Venture capital firms—and the high-tech startups they support—historically concentrated in suburban office parks, such as Silicon Valley and North Carolina’s Research Triangle.
Richard Florida, co-founder and editor of The Atlantic Cities and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute, has crunched the available data and found (along with some other studies) a shift underway within the venture capital community away from the suburbs and towards urban areas.
Business, civic, and political leaders in St. Louis are coming together to raise $100 million in private funds over the next five years to support the Regional Entrepreneurial Initiative, a new effort aimed at helping emerging regional businesses grow and thrive. The project was launched with funding from the federal government and will draw on several ongoing fundraising initiatives in the community. About 80 percent of the funds will be used to provide capital support for startup businesses, with the remaining 20 percent directed toward entrepreneurial support and mentoring, according to the St. Louis Beacon.
In April 2012, the city and county of St. Louis invited stakeholders to develop a regional economic development strategy that would guide efforts to grow and retain high-growth startups. The St. Louis Regional Entrepreneurship Initative Report received financial assistance from the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the state of Missouri, and the St. Louis County Economic Council. The findings of the report suggest that the St. Louis region has a growing cluster of resources to support entrepreneurship, but that they are not of uniform quality and not distributed evenly across sectors. For example, the region’s bioscience sector is relatively well-supported through the efforts of such organizations at BioSTL, BioGenerator and the Helix Center Biotech Incubator. Information technology companies, however, have few local organizations and programs to rely on for support. Resources for the agricultural, energy and advanced manufacturing sectors remain scarce and uncoordinated.
The NIH has been faced with considerable difficulties as of late in terms of finding the required means to continue moving science forward at the early stage. However, the group recently announced a commitment of $12.7 million to a novel project – funding further research on assets that have been cast-off by big pharma in key indication areas that represent a significant unmet medical need (e.g. Alzheimers, Duchenne, etc.). The initiative has been fittingly named Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules, and it may be a groundbreaking solution to several problems facing drug development today. These include reducing time to market, alleviating early stage investment risk, and creating even more incentive for research scientists to orient themselves towards commercialization of research.
The America Invents Act (AIA), also known as the “patent reform bill,” is designed to modernize the U.S. patent system. One provision of the new bill, that went into effect in March, converts the United States from first-to-invent to a first-inventor-to-file system. You’ve had a few months to get used to the new law, but if you’re still wondering how it could affect biotech and medical-device products you invent, you’re not alone.
The new first-inventor-to-file patent law means that the first person or company to file a patent application on an invention has the right to pursue the patent on it. While this is new in the U.S., it’s the system that’s already being used in every other country in the world. So now the United States should be in synch with the rest of the world, right? Well, not quite.
Montgomery College has become a certified affiliate of the Kauffman Foundation and its FastTrac series of courses intended to support future and current business owners before, during, and after the start-up process.
The course schedule is now available in the attachment below.
FastTrac courses provide entrepreneurs the information, resources, and networks necessary to start and grow successful businesses.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) announced today that Allen Shofe, executive vice president of corporate affairs, has been appointed to serve on the board of directors of the MdBio Foundation, a private charitable organization whose mission is to support bioscience awareness, education, and workforce development in Maryland. MdBio Foundation is an affiliate of the Tech Council of Maryland.
“I am honored to serve on the board of a Foundation that is committed to training and investing in tomorrow’s scientific talent, which is one of four focus areas of Emergent’s GIVE corporate social responsibility program,” said Mr. Shofe. “For years, Emergent has partnered with MdBio Foundation to host the Young Science Explorers program (YSEP) at our Gaithersburg laboratory facility providing middle school students a glimpse into biopharmaceutical product development and an opportunity to interact with employees and scientists about STEM-based careers. We look forward to again welcoming YSEP at our facility in July.”
The search for the artificial pancreas continues, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and Becton Dickinson ($BDX) have joined forces to develop an insulin-delivery system paired with glucose monitoring for people with Type 1 diabetes.
The foundation and Becton Dickinson have agreed to a three-year partnership, an extension of existing collaborations between the two, with a focus on Type 1 diabetes, according to a release. The device, long sought-after in the industry, would mimic the functions of a human pancreas to release insulin when blood sugar levels indicate it is needed by combining the pump with a glucose-monitoring system. This minimizes the potential for human error, as the standard of care currently requires a pump with a catheter and patient-controlled glucose monitoring.
“Don’t write that we have a cure for cancer tomorrow,” says Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, “but there are some spectacular results.”
Mr Soriot was at MedImmune on Granta Park, AstraZeneca’s current toe-hold on the city and on the day that the pharma company announced its chosen site – Cambridge Biomedical Campus at Addenbrooke’s – to relocate its global HQ and UK R&D activities.
Higher education is becoming big business as more students head off to college, but they’re also about developing businesses, and the state is turning research and development into new business ventures.
Maryland leads the nation in how much it spends on research but the University System of Maryland — which includes 13 colleges and universities — is trying to take research to a new level by creating more small businesses off campus. The goal so far is to try and create more than 300 new businesses over the next decade.
The Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland will offer an online MBA program beginning in January 2014. Designed to accommodate working professionals, the flexible online program allows students to earn an MBA degree largely on their own time with minimal on-campus requirements. The program courses are taught by the same top faculty and adhere to the academic rigor of the Smith School’s other top MBA programs.
“This is a major step forward for the university and for business professionals who need flexible access to academic excellence,” said UMD President Wallace Loh. “The Smith School is combining a state-of-the-art online platform with the academic rigor that makes it a leader. University-wide we are exploring how best to use technology-based learning, and this is an excellent model.”
