren method. This next generation of BD ESR instruments results in improved patient care in the laboratory or point of care setting.
Erythrocyte sedimentation is a commonly used hematology test to measure inflammation and the presence and severity of disease. “Improved automation and efficiency are key to carrying out analytical tests in a busy laboratory. More and more tests are being conducted each year and reduced healthcare spending puts pressure on laboratory resources,” comments Stephen Church, European Medical Affairs, BD Diagnostics -Preanalytical Systems.
The University of Maryland (UM) BioPark announced today that the JS Yoon Memorial Cancer Research Institute, a basic research organization looking at the fundamental genetic and epigenetic basis of cancer, has expanded its space within the Biotechnology Innovation Center at the BioPark. The Institute, which moved into the Park in mid-2013, is housing six employees at the BioPark who are charged with performing basic cancer research designed to lead to therapeutic and diagnostic solutions addressing a variety of cancer types.
“What sets us apart from other cancer-focused entities is that we seek to elucidate the molecular basis of cancer and to use this knowledge to develop therapies and diagnostic tests, rather than the current method which is the other way around,” said Ji Eun Lee, Managing Director, JS Yoon Memorial Cancer Research Institute. “We’re thrilled to be conducting our research at the BioPark, which offers excellent proximity to the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM), Johns Hopkins, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institutes of Health. It’s also a huge benefit to have access to the top-rate resources and core facilities available through the UM SOM as we conduct our research.”
GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) (GSK.L) said on Monday it plans to raise its stake in its Indian pharmaceutical unit to up to 75 percent from 50.7 percent through an open offer in a deal worth about 629 million pounds ($1.02 billion).
With the latest India deal, GSK is set to spend close to $2 billion in roughly a year to increase its holdings in two listed Indian companies, underscoring the British drugmaker’s drive to deepen its footprint in emerging markets.
GlaxoSmithKline is to invest another 200 million pounds ($330 million) on advanced manufacturing in Britain, the company said on Wednesday, underlining the draw of a tax break designed to encourage research and development.
Britain’s so-called “patent box” scheme, which offers a reduced rate of corporation tax on income derived from patents, has been hailed by GSK, its biggest drugmaker, for transforming the country as a place to invest.
William Hanna Center for Innovation at Shady Grove, 9700 Great Seneca Hwy Rockville, MD 20850
Springboard Enterprises presents the Dolphin Tank, a pitch-practice event for life science entrepreneurs.
What is the format? Pre-selected presenters deliver a two- to three-minute elevator pitch (no slides!), followed by feedback from an expert panel. The audience also weighs in.
Who will pitch? Six to eight early-stage life science companies, or those with an idea for a new life science business. Those selected can pitch their idea/business on their own, or with a group.
What sectors? Life science, including biotechnology, medical devices, healthcare IT, pharmaceuticals, and diagnostics.
Men and women are encouraged to apply to pitch at this event.
Deadline to apply to pitch: Monday December, 16 at 12noon EST Expect an email from jennifer@sb.co within 24 hours of the pitch deadline to confirm whether you’ve been selected to pitch.
Instead of looking at pictures in textbooks or working with simulations on computers, high school students across Maryland have a chance to experiment with professional scientists while using the latest lab equipment.
The teens conduct these experiments, not in their classroom, but in a bus outfitted as a mobile laboratory,
The traveling Bio Lab recently visited Patapsco High School and Center for Arts in Baltimore, which delighted of their teacher.
The Indian Biomedical Association (IBA) invited entrepreneurs from early phase companies with products or services in the life sciences industry the opportunity to connect, collaborate and partner with investors. Following the event on Nov 17th [Developing and delivering effective investor presentation for your early stage venture], four companies were chosen to pitch in front of investors on Dec 17th, 2013. The four companies are: Neuronascent, RoosterBio, LiquiLens and OTOMAGNETICS.
Top Five Reasons You Should Attend:
1. Learn by Example- Listen carefully to how others pitch so that you can perfect your own!
2. Understand what seasoned investors expect in real life terms
3. Networking with like-minded professionals
4. Create your own Due Diligence process for investing
5. Building a vibrant entrepreneurial healthcare and life science community in the DC/MD/VA region – Be a Part of It!
What is your New Year resolution? Get your idea to the market with funding and resources? We can help you!
AccelerateBaltimore™ is an initiative of the Emerging Technology Centers, Baltimore’s award winning incubator, and Abell Foundation. In its first two years, we have invested $250,000 in 10 companies. Now, we are looking for the next 6 innovative startup technology companies to add our portfolio.
Apply by December 31, 2013 11:59pm!
Our goal is to close the gap between innovative ideas and getting to market by providing the seed capital, resources, mentors, potential partners and a coworking space. We are looking for 6 exciting startups that use modern technologies to create new business solutions that can be brought to market in 3 months.
Spring Capital Partners has completed fundraising for a $175 million fund that will invest in small to midsize companies.
The fund is the third — and largest — the Baltimore firm has raised since launching in 1999. Its first in 2000 raised $75 million. The second in 2006 raised $115 million.
Spring’s new fund will buy minority stakes in companies with $10 million to $150 million in revenue. Its investments will not be confined to specific industries, but will span a wide range of companies. Earlier investments have included manufacturers, information technology firms government contractors and software companies.
Our world is changing at an unprecedented pace. To prepare our students, lessons must go beyond the “3 R’s” and foster 21st century skills. Skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity will be essential for students to take on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Note: As of August 6th, 2013, Smithsonian Student Travel is now known as EF Explore America. Please visit our website at http://www.efexploreamerica.com.
The Fort, one of the first startup accelerators in the D.C. area, may be closing its physical doors, but according to Jonathon Perrelli, managing director of Fortify Ventures, it will live on in a blog and in spirit at 1776.
“There’s a confusion that The Fort and Fortify Ventures are synonymous,” Perrelli explains. They aren’t. “We believe in accelerators,” he says, “and we want to support early-stage companies.” He and the team just don’t want to run an accelerator anymore.
When something like three in four venture-backed startups fail, picking the ones that won’t is definitely not an easy feat.
In search of what they call the “unicorn VCs” of healthcare – investors who have consistently invested in companies with the biggest of the big exits – analysts at research firm CB Insights combed through a decade of healthcare M&A data. They found 50 medical device and biotech companies that exited, through IPO or acquisition, with valuations of at least $500 million between 2004 and 2013.
DreamIt Ventures is raising a $30 million fund to further support its portfolio companies.
The five-year-old early-stage startup accelerator has raised $10 million so far, said managing partner Karen Griffith Gryga, who is raising the fund. The raise will go toward follow-on funding for the nearly 130 companies that have graduated from DreamIt’s programs in Philadelphia, New York City and Austin. (DreamIt’s latest program, DreamIt Health Baltimore, will launch in January 2014.)
Own an emerging cyber security company and need more cash to grow?
Maryland has set aside $3 million in tax incentives for companies seeking outside investments. Those investors must keep their money in the company for at least three years.
There has been some confusion over the tax credit so state officials are trying to get the word out that there’s money on the table.
Drexel University, the University City Science Center and DreamIt Ventures are on a mission to support innovators and entrepreneurs in the Philadelphia region and have formed a strategic partnership that creates a hub for start-ups to test their wings and the capital that will support their continued growth.
Drexel – Science Center Collaboration
Drexel and the Science Center have collaborated to form a 17,500-square-foot innovation hub that will serve as a launching pad for companies by offering business incubation and accelerator spaces and services to support idea generation, innovation and growth as well as support for later-stage companies.
NYC Economic Development Corporation president Kyle Kimball on New York City working with large pharmaceutical companies and venture capital firms to create $100M fund.
The following is an email sent by James P Gavigan, PhD, Head of the Science, Technology and Education Section, Delegation of the European Union to the United States of America regrading the Launch of Horizon 2020.
Dear All,
Please note that the EU’s new program to fund research and innovation activities from 2014-2020 – Horizon 2020 – was officially launched on 11 December 2013 with a first tranche of funding of Euros 7.8 billion being made available for calls for proposals in 2014 out of a total of almost 80 billion for the seven year period.
I enclose herewith the Press Release and an accompanying Memo announcing the launch:
I would also like to draw your attention to the new Horizon 2020 web portal which is the unique access point for all information on the program – its content, structure, how to participate, etc.:
There are currently more than 4 million Americans who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. This figure doesn’t include those who work part-time or on contracts — or those who, discouraged, have simply stopped trying. Many of them are older and well educated, and their situation doesn’t seem to be improving despite America’s slow crawl out of the recession. While last week’s jobs numbers extolled a decline in the national unemployment rate, the numbers for the long-term unemployed didn’t even budge.
MIT professor Ofer Sharone is tackling this issue head on, piloting a new initiative to help the long-term unemployed and gather valuable research on both job-seeking and hiring practices. He is also the author of the recent book Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences. My edited discussion with Sharone is below.
I was manning a booth at the Harvard Club of New York’s authors’ night when an older woman approached and picked up a copy of my book, Reinventing You. She paged through it for a moment, then put it down. “Too late for me,” she said abruptly, and walked away.
Over the past six months of my book tour, it’s a question I’ve heard often. Isn’t professional reinvention just for young people? What if I’m too old? How can I spend years training for something new, when I’m already near retirement? It’s true: reinvention is different later in your career. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Being able to learn marketable digital skills is sluggish and difficult — or so they say.
Adda Birnir noticed a gender divide between a media company’s business and technical side (read: men) versus the editorial side (read: women). She created online tech education platform Skillcrush to give women a way to learn marketable skills that could lead to steady, high-paying jobs and relevant, satisfying work.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: NWBO), a biotechnology company developing DCVax® personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, has completed an underwritten public offering of 4,895,834 units at a public offering price of $4.80 per unit, resulting in gross proceeds of $23,500,000. Northwest also announced today that the underwriter has exercised in full its option to purchase an additional 734,374 units to cover over-allotments. Exercise of the over-allotment option increases the gross proceeds to the Company to $27,025,000.
Each unit consists of one share of common stock, and a warrant to purchase 0.5 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $6.00 per share. The warrants are immediately exercisable and expire on the fifth anniversary of the date of issuance. The shares of common stock and warrants are immediately separable and will be issued separately.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc.’s U.S. Health and Human Services contract to help produce flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic are key to the firm’s expansion, Chief Financial Officer Robert G. Kramer says.
The Baltimore Development Corp. on Wednesday confirmed that it is offering a second $250,000 new job creation tax incentive to Emergent.
On a trade mission to Brazil, Governor Martin O’Malley today announced that Brace Pharmaceuticals, an investment company created by EMS S/A, Brazil’s largest domestic pharmaceutical company, has opened its U.S. headquarters in Montgomery County and plans to invest $200 million into the new operation. The company, which is located in the Rockville Innovation Center, is focused on the late stage clinical development of pharmaceutical products with the potential for near-term commercialization. Brace invests in research and development companies’ efforts to successfully complete their clinical trials and seek FDA marketing approval. Brace recently entered into its first venture investment in a U.S. company with Gliknik, a Baltimore-based biopharmaceutical company that is creating new therapies for cancer and immune disorders. The announcement came after Governor O’Malley visited EMS headquarters near Sao Paulo and met with the company’s owner and Chairman, Carlos Sanchez and its Vice President of Strategy & Operations, Vinzenz Plorer, a member of the Maryland delegation to Brazil.
Brace Pharmaceuticals Inc., an arm of Brazilian pharma company EMS S/A, has established its U.S. headquarters in Rockville and will invest $200 million in the operation, the O’Malley administration said Tuesday.
Brace, based out of the Rockville Innovation Center, bills itself as an “investment company” focused on developing and commercializing late-stage clinical products. It is a backer of Baltimore-based biotech Gliknik.
Noble Life Sciences (Gaithersburg, MD) announced today that the company has been awarded a Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) grant of $100,000 from the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). The grant will be used to develop assays to determine the effect of cancer treatments on metastatic cells derived directly from patients. Metastasis-initiating tumor cells isolated from the blood of cancer patients will be used to assay the activity of drugs both in culture and in novel metastatic mouse models developed using these invasive circulating tumor cells (CTCs).
Dr. Stephen Horrigan, Chief Scientific Officer of Noble Life Sciences, noted, “In over 90% of cancer deaths, metastasis, not the primary tumor, is responsible. Yet virtually all cancer drug development testing is based on activity in primary tumors. The development of these metastasis-associated assays will enable us to offer highly innovative services to clients who are developing novel therapeutic drugs, in particular those that target metastatic cancers and cancer stem cells. One goal of our development effort will be to demonstrate the ability to test ex vivo the sensitivity and resistance of metastasis-initiating invasive CTCs to candidate drugs. A second goal will be to create patient-derived metastasis mouse (PDM mouse) models thereby establishing mouse avatars for preclinical testing of human metastatic tumors.”
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.
When you speak with Dr. Joseph Loscalzo about the new Boston Biomedical Innovation Center, you can’t help but get excited about the prospects of enhancing the health of the nation by promoting greater commercialization of NIH-funded discovery science.
“We have all the people we need to make it work. We have all the resources now in hand that we need to make it work. So I think that we are in a very unique situation to prove that this concept is a valid one for the future development of technologies that spring from what the NIH supported over the years as basic investigation that can now be applied to patient care.”
It’s not uncommon for startups to fail, but DreamIt Health’s Managing Director Elliot Menschik and Psilos Group cofounder Lisa Suennen have noticed that some failures are more common than others. Specifically, the two investors said a poorly set up team or a startup that isn’t willing to change with technology leads to problems later on.
While Menschik focuses primarily on early stage startups at DreamIt Health, Suennen’s firm generally invests around $20 million in late stage startups. Still, the investors noted that failures of startups had similarities across the board.
The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest trade association for technology and life science companies, today announced that it has partnered with Year Up National Capital Region (NCR) in a workforce development initiative designed to address the need of Maryland employers for skilled technical workers and provide urban young adults with the skills, experience and support they need to flourish in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers. Together the groups will host quarterly Workforce Development Roundtable discussions with TCM constituents in the region to discuss workforce initiatives, the first of which is scheduled for January 8 from 7:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with Year Up NCR to identify ways we can create a more robust pipeline of enthusiastic young adults seeking careers in the technology industry, who will meet our members’ growing demand for skilled workers,” said Philip Schiff, TCM’s CEO. “Year Up’s experience in empowering young adults with marketable skills and other opportunities will be valuable as we work together to consider the training, recruitment tactics, diversity programs, internships and employer/higher education partnerships required to build a competitive workforce.”
Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) promotes the development and commercialization of products and processes through industry/university research partnerships. MIPS provides matching funds to help Maryland companies pay for the university research. Projects are initiated by the companies to meet their own research and development goals.
The Life Sciences Manager is responsible for connecting Maryland companies to faculty and researchers in University System of Maryland institutions, plus St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Morgan State University to address corporate technology development needs. The Manager facilitates the creation of academic-industrial R&D partnerships through the MIPS program, with a particular emphasis on biotechnology, medical and other life sciences. The Manager evaluates proposals on an ongoing basis and acts as a technical coordinator for the MIPS program by identifying the technical reviewers for proposals. Additionally, the Manager coordinates the economic development reviews on MIPS proposals and implements existing MIPS concepts, processes, tools and other procedures necessary to evaluate and monitor ongoing projects, and develop improved capabilities therein.
A Johns Hopkins undergraduate biomedical engineering student team headed by Indian American Piyush Poddar that devised a two-part system to improve the way life-saving shocks are delivered to hearts earned first prize in the undergraduate division of a national Collegiate Inventors Competition.
Winners in the Collegiate Inventors Competition, conducted by Invent Now and the National Inventors Hall of Fame, were announced Nov. 12 after the finalist teams presented their projects to contest judges at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Va.
FRANCIS S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been distributing a chart that shows the success rate of grant applications to NIH for scientific research. While the rate was about 30 percent as recently as a decade ago, it has plunged to about 15 percent, which Dr. Collins says is the lowest in history. One reason for this is that more applicants are seeking funds, but the budget squeeze also is to blame. Dr. Collins is worried that the low success rate will cause young scientists and researchers to abandon the laboratory for other careers or to take their talents and ideas to other countries.
Baltimore has hired an Austin, Texas-based firm to develop an economic development strategic plan for the city.
The contract with AngelouEconomics which is not expected to exceed $167,500, will be paid for by the Baltimore Development Corp. Signed on Sept. 15, the contract is slated to expire at the end of March 2014, said Joann Logan, a BDC spokeswoman.
Each year, the State of Maryland continues to lead advancements and best practices in U.S. stem cell research through the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund (MSCRF). To celebrate and share the most current research coming out of the state, more than 350 scientists, researchers, bioethicists, patient advocates, government officials and members of the public came together today to attend the Sixth Annual Maryland Stem Cell Research Symposium at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Campus in Baltimore. Hosted by The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission (Commission), the event delivered plenary sessions, concurrent presentations, more than 100 poster exhibits and 20 comprehensive scientific presentations on stem cell studies presented by Maryland researchers.
Lockheed Martin Corp. will formally open on Wednesday a Center for Health Innovation in Baltimore County to help the defense contractor delve deeper into the health care industry. The center, located within Lockheed’s offices on Lord Baltimore Drive near Woodlawn, will serve as a hub for Lockheed’s growing health care technology business.
The center will house existing technologies used by health care industry clients and serve as a place to develop new tools to address the industry’s needs.
The state of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have embarked on a new partnership effort, the main goal of which is to attract high technology companies to Maryland, which in turn will enable both future missions of NASA and the economic future of Maryland.
The agreement, signed by U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Goddard Space Flight Center Director Chris Scolese will help in several ways. Goddard will obtain specialized skills and technologies needed for its numerous mission applications. It will help the center engage in technical exchanges with local tech companies regarding new trends, theories, techniques, and problems in aerospace technology. And finally, it will provide an opportunity for the development of local educational and labor resources specific to Goddard’s needs.
Flu or influenza (caused by influenza virus) is a miserable experience as it daunts the victim with countless sneezes, head aches and fever.
Flu develops when tiny droplets coughed or sneezed into the air by an infected person are inhaled by an uninfected person. Flu is often confused with common cold. But, they are different, though certain flu symptoms are the same. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, fever and muscle pain associated with flu goes away with prevention and treatment in a day or two, however, fatigue may last for a week.
Few companies watch their bottom line with more anxiety than startup firms, but the ones who want to move into a new business accelerator in Columbia will need to think beyond revenue and expenses.
Howard County’s Conscious Venture Lab is on the hunt for fledgling companies practicing a form of what’s often called responsible or sustainable capitalism — businesses with aims that include but aren’t limited to profits. The accelerator’s organizers want firms that consider not just shareholders in their decisions but also a broad range of other “stakeholders” such as employees, suppliers and the environment.
GlaxoSmithKline has announced the formation of a consortium comprised of “six internationally-renowned comprehensive cancer centres”, three in North Americva and three in Europe.
In forming the Oncology Clinical and Translational Consortium (OCTC), GSK says it will benefit from the partners’ expertise in preclinical, translational and clinical development of novel anticancer therapeutics including kinase inhibitors, epigenome modulating compounds and immunotherapies. In return, the centres will have access to studies with GSK’s early-stage cancer pipeline “and opportunities to advance the next generation of novel oncology therapeutics”.
Strand Life Sciences Private Limited, a global life sciences company headquartered in Bangalore, is collaborating with the San Francisco Bay Area based El Camino Hospital to locate a Strand Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at the Genomic Medicine Institute of the El Camino Hospital to accelerate the adoption of next generation sequencing based research panels and counseling services by the physicians at the Hospital and its partner clinics.
A Letter of Understanding was signed on Wednesday December 4th by Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Strand Life Sciences and Dr. Eric A. Pifer, Chief Medical Officer of El Camino Hospital. This signals the start of a collaborative effort to bring advanced genomic tests in cardiology, oncology, pharmaco-genomics and personalized medicine to the community served by the El Camino Hospital, a community that has traditionally been an early adopter of high technology solutions.
Part of moving forward and progressing with health IT initiatives involves proactively setting new goals and establishing a roadmap for the future. The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange Foundation has taken this to task by releasing its 2013 report that puts forth recommendations for the health IT industry over the next decade.
Report officials outline 10 recommendations in four critical areas of focus including patient engagement, payment models, data exchange and interoperability and innovative encounter models.
Less than 10 percent of hospitals have warmed up to RFID technology. That’s the assessment of Mark Roberti, the founder and editor of RFID Journal, so it’s very much an emerging trend in healthcare. The idea is that by using resources more effectively, hospital staff can spend less time running around trying to find medical supplies and more time with patients.
“The reason why healthcare costs are so high is hospitals keep buying things they already have and waste money,” Roberti said at a conference organized by his Journal which focused on RFID in Healthcare. Hospitals have been so focused on the priority of saving lives that they have been slow to adopt technology that saves money.
ZocDoc dug into America’s “largest database of patient behavior” to discover the top patient trends of 2013.
ZocDoc makes it easy for people to book doctors appointments through its online booking service. More than 4 million patients use ZocDoc every month, and their interactions provide a wealth of data and insights that were never available before.
Each year, nearly $100 billion is spent in the United States on healthcare related research, with an increasing proportion of the breakthrough research being carried out in academic medical centers. While continued medical progress relies on enhanced academic-industry collaboration, the information available on the academic commercialization system function across these institutions is not uniform and often difficult to access.
The Medical Innovation Playbook is the first-ever comprehensive study of technological innovation and commercialization at the nation’s top healthcare centers.
As aging populations put a strain on cash-strapped governments, chronic illness and rare disease prevention is taking centre stage in healthcare. To meet new levels of demand, the sector is ramping up its innovative capacity through collaborations. But harnessing the disruptive potential of these partnerships is still very much a work in progress, according to participants of the INSEAD Healthcare Alumni Summit in Zurich in October this year.
Collaborations are widely seen by the sector as crucial to raise extra finance amid a credit crunch, share risk, boost research productivity, discover new therapies – and ultimately to reinvent the way healthcare is delivered. So large and small pharma companies, hospitals, pharmacy chains, venture capital firms, IT consultants, and academia are forming an array of partnerships.
Today, Sanofi US launched its second Partners in Patient Health (PiPH) Innovation Challenge: Collaborate | Innovate, which will award $100,000 to the winning team. This year’s theme is “Co-Creating for Breakthroughs: Moving toward a collaborative research and development ecosystem.” The Challenge calls on non-profit patient, provider and professional associations to partner with other associations and/or academic institutions to propose new approaches which translate patient insights into improvements in the drug development process.
A treatment breakthrough can cost billions of dollars and decades of time to research. Patient organizations are in the position of helping patients and their constituents to play an important role in research and development (R&D). Patient involvement in the entire process can lead to improvements in efficiency and effectiveness of industry efforts in developing new therapies.
The OneStart Americas competition, a partnership between Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable and SR One, the venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline, officially launched on November 4 at UCSF. The kick-off event was followed by similar events held this month in Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston.
OneStart Americas invites individuals or teams of burgeoning life science entrepreneurs under 36 years of age to apply in one of four tracks: drug discovery, medical devices, diagnostics, or health information technology. 35 selected semi-finalists will undergo two-months of extensive mentorship from venture capitalists, pharmaceutical executives, and other entrepreneurs in order to turn their idea into a comprehensive business plan.
Eight former pro football players learned this year that they have signs of a degenerative brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to depression, dementia, and memory loss. These somber findings were uncovered using a new method of brain imaging that, for the first time, enables researchers to spot signs of the condition in the living brain. Previously CTE could only be identified after a victim died.
The new method could help quantify the risks of repetitive blows to the head (see “Images of a Hard-Hitting Disease” and “Military Brains Donated for Trauma Research”). It could also help future players avoid the degenerative and sometimes lethal condition by limiting their exposure, and it may help scientists develop better protective gear and treatments.
In support of the Christie Administration’s commitment to nurturing the growth of emerging technology and biotechnology businesses, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) announced that 65 companies have been approved to share the $60 million allocation available through the State’s Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer Program in Fiscal Year 2013.
This competitive program enables technology and biotechnology companies to sell New Jersey tax losses and/or research and development tax credits to raise cash to finance their growth and operations. Since the program was established in 1999, more than 500 businesses have been approved for awards totaling $710 million. Each of the 65 applicants approved this year will receive an estimated $920,000, which is 15 percent more than last year and over double the Fiscal Year 2011 average.
From our genomes to Jawbones, the amount of data about health is exploding. Bringing on top Silicon Valley talent, one NYC hospital is preparing for a future where it can analyze and predict its patients’ health needs–and maybe change our understanding of disease.
The office of Jeff Hammerbacher at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine sits in the middle of one of the most stark economic divides in the nation. To Hammerbacher’s south are New York City’s posh Upper East Side townhouses. To the north, the barrios of East Harlem.
Technology once used to help helicopters fly better will in the future be used to help patients breathe better.
InnoVital Systems, a spinoff of Beltsville defense contractor Techno-Sciences, will pair its experience developing technology for the military with medical research by MedStar Health and the Cleveland Clinic to create a new medical device. The InVent Diaphragm Assist is an implantable device that can help patients with respiratory illnesses breathe, instead of a ventilator system.
Revolution Growth is investing $22 million in Sweetgreen, an organic salad retail chain launched by three Georgetown grads in 2007 that has since expanded across the District and five states, the company announced Wednesday.
Sweetgreen is a relatively low-tech investment for Revolution Growth, a $450 million fund founded by Steve Case, Donn Davis and Ted Leonsis. Under the deal, Case will join Sweetgreen’s board. The funds will go toward national growth in “key markets,” as well as building the company’s “team and corporate culture, and growing community programs and marketing initiatives,” according to a news release.
Scientists have been toying for years with creating tiny implants and nanorobots that could carry drugs to certain diseased cells. It is about as targeted as therapy can get, but at this point it’s all a bit futuristic.
Within the confines of petri dishes, researchers are still tinkering. A new study is the first to demonstrate that a nanorobot, which the researchers are calling a DNA nanocage, can both encapsulate and release a biomolecule without degrading the cage itself — and at a size small enough to keep the drugs trapped until they reach the end target.
New York has built gleaming new research facilities and lured at least one large drug company, but the city still trails places such as Boston and San Francisco in fostering small companies that experiment with cutting-edge medical treatments.
To help the local biotechnology scene catch up, the Bloomberg administration is working with large pharmaceutical companies and venture capitalists to create a $100 million fund to invest in fledgling life sciences companies.
San Francisco-based Burrill & Company looked like it had beaten the odds a little more than a year ago during a tough time for biotech venture capital firms. Burrill said in a statement that it had put together Burrill Capital Fund IV, with “aggregate capital commitments” of $505 million to invest in drugs, diagnostics, medical devices, healthcare delivery, wellness, and digital health.
Actually, it turns out the fund raised about $200 million. Partly as a result of the size difference, the team responsible for investing the cash has split off from Burrill into a new venture firm called Biomark Capital, Xconomy has learned.
The fourth edition of Building Biotechnology, the premier biotechnology industry primer, is now available.
Building Biotechnology has been adopted by dozens of educational programs, and is on the nightstands of many biotech CEOs. The book covers a broad range of essential knowledge in business, regulations, patents, law, policy, and science.
Its image further enhanced by the recent IPO of Twitter, Silicon Valley now stands in many minds as the cutting edge of the American future. Some, on both right and left, believe that the Valley’s geeks should reform the nation, and the government, in their image.
Increasingly, the basic meme out of the Valley, and its boosters, is that, as one venture capitalist put it: “We need to run the experiment, to show what a society run by Silicon Valley looks like.” The rest of the country, that venture capitalist, Chamath Palihapitiya, recently argued, needs to recognize that “it’s becoming excruciatingly, obviously clear to everyone else, that where value is created is no longer in New York, it’s no longer in Washington, it’s no longer in L.A. It’s in San Francisco and the Bay Area.”
Back in August, I wrote about how the rich and famous were adopting health wearables. But what about the other end of the spectrum? Recent Pew data shows that lower income people are the most likely to have one or more chronic disease, but the least likely to use a health app. Developing mobile health technologies for low income and underserved populations doesn’t just have the potential to help those populations — it could also help the entrepreneurs that choose to take advantage of it.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
Johns Hopkins University has won a key court judgement in its disputed plan to develop a 108-acre donated farm into a $4.7 million “science city,” The Gazette reports.
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled Thursday that the plan complies with the agreement forged between Johns Hopkins and Elizabeth Banks, who sold Belward Farm in 1989 for $5 million. In November 2011, Tim Newell, one of Banks’ relatives, sued Hopkins claiming the university was violating a land use agreement it made with Banks.
In 1837, entrepreneur and philanthropist Johns Hopkins bought a Federal-style mansion located on 300 acres in northeast Baltimore. Henry Thompson, a businessman and War of 1812 cavalry captain, had built the estate in 1803 and named it Clifton after his ancestral home in England. It became Hopkins’ summer home, where he liked to entertain family and friends, until his death in 1873. It’s where he welcomed the Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII. It’s where he held a clandestine meeting that included Salmon Chase, secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln; his friend John Work Garrett, the B&O Railroad president; and other B&O officials, who offered to use the rail for Union Army troop movements. And it’s where he hoped the university that would bear his name would be located
A new health information technology accelerator has caught the eye of one of Baltimore’s technology leaders.
Jason Hardebeck, executive director of the gb.tc, formerly the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, has been named managing director for DreamIt Health Baltimore. The accelerator is scheduled to launch in January.
Trevigen Inc. has been awarded $252,000 for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I Contract, 261201300042C, from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a tumor-aligned 3D coculture system. Dr. Gabriel Benton is the Principal Investigator.
“Many anticancer drugs fail in human trials despite showing efficacy in in vitro studies and animal models. It has become clear that 2D in vitro monoculture assays do not reflect the complex cellular composition and microenvironment of the tumor tissue, and this may explain their failure to predict clinical efficacy” says Dr. Hynda Kleinman, former NIH PI.
A university team took first place in a health competition earlier this month after implementing a method to improve health care access for Americans.
This year’s American Public Health Association Codeathon event brought several teams from around the country to Boston on Nov. 1 to figure out how to put the Affordable Care Act into practice. The university’s team, Terrapin Health Transformers & Friends, brought together developers, coders, designers and health professionals to brainstorm their idea, said Kenyon Crowley, team leader and the Center for Health, Information and Decision Systems deputy director.
It wasn’t just another business competition for Scott Holland, it was the realization of a life-long dream.
Holland’s startup i-Lighting, a novel easy-to-install indoor and outdoor LED lighting system, was awarded $100,000 and other prizes in April 2013 during the inaugural InvestMaryland Challenge, a prestigious business competition by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Following weeks of rigorous judging and mentoring, his company beat out dozens of others, ranging from high-tech manufacturers to smart phone app developers, in the general category.
CDER’s mission is to protect and promote public health by helping to ensure that human drugs are safe and effective for their intended use, that they meet established quality standards, and that they are available to patients. The range and complexity of the human drug supply and development pipeline, and the global nature of regulated industry operations present unprecedented challenges to effective regulatory oversight. Effective and sustainable regulatory operations also require explicit recognition of agency resource limitations.
Once a month, Growlers Brew Pub in Gaithersburg is packed with people talking about the latest trends in the biotechnology and life sciences industries.
The people who gather at Growlers are biotechnology students, lab workers, human resources managers, job seekers, educators, scientists, entrepreneurs and vendors. They come for the camaraderie and the opportunity to connect with people in the bioscience industry.
MedStar Health and the Cleveland Clinic said Monday they’d signed a deal with a Maryland company to license patent rights for a medical device that would help patients with severe lung and neuromuscular diseases to breathe.
The deal comes two years after Columbia, Md.-based MedStar and the prestigious Cleveland Clinic’s technology transfer arm unveiled its alliance aimed at commercializing medical innovation.
The Evan Burfield of June 2000 was the archetypal startup wunderkind, the kind of overachiever who naturally invites unfavorable comparisons to yourself at the same age.
There was his skinny, almost teenaged face on The Washington Post’s website, accompanying a reader Q&A on how he built a financial software company, netDecide, instead of rowing at Dartmouth.
The fiasco with the $600 million federal health insurance website wasn’t all bureaucratic. Forcing slow and disparate databases run by government and insurance companies to work together in real time—and then launching the service all at once—would have challenged even technology wunderkinds.
In particular, the project was doomed by a relatively late decision that required applicants to open an account and let the site verify their identity, residence, and income before they could browse for insurance. That meant the site would have to interface in real-time with databases maintained by the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies.
Last summer when we were still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the Affordable Care Act, many people I talked to said that regardless of the decision, the wheels were in motion. Too much had already happened for the Court to get the horse back in the barn.
That may be true, but President Obama and the ACA got everything started on a national scale: the focus on reducing readmissions, on care coordination, on patient engagement. When would hospitals have started revamping the discharge process or getting serious about follow-up care without the stick of reduced reimbursements? When would doctors and hospitals and long-term care facilities have started really focusing on any of these serious problems without real incentives to do so?
Jason Hardebeck, whom many in Baltimore’s tech community know as the executive director of gb.tc, has been picked to lead DreamIt Ventures‘ new accelerator for health IT startups here.
Hardebeck will take on the role of managing director of DreamIt Health Baltimore, which will shuttle early-stage health care startups through a four-month program beginning in January, providing them with stipends of up to $50,000 in addition to other professional services. The program will be based out of Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point, a Johns Hopkins University property that DreamIt is leasing from the university.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and US-based VC Avalon Ventures have announced the creation of the first of up to ten San Diego-based biotech firms as part of a $495m alliance signed in April.
Sitari Pharmaceuticals, which is using technology licensed from Stanford University, will receive a total of $10m from Avalon and GSK to get the San Diego-based company off the ground. The company will investigate treatments for celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder which targets the small intestine. Avalon also created COI Pharmaceuticals, a support firm which will supply people and infrastructure to Sitari and other firms to emerge from the alliance.
It’s frequently used to raise money for producing movies and recording CDs, but a Toronto hospital is hoping the crowdfunding craze can help get potentially life-saving treatment out of the lab and into the arms of the people who need it most.
For almost two decades, Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of radiation oncology at Sunnybrook Hospital, has been working with Michael Kolios, an associate dean in Ryerson University’s faculty of science, on software that could help better manage breast cancer treatments.
It’s been a relatively quiet year for facility investment projects from Merck KGaA, the life sciences and chemical firm that employs more than 38,000 around the world and reported 2012 revenues of more than US$15 billion. But the past fortnight has been something else entirely.
On Nov. 15, Merck announced an €80-million (US$108.3-million) investment in a new pharmaceutical manufacturing facility to be located in the Nantong Economical Technological Development Area (NETDA) in the Greater Shanghai region (Yangtze River Delta area).
Heart attacks, anaphylactic shock and clinical decision support for healthcare workers in rural clinics in developing countries. Those are the targets of a group of mobile health apps that could help decide the future of mhealth technology commercialization at the university. It’s part of a new program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Six apps were chosen by development firms who will produce prototypes for the Center for Technology Transfer. The first three were conceived by faculty from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and qualify for UpStart’s incubator program. A drug verifier app, developed by a Wharton business school student, will get advice from UpStart’s new student entrepreneur adviser program. Aside from Resuscor, each of them fit the description for the Noble Mobile category — an app to improve society.
A Chinese herbal medicine for liver ailments has cleared a big hurdle with regulators in the United States, but there’s still a long way to go.
For Tarek Hassanein, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, it took a long time to learn and finally to pronounce “fuzhenghuayu (FZHY)”. That’s the Chinese name of a patented Chinese drug that treats liver fibrosis, the scarring process of the liver from injuries and diseases.
Peter DeComo raised $20 million from investors for Renal Solutions Inc. in 2002, when the Pittsburgh medical device company had only a working prototype for an artificial kidney and no money.
During the next five years, he brought in $20 million more in capital before selling Renal Solutions to a German outfit in 2007 for nearly $200 million.
“That company couldn’t even get funded today,” lamented DeComo, the CEO of South Side-based ALung Technologies Inc., because venture capital investors have pulled back from startup companies in his industry.
You’ve cracked open the crate of cranberries, stuck the turkey in the oven and are well into filling your second muffin tin with cornbread batter. And just in time for dinner, MedCity is here to talk about innovative obesity treatments, both pharmaceutical options and medical devices.
The Netherlands has retained its position at the top of the annual Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI) which compares healthcare systems in Europe.
On 48 indicators such as patient rights and information, accessibility, prevention and outcomes, the Netherlands secured its top position among 35 European countries for the fourth year in a row, scoring 870 of a maximum 1,000 points.
To say an IT project like HealthCare.gov was a large-scale, complex behemoth undertaking is an understatement, to say the least. All the myriad elements of the project must be successfully interconnected for it to function properly, which clearly did not occur.
Neglect any one of these elements and it can lead to “outright failure,” says Richard Spires a consultant who formerly served as the Department of Homeland Security’s chief information officer.
“Domain specificity is important.” It is so refreshing to hear a tech entrepreneur like Steve Blank say this. Blank has been worked with researchers and clinicians for almost three years to bring the lean startup philosophy to healthcare. This is one of his conclusions about the industry.
Many people trying to get healthcare into the 21st century – doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs, investors – have been frustrated by the obnoxious attitude that technology is the solution to everything. A few too many tech entrepreneurs have breezed into the health world with “the solution.”
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
‘We need to provide high-quality education at a lower cost. If at the end of the day, this means there aren’t as many universities or some people don’t have jobs, you know, this is not a welfare business. We have the interest of the nation at stake. And this is what we all have to keep focused on—high quality and containing costs.’
QIAGEN has announced an agreement with Eli Lilly and Company to develop and commercialize a molecular companion diagnostic paired with a novel Lilly oncology compound. This is the third co-development project by QIAGEN and Lilly to create companion diagnostics, which are tests that analyze genomic information in patient samples to enable personalized decisions on treatments.
The latest collaboration, involving an undisclosed Lilly compound and an undisclosed molecular diagnostic target, builds on a master collaboration agreement for development of tailored therapies in cancer and other therapeutic areas signed earlier this year.
Imagine a website launched by students, for students to share information about their innovation ecosystem on campus. I’m talking a navigation tool of sorts that allows students from every corner of the country to learn about what effective strategies universities have developed to enhance resources for students interested in exploring the technology and entrepreneurship realms. No, this isn’t a dream. This website exists, and it goes by the name of “University Innovation.”
The wiki was initially created by the University Innovation Fellows, an elite group of 45 students that are a part of a national movement to catalyze innovation on campus. But they’ve now opened up the wiki for the whole world to enjoy as a “resource to all student stakeholders in the Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship spheres in higher education.”
Before 1960, the only way to treat cardiac arrest involved opening up the chest cavity and applying manual cardiac massage. The surgeon would take the heart in his hands and squeeze it ever so cautiously to a distinct rhythm in order to help pump blood to the brain and other important organs, giving the patient a chance at life once again. While a bold method, it was rarely attempted and more often than not didn’t prove successful.
So, taking this as an opportunity to try something new, surgeons at Johns Hopkins created a new Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation technique dubbed closed-chest cardiac massage. The group of surgeons with a knack for innovation created a way to pump the arrested heart without ever having to open up the patient.
Millennial Media, WeddingWire and RainKing Solutions led the list of Maryland companies making the 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a prestigious technology awards program in United States and Canada. Among Maryland’s eight repeat companies, United Therapeutics Corporation is on the list for the 13th straight year and Zenoss is on the list for the third straight year.
Overall, there were 15 Maryland companies on the list, up from 12 in 2012. Maryland’s 15 companies were the eighth most among states/provinces. California far outpaced other states with 166 companies, with Massachusetts, Ontario, New York, Washington and Pennsylvania following. Virginia had 16 companies on the list for the seventh most among states/provinces.
Baltimore is a top destination for students looking to attend college.
The Charm City has ranked eighth among major metro areas in the American Institute for Economic Research’s College Destinations Index for 2013 and 2014.
As reported in the Baltimore News Journal, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz on Monday proposed a new department name and department head nominee for the County’s economic development agency.
The head of Maryland’s university system on Wednesday said higher education needs to embrace disruptive technologies such as massive online courses in an effort to serve more students and contain costs.
“If at the end of the day this means there aren’t as many universities or some people don’t have jobs, you know, this is not a welfare business,” William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council annual meeting. “We have the interests of the nation at stake.”
The state of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have embarked on a new partnership effort, the main goal of which is to attract high technology companies to Maryland, which in turn will enable both future missions of NASA and the economic future of Maryland. The agreement, signed by U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Goddard Space Flight Center Director Chris Scolese will help in several ways. Goddard will obtain specialized skills and technologies needed for its numerous mission applications. It will help the center engage in technical exchanges with local tech companies regarding new trends, theories, techniques and problems in aerospace technology. And finally, it will provide an opportunity for the development of local educational and labor resources specific to Goddard’s needs.
Dr. Daniel Saltzman says he can prove that bacteria that ordinarily cause food poisoning in people can be modified for use as guided missiles to deliver cancer-killing payloads into tumors.
But he needs $500,000 for some preliminary work, and despite his project’s potential, he’s not holding his breath for funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s leading source of biomedical research grants.
QIAGEN (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt, Prime Standard: QIA) today announced an agreement with Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) to develop and commercialize a molecular companion diagnostic paired with a novel Lilly oncology compound. This is the third co-development project by QIAGEN and Lilly to create companion diagnostics, which are tests that analyze genomic information in patient samples to enable personalized decisions on treatments. The latest collaboration, involving an undisclosed Lilly compound and an undisclosed molecular diagnostic target, builds on a master collaboration agreement for development of tailored therapies in cancer and other therapeutic areas signed earlier this year.
QIAGEN and Lilly are long-standing partners in personalized healthcare. QIAGEN’s therascreen(R) KRAS RGQ PCR Kit has been widely adopted by laboratories since its July 2012 approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a companion diagnostic. The therascreen KRAS Test detects gene mutations in metastatic colorectal cancer patients, indicating which ones will benefit from Erbitux. In September 2011, QIAGEN and Lilly partnered to develop a companion diagnostic that evaluates the Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) gene, which plays a role in some blood cancers. The test is paired with a Lilly compound to guide use of the proposed drug, currently in clinical trials.
The Symposium is the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund premier event that delivers comprehensive scientific talks, poster presentations, Ethics discussions and networking time, enabling cell therapy basic research and technologies from the lab to pre-clinical and to commercialization.
With a powerful line-up of speakers and many opportunities for you to present your work in concurrent or poster presentations, the Symposium will follow the format and style of previous meetings with an additional networking time and an intimate environment.
Keynote Address: The John L. Kellermann, III Memorial Lecture
Keynote Speaker:
Rita Perlingeiro, Ph.D. Associate Professor & Lillehei Endowed Scholar Lillehei Heart Institute University of Minnesota
Many of today’s biotech companies don’t aspire to be companies at all. They’re more like temporary “virtual” projects, with skeleton crews of contractors who come together for a spell and then move on to the next thing. As others have observed, it’s much like what actors, directors and producers do to make movies in Hollywood.
That’s not how the enduring, independent biotech companies do it. These companies aspire to be bigger than any one individual, or any one product bound to lose patent protection in a few years. That means they need to do an old-fashioned thing—hire lots of smart people, give them good salaries and benefits, and challenge them to accomplish big things. Otherwise, there’s no way to carry out a long-term, lofty mission of creating valuable new products for patients.
A new business accelerator in Howard County has launched a crowdfunding campaign to get off the ground.
Conscious Venture Lab in Columbia is looking to raise $50,000 through the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, which allows users to set fundraising goals and generate donations from online supporters. The Howard County Economic Development Authority and the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, part of the development authority, will match the money Conscious Venture Lab raises through its crowdfunding campaign.
With the cost of drug development hitting the $5 billion mark and 94 percent of drugs failing at some point in clinical development, pharmaceutical companies have been turning to new tools to help clinical trial design: computers and robots.
A couple of Wall Street Journal articles highlight this trend.
One notes that in June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency endorsed a simulator from the Critical Path Institute to help develop Alzheimer’s disease treatments. Additional simulators are in the works for tuberculosis, Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
GlaxoSmithKline’s $500 million portfolio with Avalon Ventures invested in its in first startup – Palo Alto-based Sitari Pharmaceuticals.
According to Fierce Biotech, the San Diego-based venture group and its partners at GSK are funding Sitari with $10 million in cash and research support, with the R&D assist coming from the pharma giant.
The pharmaceutical industry needs better scientific models for testing drugs before they get to the proving ground of human clinical trials. Current lab dish models and animal testing models are time-consuming, expensive and chronically unable to predict which drugs are going to work in clinical trials. The industry is crying out for new modes of early testing that can shorten the timelines, reduce the cost and increase the odds of success in clinical trials.
Both lab dish models and animal models have run into serious limitations. Cell culture (“in vitro”) assays offer some real advantages. Many can provide true, “human” answers to fairly simple questions. But they lack complexity.
Open innovation is not new, but it is relatively new to health care, igniting a broad cross-section of challenges, hackathons, and competitions that seek to identify breakthrough solutions to solve for our health and our health care. By applying the best practices of the leading tech accelerators, these programs accelerate the speed at which new solutions are developed, companies are formed, and jobs are created.
To quote Todd Park, CTO of the United States of America, “There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur at the intersection of health care and IT.” And there has never been a better time, or industry, for open innovation, a game where no one loses. Open innovation is good for the sponsoring organization, good for the innovator, good for the patient, and good for America.
It’s more than likely that the readers of the NPQ Newswire may not be all that heavily involved in scientific research, but for those who are, the impact of federal budget cuts on agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies supporting scientific research have been devastating. For example, in fiscal 2013, the NIH had its budget cut (per sequestration) by 5 percent, roughly $1.5 billion, which meant that 640 research grants were not issued. As this Mediaite table shows, the NIH may be the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, but its appropriations have plummeted from over $31 billion in 2010 to a projected $27 billion in 2014:
Several pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Merck (NYSE: MRK) , and Bayer (NYSE: have been taking steps to infuse their pipelines with new drug drugs by developing incubators to identify life science innovations that fit in with their longterm goals. Now Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) is collaborating with a biotech incubator backed by early stage life science and healthcare investor Versant Ventures, according to a company statement.
BioHealth Innovation (BHI) is a regionally-oriented, private-public partnership functioning as an innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland.
The information contained in this website and newsletters is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by BioHealth Innovation via its newsletters, but not written or endorsed in any way by BioHealth Innovation unless otherwise noted. While we endeavor to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
Kauffman FastTrac® has just joined with Montgomery College to support future and current business owners before, during, and after the startup process. Entrepreneurs will receive the information, resources, and networks necessary to start and grow successful businesses.
ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, January 6, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) and MIMETAS announced today that Todd Chappell, MBA, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for BHI, has been named General Manager, U.S. Affairs for MIMETAS. A Netherlands-based company, MIMETAS is establishing its offices within BHI’s headquarters in Rockville. MIMETAS and BHI created a U.S. subsidiary of MIMETAS to access the clinical, regulatory and scientific resources available in Central Maryland and to access the U.S. marketplace, the largest life sciences market in the world.
As leaders of Montgomery County life science companies, we have a stake in whether local students like science. If they do, they are more likely to work for companies such as ours. If they don’t, our pipeline of future workers gets slimmer. So we have taken special note of a science education gap in our region that we believe will have a long-term impact on our minority students, our communities and our businesses.
BALTIMORE, MD, April 16, 2013 – 
said it has secured exclusive right to manufacture and sell VaxInnate Corp.’s pandemic influenza vaccine candidate in the United States.
Our Entrepreneur-in-Residence ![BioCentury 10.13.13 - [1] Stuck in the Lab](http://www.biocenturytv.com/images/marquees/marq_101313_play.png)
When personal genomics and biotech firm 23andMe was founded in Mountain View, Calif., in 2006, the hype over the genetic tests it offered directly to consumers was immediate and irresistible to many. The company promised that for a nominal fee, it could scan your saliva sample and tell you — based on your genetics — everything from who your ancestors were to what diseases you may be at risk of developing many years down the road. 23andMe raised more than $100 million in capital from such big-name investors as Google and Genentech. Today, the company’s website boasts having close to 500,000 “genotyped consumers.”
he Symposium is the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund premier event that delivers comprehensive scientific talks, poster presentations, Ethics discussions and networking time, enabling cell therapy basic research and technologies from the lab to pre-clinical and to commercialization.
