News Archive

For anyone who doubted, the data is in. The Great Resignation is real and it’s happening. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that during the months of April, May, and June 2021 a total of 11.5 million workers quit their jobs. And it’s not over. According to Gallup research, 48 percent of employees are actively looking to make a change, and according to Personio research, nearly 1:4 will do so in the next six months. Those looking for new opportunities will find ripe opportunities; in June the U.S. hit an all-time high of 10.1 million job openings.

Some of America’s largest university endowments unveiled eye-popping annual gains in the past week. Duke University reported a 56% return for the fiscal year ended June 30. Washington University in St. Louis generated a 65% gain.

These top-performing endowments can thank alternative assets—in particular, venture capital—for the banner year, which is said to be the best since 1986. But that short-term success could prove to be a double-edged sword.

One of the most important skills for every entrepreneur is timely and effective decision making. In a startup, any decision is better than no decision. One of the primary roles of every founder is to solve problems, make a decision, and manage the decision to results. The best entrepreneurs relish this role, while others struggle mightily and ultimately lose their health and their company.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

TOPLINE Most vaccine hesitant people changed their minds about getting a Covid-19 shot over time, according to new research published in JAMA Network Open Friday, offering hope as officials struggle to boost flagging immunization rates amid soaring cases, hospitalizations and deaths. 

If you’re an entrepreneur enjoying success with your first business, you’ve probably thought about launching a second business.

About 30 percent of entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs–and tend to wear the title as a badge of honor in bios and social media profiles. But does it do more than fluff our egos? Is serial entrepreneurship the ultimate type of entrepreneurship and social proof denoting success?

GAITHERSBURG, MD, September 30, 2021 – Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. (APT), a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to providing therapies to treat infectious diseases, today announced that the Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded the company an additional $8 million for the continued development of bacteriophage therapies (PhageBankTM) for the treatment of infectious diseases. The new funding brings the total contract awarded to APT to $31.2 million. 

“We are thrilled to have the ongoing support of the DoD in the advanced development of our PhageBank™ platform to treat drug-resistant infections across multiple indications,” said Greg Merril, CEO and co-founder of Adaptive Phage Therapeutics.  “We are thankful for the opportunity to collaborate with the U.S. military to create potentially lifesaving therapies for our nation’s service members.” 

Montréal-based healthtech and artificial intelligence (AI) startup Aifred Health today won second place at the final round of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition and will take home a $1 million USD prize for its digital health software.

Aifred Health offers clinical solutions for mental health treatments using AI. The startup’s second-place win comes five years after it entered the XPRIZE competition along with 150 other applicants. Aifred Health was the only Canadian startup to make it to the finals of this global competition.

Image: https://betakit.com

Today, EDA announced that 50 organizations — including nonprofits, institutions of higher education, state government agencies, and other entrepreneurship-focused organizations — from 26 states will receive grants totaling $36.5 million to support programs that fuel innovation and tech-based economic development. (Read full press release)

The grants are part of the “Build to Scale” program, which is administered annually by EDA. The program aims to accelerate technology entrepreneurship by increasing inclusive access to business support and startup capital.

Barbara Schilberg retiring as Managing Director and CEO;
Shahram Hejazi, Ph.D., appointed as Managing Director and CEO

Philadelphia, PA, September 29, 2021 – BioAdvance, a $70 million early-stage life sciences fund with a focus in the mid-Atlantic region, announced today that it has added six new companies to its portfolio in the last 18 months and has made follow-on investments in eight of its existing companies. Combined, these investments represent a commitment of $6.875 million to the success and growth of life science companies in the region. BioAdvance also announced a transition in leadership with long-time Managing Director and CEO Barbara Schilberg retiring and Shahram Hejazi, Ph.D., appointed as incoming Managing Director and CEO effective October 1, 2021.

“Like many investors, when the COVID pandemic began, we focused on helping our existing companies survive the various disruptions to product development and product sales,” said Schilberg, outgoing CEO of BioAdvance. “Within six months, we were able to resume investing in new companies and also have a robust pipeline of opportunities in active diligence.”

Nearly 4% of the world’s population is affected by one of more than 80 different autoimmune diseases, according to the National Stem Cell Foundation, and incidence is rising.

However, of the 30 million patients diagnosed with moderate-to-severe forms of chronic immune diseases, only 5 million receive advanced therapies and only 2 million experience adequate responses.[1] A key barrier to the development of novel therapies and treatment paradigms has been the complexity and heterogeneity of these diseases, which consist of different disease states with distinct unmet medical need and biology.