News Archive

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.

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.

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.

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.

GlaxoSmithKline plc announced 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. Tafinlar is not indicated for treatment of patients with wild-type BRAF melanoma.  

The approval of the combination is based on the demonstration of response rate and median duration of response in a Phase 1/2 study. Improvement in disease-related symptoms or overall survival has not been demonstrated for Mekinist in combination with Tafinlar. The combination was approved through the FDA’s Accelerated Approval program and reviewed under a Priority Review designation. This accelerated approval is contingent on the results of the ongoing Phase 3 trial (referred to as MEK115306 or Combi-D), which is designed to evaluate the clinical benefit of the combination in this patient population.

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.”

Johnson & Johnson Innovation has announced that it is expanding its global incubator presence through a novel collaboration with the Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel and other industry partners to establish a new biotechnology incubator near Israel’s Weizmann Science Park.

This is the latest in a series of recently announced collaborations to fuel entrepreneurship in the world’s scientific hotspots. In addition, Johnson & Johnson Innovation announced several new collaborations with academia and biotech that focus on multiple disease areas and consumer healthcare challenges.

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.