News Archive

It’s a popular sport among startups and the mobile vendor community to figure out what physicians are willing to do on their tablets and smartphones. It has to be said that some of them have come up with some pretty compelling approaches to deepen the relationship between physicians and their mobile devices.

But what is really going on in their practices? In two studies generated from a survey by AmericanEHRPartners of 1,400 with responses from about 696 physicians and 150 allied health professionals has uncovered some interesting information. AmericanEHRPartners was formed in 2010 by formed by Cientis Technologies and the American College of Physicians to help physicians compare and implement electronic health records.

Aside from memory loss and cognitive impairments, often the most difficult aspect of caring for people with dementia is treating their disruptive changes in behavior.

With no reliable medications to treat them and limited information for caregivers regarding alternative therapies, these behavior changes are frequently the source of increased upset, stress and burden to families and often result in nursing home placement.

Robert Langer shares the experiences and lessons learned through his involvement with more than two dozen biotech startups.

I started my first company in 1987 because I realized it was an effective path for transforming science into life-saving and life-improving inventions. Startup companies provide one means for accomplishing ends that interested me: creating products that have a positive effect on human health. I did this first with a colleague (Box 1), but through the years I have also started many companies with students and postdocs in my MIT lab.

Many times when I talk with small businesses, they don’t fully understand the difference between a Federal Grant and a Federal Contract. It is important for a small business to completely understand if their government funds are coming from a grant or a contract.  The terms and conditions surrounding each have somewhat unique requirements that may have implications on how the business handles the award and, in particular, the accounting related to that award. 

The Government defines the difference in fairly easy to understand terms (for the government) at the grants.gov website:

A Grant is an award of financial assistance, the principal purpose of which is to transfer a thing of value from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States (see 31 U.S.C. 6101(3)). A grant is distinguished from a contract, which is used to acquire property or services for the federal government’s direct benefit or use.

The NIH is one of the ‘easier’ federal agencies to apply to because every year it issues an Omnibus Solicitation, requesting investigator- initiated topics. This means that rather than telling you exactly which projects they will fund, the NIH asks you, the investigator, to come up with the ideas.

As long as these ideas are related to Human Health, have the requisite level of Technological Innovation and Commercial Potential, they may be appropriate for SBIR/STTR. However, you still need to do some homework to make sure your idea fits within the research interests of the NIH’s Institutes and Centers. So before you put a lot of work into developing your proposal, there are a few things you can do:

In the year following its groundbreaking last June, all aspects of Bioscience Connecticut have moved forward on time and on budget. Of note, the project has created about 500 construction and related jobs on the UConn Health Center campus in its first year, including higher-than-required averages for small business participation and 85 percent of all work going to Connecticut-based contractors. The number of construction jobs will rise significantly over the next three years.

“Bioscience Connecticut was an important first step in positioning Connecticut as a leader in the industry,” said Governor Dannel P. Malloy. “This investment, in conjunction with the new Bioscience Innovation Fund and our other efforts, not only creates thousands of good paying jobs with good benefits, but also highlights the commitment we have to growing this sector of our economy. Our vigorous approach to establishing long-term partnerships between our universities, medical centers, and private secto

University of Maryland, Baltimore campus President Jay A. Perman, M.D., and University of Maryland School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., wish to announce the establishment of a new center to unite research scientists and physicians across disciplines. The center will employ these interdisciplinary connections to enhance the use of cutting edge medical science such as genomics and personalized medicine to accelerate research discoveries and improve health care outcomes. Participants in the new University of Maryland Center for Health-Related Informatics and Bioimaging (CHIB) will collaborate with computer scientists, engineers, life scientists and others at a similar center at the University of Maryland, College Park campus, together forming a joint center supported by the M-Power Maryland initiative.

University of Maryland School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., with the concurrence of President Perman, has appointed as co-director of the new center Owen White, Ph.D., Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and Director of Bioinformatics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences.

Emory University has launched a public-private drug development enterprise that will transition scientific discoveries more rapidly and efficiently from university laboratories into the marketplace. The new venture is expected to help address worldwide drug development and commercialization needs.

Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory, LLC (DRIVE) is a not-for-profit company separate from, but wholly owned by Emory.