News Archive

The NIH Technology Transfer Program has won the Licensing Executive Society’s Deals of Distinction award for 2022. The Deals of Distinction Award is given to an outstanding licensing deal from the past year. Steve Ferguson, Special Advisor at the NIH Office of Technology Transfer, recently attended the LES award ceremony to accept the award on NIH’s behalf. Continue reading to learn about this award-winning license agreement from Steve himself.

For this LES “Deals of Distinction” Award the National Institutes of Health (NIH) licensed COVID-19 technologies arising from our intramural research to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) for access through the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP). These licenses for COVID-19 technologies will enable global manufacturers to develop COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where access to COVID-19 countermeasures is severely lacking.

Updated 11/29

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) and Montgomery County are pleased to announce the selection of Luis Gutierrez as a part-time “Executive in Residence”—a position dedicated to providing 1:1 technical assistance to Montgomery County-based biotech and medtech startups.

We’re excited to announce this year’s finalists for the third annual 2022 BioBuzz Awards. These awards celebrate the people and companies across our regional community and their efforts and accomplishments to impact human health and build a stronger biotech community.

The annual BioBuzz awards celebrate the people, companies and communities across the BioHealth Capital Region and, starting this year, Greater Philadelphia. These awards laud and recognize their efforts and to impact human health and build stronger, more vibrant biotech communities.

There are so many people and organizations doing great work in these regions, selecting finalists was not an easy task. We’re very excited to announce this year’s BioBuzz Awards finalists for 2022.

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have revamped an anti-cancer drug to better target cancer cells and leave healthy tissues unharmed. Scientists have dubbed this type of targeted approach a “prodrug” — a medicine designed to release its payload in a particular area of the body and in no other areas. The Johns Hopkins-discovered prodrug, called DRP-104 (sirpiglenastat), is in early-stage clinical trials in people with advanced solid tumors. The newly published studies in mice show that the augmented drug preferentially eliminates cancer cells but does not harm healthy cells.

Biotechnology firm Haystack Oncology Inc. has signed a lease in the City Garage Science & Technology Center at the recently rebranded Baltimore Peninsula mixed-use development.

Haystack, which describes itself as developing personalized cancer diagnostics with the potential of leading to proactive clinical interventions, said it’s moving into a 20K SF lab space in City Garage at 101 West Dickman St. by this coming summer.

Image: Google Maps – City Garage in south Baltimore is a former makers’ hub turned life sciences laboratory space.

HILDEN, Germany & GERMANTOWN, Maryland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced the launch of the monkeypox (MPXV) test for its NeuMoDx automated PCR platform to strengthen surveillance and research into the current outbreak in non-endemic regions that has infected tens of thousands of people all over the world since first being identified in May 2022.

“NeuMoDx MPXV enables researchers the fast and reliable qualitative detection and differentiation of both monkeypox clades, a huge help for those trying to understand and contain this virus”

ROCKVILLE, MD, Nov. 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —

MacroGenics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGNX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative antibody-based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, today reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the approval of the Biologics License Application (BLA) for teplizumab, an anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody that was previously developed by MacroGenics.  Teplizumab was acquired by Provention Bio, Inc. in May 2018 pursuant to an asset purchase agreement.

“We are very pleased to see the culmination of years of effort by Provention, MacroGenics, and tireless champions in academia and government, with the achievement of the approval of teplizumab,” said Scott Koenig, M.D., Ph.D., President and CEO of MacroGenics. “We applaud this outcome, which represents an advancement for individuals and their families dealing with the risks and consequences of type 1 diabetes.”

In Montgomery County, lab space has long been a prized get for biotechs, because there was so little of it. Shockingly little, actually, given the county is home to both the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

That’s changing, and fast. There’s about 2 million square feet of the specialized space in the county’s pipeline, much of it taking the place of obsolete office buildings that are either being converted to labs, or demolished in favor of gleaming, state-of-the-art new construction.

NEW YORK, Nov. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Princeton Review® and Entrepreneur® today announced the results of The Princeton Review’s 17th annual ranking of undergraduate and graduate schools for entrepreneurship studies.

Based on a summer 2022 survey The Princeton Review conducted of nearly 300 schools with entrepreneurship offerings, the rankings reported today took into account more than 40 data points about the school programs, faculties, students, and alumni.

The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur published the project’s ranking lists on their respective websites at https://www.princetonreview.com/entrepreneur and https://www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges.

Pixelligent, a nanotechnology firm that produces materials used in augmented reality displays and sensors, recently raised $38 million in IP-backed financing from a funding vehicle by MVolution Partners LLC. These funds brings the total raised this round of funding to $45 million, with the other $7 million coming from existing investors.

Image: Inside Pixelligent’s manufacturing facility.

(Courtesy photo)