News Archive

PETER PRONOVOST: The biggest misperception is certainty. When you receive a diagnosis from a doctor, we don’t always know for 100% sure if it is correct. In reality, medicine is an inexact science. In 2012, Johns Hopkins researchers, including myself, found that in intensive-care units alone, diagnostic errors may account for as many deaths as breast cancer in the U.S.

This is part of a growing body of research highlighting the need to focus on diagnostic accuracy. We need to create health-care systems in which learning is incorporated into daily practice, so that physicians can receive feedback on the accuracy of their diagnoses. We can do this by standardizing care around best practices and standardizing data collection regarding clinicians’ diagnoses and the results they get: Health information technology makes this possible.

DATE: June 13, 2014, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

LOCATION: Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, University of Maryland, in Rockville, MD

Emerging Strategies for the Production and Characterization of Biosimilars

The biomanufacturing industry faces an unprecedented challenge with the emergence of biosimilars.  The pathway to approval for biosimilars is a fluid process and several key aspects are still not determined.  The University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will deliver a one-day symposium on the current trends of characterization and production of biosimilars.  On Friday, June 13, 2014 at 8:30 am join the thought-leaders, policy-makers, and creators of biosimilars as we present current trends, ideas, and predictions.

In the translational medicine space — where medical research is “translated” into health tools and solutions for patients — the majority of engaged physicians are either biomedical researchers interested in advancing our understanding of the basic science, or are practicing doctors who want to improve clinical practice while focusing on patient care.

The number of physicians who receive training in understanding this translational research space is few, and even fewer are those who are able to take this skill set into the market to develop new technologies based off this understanding.

At Medgadget we speak with quite a few physicians-turned-entrepreneurs, and one of the most enthusiastic and impressive we’ve known is Dr. Amy Baxter. We first met Dr. Baxter at the AARP conference in Atlanta last October where she was showing off a simple, yet effective tool she developed for pain relief called “Buzzy.” There’s been a lot of, well, buzz about the device ever since she pitched it on Shark Tank and turned down the investors. Informed by her experiences as a pediatric emergency physician, Dr. Baxter took time out of her schedule to answer a few questions we had about the device and why she thinks everyone who experiences pain should have one.

Meet the humble “Magnetosperm,” a tiny, sperm-like robot with incredible potential in the medical world.

It’s approximately six times longer than a human sperm, and scientists at the American Institute of Physics say in a paper that Magnetosperm “technology could be used not only to help with fertilization, but also chemotherapy treatment.”

Disruptive change is now a fact of life for many industries. Healthcare is no exception. Although healthcare has been changing for decades—think about the introduction of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) or the initial push toward managed care in the 1980s—the Affordable Care Act (ACA) promises to accelerate both the rate of change and the level of uncertainty confronting the industry. Payors face navigating a difficult transition: from an industry in which the customer is often a corporation or small company and the business is paying claims to one in which consumers make healthcare purchasing decisions, the direct provision of care may be necessary for success, and consumer and retail capabilities really matter. Furthermore, payors must make this transition amid regulatory and consumer uncertainty and in a fairly short time frame. This industry and business-model shift is on a scale that few companies and few sectors in the economy have been through.

MdBio Foundation is looking for solutions to build a diverse and highly qualified STEM workforce.  Read the latest from CEO Brian Gaines published in the Washington Business Journal.

Google turned heads last week when it disclosed that its workforce includes a troublingly low rate of women and minorities. We applaud Google for its leadership in sharing this data. The disclosure sparked national questions about the hiring practices at our most innovative companies.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has awarded $25 million to the J. Craig Venter Institute to back an initiative to study infectious diseases like malaria and influenza at the genetic level to help find better treatments and preventive measures.

The institute, with offices in Maryland and California, will use the 5-year grant from NIH to establish the Genome Center for Infectious Diseases to study the genetic secrets of a wide range of bacteria, viruses and parasites, officials said on Thursday.

A biotech entrepreneur wants to arm physicians with an electronic companion diagnostic tool to help hospitals reduce hospital-acquired infections.

Last year, antibiotic-resistant infections caused more than two million illnesses and 23,000 deaths in the U.S. alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control. About 70 percent of those antibiotic-resistant infections were caused by hospital-acquired infections.

The Association of University Research Parks (AURP) and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) are pleased to invite you to attend the 2014 BIO International Convention to be held June 23-26, 2014 in San Diego. 

BIO 2014 is the largest venue for private company-to-company meetings (“partnering”) in the world and offers tech transfer, licensing, and intellectual property professionals with unparalleled access to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, investors, and other potential partners from around the globe. According to the Campbell Alliance’s Deal Makers’ Intentions report from 2013, partnering events such as BIO 2014 drive the majority of successful deals in the biopharma industry.