New York City nonprofit Venture for America, which provides entrepreneurship training for recent college graduates, is adding Baltimore to its roster of cities this year.
Venture was founded in 2011 to encourage entrepreneurship through practical experience. It officially launched last year in five cities: Detroit, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Providence, Rhode Island. This year, Baltimore and Cleveland are on board.
Remedium Technologies Inc., a medical device company developing innovative products to control severe hemorrhaging, was awarded a $500,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation to test the company’s sprayable foam for rapidly halting traumatic bleeding, company officials announce today.
In collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Maryland, Remedium will complete pre-clinical trials to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Hemogrip(TM) Foam in controlling non-compressible hemorrhaging, i.e., bleeding not accessible to direct pressure. Hemogrip(TM) is a high-pressure, sprayable foam that can expand into an injured body cavity, adhere to tissue and stop hemorrhaging within minutes during the expansion process. There are currently no hemostatic products available for treatment of non-compressible bleeds, which account for 85 percent of hemorrhage-related deaths.
The U.S. market for remote patient monitoring, valued at $104.5 million in 2012, is forecasted to reach $296.5 million by 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent, according to a new report from GBI Research.
Chronic diseases represent an overwhelming burden for healthcare systems in developed countries, due to increasingly elderly populations, and a clear need exists for remote patient monitoring to help lift the load off stretched healthcare resources, according to the report Remote Patient Monitoring Market to 2019 – Potential to Reduce Healthcare Cost Burden and Improve Quality of Care to Drive Future Growth.
With nearly half a billion dollars raised in venture capital funding for health information technology, the first three months of 2013 represented a “record quarter,” according to Mercom Capital Group.
Some $493 million was raised industry-wide, according to Mercom’s 2013 Healthcare IT Funding and M&A Report, in twice as many deals as the previous quarter (104, up from 51). There were nearly four times as many early stage deals – 42, up from 14 – compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Northrop Grumman Corp. last month expanded their Cync cybersecurity program with three new companies, including the program’s first international one. The three firms joined the five companies currently at bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park in Catonsville.
Two Baltimore companies took top honors in the state’s first InvestMaryland Challenge.
GrayBug, which is developing drug delivery technology; and RedOwl Analytics, a software company, were the winners of the startup business competition’s life science and information technology categories. An LED lighting company in Cecil County, i-Lighting, won the contest’s category for general industry. Some 260 startups from 26 states, including Maryland, threw their hats in the ring.
Eight years of work, thousands of researchers around the world, $1 billion spent — and finally it was done. On April 14, 2003, a decade ago this week, scientists announced that they had completed the Human Genome Project, compiling a list of the three billion letters of genetic code that make up what they considered to be a sort of everyperson’s DNA.
The need for innovation in healthcare has arguably never been greater. A range of factors, from aging world populations to rising standards of living in developing countries, are poised to drive long-run demand for innovative drugs, devices and medical technologies that can improve outcomes and reduce costs.
Ironically, however, funding for healthcare innovation remains in short supply. As industry participants are keenly aware, life science venture capital financing – which has played a critical role in helping translate research ideas into commercially useful medical technologies – is becoming increasingly scarce.
Cleave Biosciences has added $10 million in Series A financing from new investor New Enterprise Associates, bringing its Series A total to $54 million. In the fall of 2011, Cleave raised $44 million from US Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures, Clarus Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Astellas Venture Management and Osage University Partners. The company is focused on cancer drug discovery and development.
Cleave is discovering novel drugs that affect protein degradation pathways. Cancer cells frequently make an excess of proteins and hence become dependent on protein degradation for their survival. By attacking key targets in these pathways, cancer cells fail to balance this excess protein synthesis with protein degradation and can no longer survive.
Maryland U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski plans to participate in a signing ceremony at the National Institute of Standards and Technology for new private sector partners that will collaborate with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence on Monday, April 15.
According to a statement from the senator’s office:
The new partners will pledge to contribute hardware and software components and share cybersecurity best practices and personnel with the center in an effort to address current cybersecurity threats. Senator Mikulski will be joined by Governor Martin O’Malley, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command and NSA Chief General Keith B. Alexander, and Under Secretary of Commerce for Science and Technology and NIST Director Patrick Gallagher …
