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In April of 2019, Kite, a Gilead Company, announced their decision to locate to Frederick County, MD and open a new manufacturing facility on a 20-acre site located at the Urbana Corporate Center.  A lot of progress has happened since then; Kite finished their brand new 279,000 SF biologics manufacturing facility in April 2021.  To learn more, Solash Aviles and Jodie Bollinger from the Frederick County Office of Economic Development met with Chris McDonald, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Manufacturing at Kite and Jim Jackson, Vice President, Manufacturing Operations and Site Head at Kite. 

Image: http://www.discoverfrederickmd.com

GERMANTOWN, Md. & HILDEN, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)– QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced that the number of biological samples processed with consumables kits has passed the three billion mark – a record that underlines its leadership in enabling molecular laboratories to gain valuable insights in research, combatting diseases and forensics.

This milestone particularly underscores QIAGEN’s standout position in sample preparation, the most crucial stage of molecular testing at which DNA, RNA or proteins are extracted from human samples. QIAGEN’s sample prep kits have become the gold standard in sample extraction and earned over 200,000 references in academic studies. With more than 500 consumable kits and automated systems such as QIAsymphony, QIAcube Connect, QIAcube HT and EZ1, QIAGEN is the most trusted brand in sample preparation.

Gaithersburg, MD, August 24, 2021 – Cartesian Therapeutics, a fully integrated, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering RNA cell therapy in and beyond oncology, today announced clinical data from the first cohort of an ongoing Phase 1/2a clinical trial of Descartes-08 in patients with generalized Myasthenia Gravis (gMG). Descartes-08 is an mRNA-modified, autologous CAR T-cell product directed against B-Cell Maturation Antigen (BCMA).

The cohort was intended to test safety and tolerability. Descartes-08 was well tolerated, with no cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or other serious product-related adverse events. Of note, all patients experienced at least a full class improvement on the MGFA Clinical Classification. Patients also showed marked improvement on the Myasthenia Gravis Composite (MGC) scale, a standard measure of overall disease severity. About three months after Descartes-08 administration, mean improvement in MGC scale was over 50%.

Since the precise 3D structure of a protein is essential for its function, misfolding can result in significant downstream consequences. If this misfolding occurs to an enzyme, oftentimes the catalytic reaction can no longer take place, leading to substrate accumulation to toxic levels and subsequent cellular dysfunction. 

There are many reasons why enzymes misfold. The most obvious is a genetic mutation in which a change to the amino acid sequence leads to an incorrect folding pattern. However, there are other causes of misfolding that can affect even wildtype enzymes, including states that increase cellular stress such as aging and inflammation. 

The appointments are just the latest in a series of additions the company has made throughout the pandemic.

Image: Stanley Erck is president and CEO of Novavax.

The exec has been at the helm of the company for 18 years.

With so many new public biotechnology companies minted in the last 18 months, it has become more difficult to sift out the winners from the losers. During 2020, the biotech industry gave birth to an unprecedented 89 new public companies, and 2021 is on pace to beat this record-setting year. Of all the strong-performing IPOs and biotech companies out there, companies focused on precision medicine, or compounds that directly affect disease-causing genes or proteins, continue to be the subsector getting significant attention, with high valuations being assigned to early- and mid-stage companies.

Biohealth and Entrepreneur Experts Joins Robust Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) Team

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, August 23, 2021 – BioHealth Innovation Inc. (BHI) announces the addition of Diane Ignar, Ph.D., and Dr. Loleta Robinson to the expanding Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) team. The Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program at BHI ensures that disruptive technologies receive all the resources required to transform the technology from a discovery into a commercially relevant product and eventually have a measurable impact on human health. The program was created to support scientists, early-stage startups, and licensed technologies to provide them with access to these resources. Diane will work with NIH’s National Institute on Aging, and Loleta will work with their Office of Extramural Research.

 “BHI is pleased to welcome Diane and Loleta to our growing group of EIRs working with the National Institutes of Health,” said Richard Bendis, BHI President, and CEO. “Their backgrounds in healthcare, venture capital, and helping early-stage businesses are key to our mission for the program nationally, and regionally.”

BALTIMORE, Aug. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Empower Therapeutics Inc., a Baltimore-based startup, has secured worldwide, exclusive rights to a simple, reliable brainwave biomarker for pain sensitivity. Empower plans to leverage the technology, which is jointly owned by the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Birmingham, U.K., to develop a cutting-edge digital therapeutics platform to determine and modify pain sensitivity for chronic pain therapy.