Jennifer Hammaker has watched biotech company respEQ Inc. grow from an experiment in a Johns Hopkins lab to a fledgling startup now looking for investors.
RespEQ is a prime example of what Hammaker, who leads the Maryland Innovation Initiative, hopes the state’s research commercialization program will produce more of in the future.
Apollo Hospitals today announced a partnership with Strand Life Sciences to launch the latter’s genomic tests across its hospitals.
The partnership in gene-based diagnostics with the Bangalore-based healthcare research company will help doctors at Apollo to develop personalised medicine for targeted treatments and better patient outcomes.
GSK has submitted an application for the world’s first malaria vaccine to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The vaccine candidate, RTS,S, is produced in yeast cells and targets the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite, most common in sub-Saharan Africa. It uses GSK’s proprietary AS01 adjuvant system, containing QS-21 Stimulon adjuvant licensed from Antigenics, a subsidiary of Agenus, as well as monophosphoryl lipid A (MPL) and liposomes.
After decades as a technological laggard, medicine has entered its data age. Mobile technologies, sensors, genome sequencing, and advances in analytic software now make it possible to capture vast amounts of information about our individual makeup and the environment around us. The sum of this information could transform medicine, turning a field aimed at treating the average patient into one that’s customized to each person while shifting more control and responsibility from doctors to patients.
The question is: can big data make health care better?
The implications of the world’s largest collaborative biological project in the year 2000—the Human Genome Project-combined with the Big Data revolution in the medical sciences holds out tremendous promise for human health. Recognizing the imminent need for the next generation of bioinformatics and genomics tools, four academic entrepreneurs from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science co-founded Strand Genomics Inc. (Strand). “Our focus is on personalized clinical genomics and molecular diagnostics. To address the grand challenge of the “$1000 genome and million dollar interpretation”, we have developed a clinical genomics interpretation and reporting platform, StrandOmics,” says Vijay Chandru, Ph.D, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, Strand.
NextNav LLC, the bicoastal location services venture launched by XM Satellite Radio founder Gary Parsons, announced on Thursday a $70 million Series D funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Oak Investment Partners.
The eight-figure round is the latest high-dollar financing for NextNav, which two years ago reported a $50 million raise from Columbia Capital. Columbia also joined in the most recent round, alongside Telcom Ventures and Goldman Sachs Investment Partners.
Funding and Research Opportunities
The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:
NIH Guide Notice:
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.
Maryland companies raised $64 million in venture capital funding this spring, with some of the biggest payouts flowing to Baltimore cybersecurity startups.
That’s according to the latest MoneyTree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The report, which uses Thomson Reuters data, tracks money flowing to startups and later-stage firms across the country.
Former state economic development secretary Aris Melissaratos is leaving Johns Hopkins University for a job where he’ll have more power.
Melissaratos, who had been with Hopkins for seven years, on July 17 joined Stevenson University as interim dean of the Brown School of Business and Leadership. Melissaratos said he has always had an interest in academia and now will be able to play a leading role in preparing students to join the local workforce.
Baltimore-based Cerecor has gathered up the first half of a $33 million B round, with plans to devote much of that money to a midstage development program for an experimental depression therapy recently punted by a restructuring Merck ($MRK).
In documents filed with the SEC, the biotech noted that it has raised $16.2 million of a planned $33.2 million round. New Enterprise Associates, Apple Tree Partners and MPM Capital led the round, which is also going to fund R&D efforts on its catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitor platform for conditions “characterized by impairment of executive function and working memory.”
