News Archive

The healthcare system in the U.S. is a slow-moving, slow-changing beast, but it’s also riddled with inefficient parts that beg for data-driven reinvention. That’s created huge opportunities for startups — and some of them are already seeing the payoff. The Affordable Care Act and accompanying legislation like the HITECH Act have lit a fire under the movement to rethink they way we deliver and pay for healthcare. Accordingly, investment in the digital health space has accelerated in 2014; at the end of June it totaled $2.2 billion, already exceeding 2013’s total funding just halfway through the year.

Johns Hopkins researchers Aleksander Popel and Jordan Green knew their research could serve a greater purpose outside their laboratory. But without any business experience, they knew they couldn’t do it alone.

With help from Hopkins’ tech transfer office and the Maryland Innovation Initiative, a state grant fund that invests in research projects with commercialization promise, the pair’s biomedical research is now a company — AsclepiX Therapeutics. The company is developing a better way to treat eye conditions caused by blood vessel abnormalities. Macular edema, which is common among people with diabetes and can lead to blindness, is an example.

Image: Jaclyn Borowski – At left, Niranjan Pandey, senior director of research and development, and Eric Bressler, research specialist, work in the lab at AsclepiX Therapeutics. 

Report: “Safe Science: Promoting a Culture of Safety in Academic Chemical Research”

Author: Committee on Establishing and Promoting a Culture of Safety in Academic Laboratory Research

Organization: National Research Council

Summary: The National Research Council formed a panel of university lab-safety experts after a series of campus accidents, including several deaths, emphasized that academic labs have a far worse safety record than their corporate counterparts do.

Regardless of your stance on Obamacare and Maryland’s Medicare waiver, you can’t ignore that health reform and technology are creating many opportunities for innovation. The BBJ is looking for those innovators. Please click below for contest information.

For years the standard operating procedure for the medical device world has been: Bring good tech to patients and be rewarded by the market. Healthcare reform and particularly the consolidation of doctor practices is making this model obsolete. Now the challenge is more along the lines of “Justify your existence.”

Device companies have to revamp the traditional business model to show how their products save money and help patients in the long term.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

Genome scientist and entrepreneur J. Craig Venter is best known for being the first person to sequence his own genome, back in 2001.

This year, he started a new company, Human Longevity, which intends to sequence one million human genomes by 2020, and ultimately offer Web-based programs to help people store and understand their genetic data (see “Microbes and Metabolites Fuel an Ambitious Aging Project”).

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com – J. Craig Venter 

SBA Awards Montgomery County Chamber Community Foundation grant
to conduct veteran small business training course

ROCKVILLE, MD – The Montgomery County Chamber Community Foundation (MCCCF) is pleased to announce that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will support MCCCF in providing technical training to veteran-owned businesses seeking federal procurement opportunities. Through a Cooperative Agreement with SBA, the Foundation’s National Center for Veteran Institute for Procurement (VIP) will expand and host three training sessions a year (over a twelve month period) to support up to 150 service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) and veteran-owned small businesses (VOSB) to attend the program.

Education technology, or ed-tech, is getting big in Baltimore and local experts think Maryland has a shot at being a leader in this technology niche.

But it won’t happen overnight.

“I think we have a unique opportunity to build an ecosystem,” said Frank Bonsal III, an ed-tech venture capitalist who leads Towson University’s business incubator. “An ecosystem takes 20 years to build. We’re on year three.”

Image: Jaclyn Borowski – Andrew Coy, executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation, says students should play a bigger role in growing ed-tech. 

When it comes to raising capital for a tech startup, savvy entrepreneurs know how important it is to hustle. From trying to attract the attention of VCs to appearing on television shows like ABC’s Shark Tank, these days when it comes to raising cash, everyone is out to get their share.

However, you may be surprised to learn that in this high-tech world, one very traditional institution is looking for smart entrepreneurs to give money to. Aspiring entrepreneur, meet the Small Business Administration (SBA).