News Archive

Indeed, in 2021, the U.S. bioscience industry represents a unique confluence of characteristics essential for addressing these challenges and realizing societal and economic progress: extraordinary innovation that’s saving and improving lives through advancements in biomedical, energy, and advanced food and industrial technologies, along with an expanding mix of employment opportunities with incomes that support a quality standard of living.

The industry is at the forefront of a host of major global challenges related to diagnosing, treating, and curing disease—especially COVID-19 and other infections with pandemic potential. The industry is also ensuring that the world can rely on a safe, affordable, and more sustainable food supply to feed a growing population, as well as developing biobased fuels, chemicals, and other industrial products to help us address climate change.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and Council of State Bioscience Associations recently released Driving the Bioscience Economy Forward During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Best Practices in State and Regional Bioscience Economic Development Initiatives. The biennial report provides a summary of state programs serving the bioscience industry.

This year’s report devotes substantial attention to incentives. Many of the incentive policies are intended to support the leading trends in state bioscience support (see below). These include incentives to provide funding for companies coming out of university partnerships, industry workforce training and development, and facility development. Others are intended to provide capital to bioscience companies at the early-stage, mid-stage, and manufacturing stage of development, such as angel investor and seed capital tax credits, R&D and innovation investment tax incentives, and tax exemptions, abatements or discounts.   

Image: https://smartincentives.org

FREDERICK, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Maryland Tech Council is proud to announce the finalists for its annual Industry Awards Celebration. The event honors individuals and companies in the life sciences, technology, and government contracting industries that have made a significant impact in their respective fields. For the first time in two years, the awards ceremony will be held in person, with the winners announced live on May 12th at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. Last year over 9,000 people tuned in to the virtual Industry Awards Celebration. Click here to learn more about the event. 

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• As new markets are embracing the Life Science industry, why are users feeling bullish in investing and developing in the Mid-Atlantic area? How is our region competing with different markets? 
• Strategic Design & Development: How are investors and developers meeting the latest demands when it comes to design and amenities? What is being implemented to ensure purpose-built life science facilities? 
• How are developers and tenants finding more space as demand for facilities continues to rise? Are we seeing more vacant buildings being converted into labs and other biotech facilities to meet the high demand? 
• With the rise in market opportunity, where is the public and private funding coming from for life science real estate? 
• I-270 Corridor Update: What are the newest projects and investments in the development pipeline? What is expected for this life science & biotech corridor in terms of tenants, investments and development in 2022? How are DC & NoVa competing against this corridor and securing their spot in the asset class?

BALTIMORE, March 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — GlycoMantra, a University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) startup company developing therapeutics for unmet medical needs in prostate cancer, NASH liver fibrosis, and type 2 diabetes, has been granted worldwide, exclusive rights to a UMB technology to advance the company’s pipeline of therapeutics for treating drug-resistant metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

According to the American Society of Cancer Oncology, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the U.S., totaling about 53,000 deaths per year. Drug resistance to CRC is a primary challenge and mCRC remains a lethal disease. Although 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)—one of the current standards of care for patients with mCRC—exerts clinical benefit, all patients have acquired resistance to the drug over time.

“I never had been in an ecosystem that had more potential, more assets, that was more disconnected, than this region was at that time.” -Rich Bendis of BioHealth Innovation, Inc. on why Maryland was a great place to grow the BioHealth Capital Region.

Watch: https://bit.ly/3trKMYm

Robert Gourdie, a trailblazing cardiovascular scientist at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, is the first Virginia Tech researcher to receive an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The seven-year, $6.4 million grant is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the NIH. Known as an R35, the grant provides Gourdie with increased freedom to carry out inventive research concepts that aren’t tethered to specific, finite projects.

Image: Robert Gourdie, the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund Eminent Scholar in Heart Reparative Medicine Research and director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Center for Vascular and Heart Research, is Virginia Tech’s first recipient of a National Institutes of Health Outstanding Investigator Award. Photo by Clayton Metz for Virginia Tech.

March 2, 2022 — The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will offer reimbursement for software from Medimaps Group that performs osteoporosis risk fracture assessment via trabecular bone scores (TBS).

The agency assigned the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code 77089 for Medimaps’ TBS iNsight, which provides a trabecular bone score for x-ray and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. It was effective January 2022.

Image: https://www.auntminnie.com

Foresite Capital, a firm that invests in early-stage healthcare and life sciences companies, today launched a $173 million fund designed to further finance startups launched by its Foresite Labs entrepreneurial innovation hub.

The new fund will be one source of capital for Foresite Labs startups, which will continue to be funded through the $969 million raised last year by Foresite Capital—consisting of the $775-million Fund V and a $193.75 million fund for selectively making additional investments in their highest conviction Fund V portfolio companies, called the Opportunity Fund.

Image: Vikram (Vik) Bajaj, PhD, a managing partner with Foresite Capital and the Co-Founder and CEO of the firm’s Foresite Labs entrepreneurial innovation hub.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 02, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — CareDx, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNA) – The Transplant Company™ focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of clinically differentiated, high-value healthcare solutions for transplant patients and caregivers – today announced that it is teaming up with the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) to support National Kidney Month initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for kidney transplant recipients and those suffering from kidney failure.

This marks the seventh consecutive year that CareDx is supporting NKF’s Kidney Patient Summit on Capitol Hill, which is taking place virtually this year on March 2, 2022. Patient representatives will be advocating for more research funding to accelerate the early detection of chronic kidney disease, which could help physicians reverse or delay the need for transplantation.