News Archive

A Silver Spring company is looking to build the county’s first net zero facility, a building that would produce enough energy to sustain itself annually.

United Therapeutics —a biotechnology company that works on the development and commercialization of unique medical products — is expanding its campus with the new facility on the corner of Spring Street and Colesville Road in downtown Silver Spring. The building at 1000 Spring Street will have solar panels, a green roof and special placement of windows to allow for natural light and cross breezes to push hot air out of the facility, among other environmentally sustainable features, according to a presentation the design team gave to the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board on July 8.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program, an initiative of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, has awarded $3.8 million to 17 teams combining Maryland companies with university researchers to bring technology products closer to market, program officials announce today.

MIPS, a technology acceleration program, grants money matched with company funds to faculty engaged in each project.

Johns Hopkins Hospital has reclaimed the top position on U.S. News & World Report’s 2013-2014 list of best hospitals.

The return to No. 1 comes a year after Massachusetts General Hospital edged out Hopkins for the top spot on last year’s honor roll list. Hopkins had been No. 1 since 1991.

Renee M. Winsky of Davidsonville has been named president and CEO of Leadership Maryland, a statewide leadership development program.

She replaces Nancy Minieri, who founded the organization in 1992. Minieri announced in March that she will retire at the end of this year.

Winsky is a 2005 graduate of Leadership Maryland. In the yearlong program, participants learn about problems and opportunities facing the state. More than 900 people have taken the course, including elected officials, business executives, educators and nonprofit directors.

Topic:   “EIRs, SBIRs, and more with BioHealth Innovation, Inc.”

Presenters:

• Richard Bendis, President and CEO
• Ethan Byler, Director, Innovation Programs
• Todd Chappell, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, NIH-OTT
• Dr. Ken Malone, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, UMD Ventures
• Ram Aiyar, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, NHLBI

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) is a regional innovation intermediary that accelerates and facilitates technology transfer and commercialization of market-relevant research in federal labs, universities, and biohealth companies in the Region. It is a private-public partnership that connects the Region’s innovation assets to provide integrated technical knowledge, financial means, and entrepreneurial/managerial expertise to turn promise into prosperity for the region while advancing human health.

BHI’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program is designed to be an active partner with research institutions to source, fund, and grow high-potential, early-stage products through project-focused companies. The entrepreneurs in the program support the formation of new companies based upon innovative discoveries in the areas of drugs, vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices from the intramural research programs at the NIH and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as from universities and businesses.

BHI’s Commercial Relevance Program (CRP) offers biohealth companies support in preparing applications for federal funding inclusive of SBIRs, STTRs, and other federal government awards. Companies submit their federal funding concepts and receive pre-proposal feedback to help troubleshoot and strengthen your application. Further support from professional consultants and service providers is available to assist in improving your application.

BHI recently published the Central Maryland BioHealth Entrepreneur’s Resource and Finance Guide 2013. The Guide serves as a compendium of resources to biohealth innovators and entrepreneurs working to start and grow new companies and technologies in the region.

The Partnering Agreements with United Therapeutics 2005-2013 report provides an in-depth insight into the partnering interests and activites of one of the worlds leading biopharma companies.

This report provides all the information you require to better understand United Therapeutics and its partnering interests and activities over the past seven years.

On demand company reports are prepared upon purchase to ensure inclusion of the most up to date deal and company data.

QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced it has received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market the therascreen EGFR test as a companion diagnostic to guide the use of Boehringer Ingelheim’s new targeted therapy, GILOTRIFTM (afatinib), for treatment of metastatic NSCLC in patients whose tumors have certain EGFR gene mutations. More than 200,000 new lung cancer cases are diagnosed every year in the United States, with NSCLC accounting for approximately 85% of cases, leading to an estimated 160,000 deaths.

The therascreen EGFR test enables doctors to identify EGFR mutation-positive patients eligible for treatment with GILOTRIFTM (afatinib). The FDA approval of the therascreen EGFR test marks a further milestone in the global expansion of QIAGEN’s Personalized Healthcare franchise – and adds a third FDA-approved or cleared diagnostic kit to run on QIAGEN’s efficient Rotor-Gene Q MDx. Approximately 120,000 metastatic NSCLC patients each year in the U.S. could benefit from testing for EGFR mutations, a total potential testing market of about $35 million, according to QIAGEN estimates.

Bethesda tops a list of The Most Educated Places in America

Personal finance site NerdWallet Inc. ranked cities based on high school drop out rates and the percentage of the population with associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and professional or doctoral degrees.

Lower overall costs of occupancy — coupled with academic resources and an educated work force — have made clusters outside the nation’s largest metro areas more attractive to multinational pharmaceutical companies focusing on right-sizing and R&D productivity. In the Midwest, Chicago remains an emerging cluster, while Minneapolis is holding steady as a top-10 cluster for the second year in a row. JLL’s second annual life sciences cluster report ranks top-10 cities for life sciences companies in 2013.

Innovation is a vague word and is too overused today, in the words of Bryan Sivak.

That was kind of a bold statement to make at a conference focused on, well, innovation.

In his keynote address at CONVERGE, the chief technology officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the department’s philosophy is that innovation happens as a direct result of the freedom to experiment, a much more descriptive and meaningful phrase.