Avidea Technologies, a Baltimore-born developer of immunotherapies, had been acquired in December in a splashy $40 million deal by high-profile UK biopharma firm Vaccitech. The 14-employee startup, since folded in as Vaccitech’s North American subsidiary, would be doubling in size and needed a true home base after the five years it spent growing in Johns Hopkins Tech Ventures’s (JHTV) FastForward 1812 incubator in East Baltimore.
Image: A rendering of a planned building with wet lab space and other facliities for the University of Maryland BioPark in West Baltimore.
(Image via Wexford Science + Technology, ZGF and the City of Baltimore’s Urban Design & Architecture Advisory Panel)
The University System of Maryland may soon have a new pilot program to fund early stage startups.
Ear infections, or the inflammation of the middle ear typically caused by bacteria, are a notorious nuisance in early childhood. The high incidence, recurrent nature, and non-specific presentation of ear infections in children have made it a feared diagnosis among parents. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, ear infections are the most common reason for a trip to the pediatrician, with five out of six children experiencing at least one ear infection by age three, and 25% of children having repeated ear infections. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD), in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (JHU), have developed an innovative technology that could save a trip to the doctor’s office by enabling virtually anyone to record and triage a child’s symptoms and status confidently and competently.
