News Archive

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced today that nine finalists have been selected in the organization’s fourth annual ICE Awards. The awards program, which recognizes Innovation, Corporate Excellence and Entrepreneurship, will reward outstanding businesses and individuals from TEDCO’s diverse portfolio of more than 300 seed and early-stage companies. Winners will be announced on Thursday, May 15 from 8:30 am – 11:30 am during the awards ceremony at the Sheraton Columbia Town Center Hotel in Columbia, Md.  

“TEDCO’s portfolio companies encompass an incredibly diverse range of industries, technologies and innovations,” said Rob Rosenbaum, president and executive director of TEDCO. “We are pleased to announce this year’s ICE Awards finalists and congratulate them on their continued success in some of the fastest-growing and most competitive fields out there. Most importantly, we look forward to continuing to support leading Maryland innovators.”

On Friday, March 28th, a contingent of Johns Hopkins University Depart­ment of Biomedical Engineering (JHU BME) undergraduate students and faculty visited the University of Maryland campus in College Park, Md. to participate in the second annual JHU–UMD Under­graduate Research Day with undergraduates from the University of Maryland’s Fischell Department of Bio­engineering (UMD BioE).

This event is organized by the two universities’ student Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) chapters — under the leadership of chapter presidents Anvesh Annadanam (JHU BME), and Luke Peterken (UMD BioE).

Now that the Maryland General Assembly has adjourned for the year, it is time to take a quick review of significant accomplishments. Amid the hotly-contested debate on honoring soft shell crabs, kudos to the legislature for passing two little-noticed initiatives to create jobs and spur local economic development by leveraging the state’s huge academic, federal and private research sectors.

The first initiative, the “E-nnovate” bill, creates a $100 million matching fund to recruit the world’s best scholars to Maryland in areas as diverse as cyber security, biotechnology, STEM education, autonomous systems, language science and food safety. The fund will require these scholars to work with other Maryland universities, federal labs or with innovative startup companies, ensuring integration of research into economic development.

The University of Maryland, College Park, has announced a new master’s degree program that will focus on technology entrepreneurship — and, appropriately, it will be offered online.

The program will be part of the university’s Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), and enrollees will have access to the institute’s Technology Advancement and Venture Accelerator programs in addition to their online curriculum.

Governor Deval Patrick announced Thursday a plan to keep highly-skilled international students in Massachusetts post-graduation. Under his proposed Global Entrepreneur in Residence program, however, the “highly-skilled” appear to have one trait in common: technical talent. And now is not the time to be focusing solely on science, technology, engineering and math.

Patrick’s proposed legislation exploits a loophole in federal immigration law, and could bolster the number of H-1B visas the state is allotted. Students eligible for a nonimmigrant visa but unable to obtain it due to a federal cap will be designated an “entrepreneur in residence” if they have plans to start or grow a business locally.

As early as February, analysts were saying that it would be a good year for healthcare IT companies looking for venture capital.

Communications and consulting firm Mercom Capital echoed that today with results from its first-quarter investment analysis which found that healthcare IT companies raised more VC money last quarter than in any quarter before.

The most extensive collaboration between the patient social network and a drug company to-date is likely to be just the first of its kind.

PatientsLikeMe, the largest online network for patients, has established its first broad partnership with a drug company. Genentech, the South San Francisco biotechnology company bought by Roche in 2009, now has access to PatientsLikeMe’s full database for five years.

If you have been around UMBC at all in the past few years and involved with the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, you have heard about or met Greg Cangialosi. Some were even lucky enough to take the Digital Marketing class taught by him last Spring (2013). 

Cangialosi is also the benefactor and namesake of the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition getting ready to make it’s debut in a just a few weeks. 

GlycoMimetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:GLYC) announced today that data for its lead clinical drug candidate, rivipansel (GMI-1070), was highlighted via one oral presentation and one poster at the 8th Annual Sickle Cell Disease Research and Educational Symposium and 37th National Sickle Cell Disease Scientific Meeting, held April 11-14, 2014, at the InterContinental Miami.

Rivipansel is in clinical trials as a potential therapy for the treatment of vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) in people with sickle cell disease. It has previously received both Orphan Drug and Fast Track status for the treatment of VOC from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and Orphan Product status in the European Union. GlycoMimetics is developing rivipansel in collaboration with Pfizer, Inc.

Fifty-four weeks after it opened, 1776 serves as a packed and noisy hub for Washington’s startup community.

Evan Burfield and Donna Harris founded the business incubator in January 2013, and 1776 moved into its 12th-floor offices, which are a 10-minute walk north of the White House, on April 1, 2013.