President Biden will nominate Laurie E. Locascio to lead the federal agency in charge of promoting innovation and technology, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Driving the news: Biden will name Locascio, currently vice president for research at the University of Maryland, as Undersecretary for Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce.
Image: https://news.yahoo.com
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has plans to open an approximately $549m (£400m) biotechnology campus in Stevenage, UK, which would possibly create up to 5,000 skilled jobs in the coming five to ten years.
The plan for the new hub was developed in collaboration with Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC), the UK Government, Stevenage Borough Council and the Local Enterprise Partnership.
Image: GSK’s R&D site in Stevenage, UK. Credit: GSK / Flickr.
Venture capital totals for D.C. area companies got off to a strong start in 2021, and they’re continuing to rise with a new record high through the halfway point of the year.
In the second quarter of 2021, companies in the metro area collectively raised $1.27 billion across 72 deals, according to data from the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, a quarterly report produced by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association with support from Silicon Valley Bank.
Image: Venture capital. ((Photo by Flickr user, used via a Creative Commons license))
Until recently, biotech companies tended to be founded with a focus on a single technology or biological pathway. An early exemplar of this was Genentech, founded in 1976 on the promise of recombinant DNA to generate proteins relevant for human health.1 Proof of concept came with the production of the hormone somatostatin in 1977, and the company made its synthetic insulin breakthrough in 1978, alleviating the need to harvest the protein from animal pancreases.
The news: Johns Hopkins spinoff Bayesian Health has $15 million in VC backing to offer an AI-based clinical decision support platform designed to make health systems’ electronic health records (EHRs) more predictive.
Here’s how it works: The system analyzes EHR-collected patient data and sends providers real-time clinical signals when a critical moment is detected. It targets high-priority areas such as clinical deterioration, sepsis, pressure injury, and transitions of care.
FREDERICK, Md., July 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Beckham Gumbin Ventures (BGV), a commercial real estate investor and developer, is beginning construction on brand new R&D laboratory spec suites and amenities at Ballenger Bio (321 Ballenger Center Drive) in Frederick, Maryland. Ballenger Bio will offer several 3,000 to 7,000 SF R&D laboratory spec suites, with the ability to combine up to 37,000 SF of contiguous space on a single floor. Building such spec labs will allow for growing biotech companies to focus on their business as opposed to construction costs and timelines.
DNA-modified cells can behave unpredictably in the body and there is a risk that they could proliferate uncontrolled, cause severe toxicities, and even survive unchecked for months or years. Cartesian uses its platform technology to engineer RNA into cells, making time-controlled changes. The company is developing treatments for cancer, respiratory conditions, and autoimmune diseases such as myasthenia gravis. We spoke to Murat Kalayoglu, president and CEO of Cartesian, about its RNA-engineered cell therapies, how they work and how the company is pushing the use of cell therapies beyond cancer.
Image: https://globalgenes.org
If you are interested in pediatric medical device innovation or alternative solutions to surgery such as focused ultrasound, these two topics will merge at the Pediatric Device Innovators Forum, July 22, from 2 – 3:30 p.m. This free livestream event, hosted by the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI), features clinical, regulatory and reimbursement experts discussing the topic “Focused Ultrasound for Pediatric Indications.”
Image: https://medcitynews.com
Montgomery County, Maryland, home of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and more than 480 life sciences companies, continues its momentum as a magnet for new life sciences development with a major surge in leasing and investment. With rising demand and just 5.2% availability for the county’s existing lab space, an additional 1.6 million square feet (SF) of lab space is in development—joining the current 10.6 million SF of total lab inventory already in Montgomery County.
In May 2021, American Gene Technologies (AGT), a clinical-stage biotechnology company, announced the treatment of the first participant in its Phase I clinical trial to evaluate the safety of the cell and gene therapy product AGT103-T. Designated as the RePAIR trial (Restore Potent Antiviral Immune Responses, NCT04561258), participants are infused once with their own CD4 T cells that were enriched, for cells capable of reacting to HIV, and genetically modified to resist infection. This is a first-in-human study for AGT103-T. The primary endpoint is safety; testing related to secondary endpoints evaluates responses to treatment including changes in the immune response to HIV. This video explains AGT’s research and HIV cure program strategy.
