News Archive

Rockville, Md. —  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. 

Eight hospitals and health systems have opened or announced plans to establish new centers focused on healthcare innovation this year. 

Editor’s note: The innovation center launches are listed in the order they were reported. 

1. Cleveland Clinic in January said it plans to launch a new infectious disease research center through the new $500 million Cleveland Innovation District backed by the state of Ohio and JobsOhio. The health system in March also partnered with IBM to create a healthcare artificial intelligence discovery center. 

2. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s joint biological innovation center secured $76 million and signed a lease for a new facility in Watertown, Mass., in January. 

George Mason University, the largest public research university in Virginia, has a strong tradition of conducting research of consequence, from our pioneering work in cybersecurity to developing new ways of testing for COVID-19.

Since earning our R1 designation for “very high research” from Carnegie in 2016 and joining the elite group of the 131 best U.S. research institutions, our research enterprise has grown rapidly, reaching more than $200 million in funding in 2020, an all-time high for the university.

Quantum computing could change the world. It could transform medicine, break encryption and revolutionise communications and artificial intelligence. Companies like IBM, Microsoft and Google are racing to build reliable quantum computers. China has invested billions.

Recently, Google claimed that it had achieved quantum supremacy – the first time a quantum computer has outperformed a traditional one. But what is quantum computing? And how does it work?

What is quantum computing? Let’s start with the basics.

GAITHERSBURG, Md. and SUZHOU BIOBAY, China, July 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Sirnaomics Ltd., a leading biopharmaceutical company in discovery and development of RNAi therapeutics, announced today that it has sealed $105 million in a Series E financing.  This round of funding was led by Rotating Boulder Fund, an investor that has been supporting the company since its Series B round, with participation from existing investors and a well-recognized syndicate of new investors.

Expanded offerings will help regulated life science companies strengthen the supply chain for safe, quality medicines, and medical devices that are critical to patients

Rockville, MD, July 7, 2021 – United States Pharmacopeia (USP), an independent, scientific nonprofit organization, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Pharmatech Associates, Inc. By adding Pharmatech Associates expertise, USP further advances its more than 200-year mission to help ensure access to quality medicines by extending services that assist manufacturers to meet global quality standards across the drug and product lifecycle.

The global medicine supply chain is a complex marketplace of manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors from many countries.  Making it more resilient requires a multi-faceted approach. The acquisition of Pharmatech supports our commitment to expand our capabilities to strengthen the supply chain of quality medicines, builds on our longstanding work with regulators and manufacturers globally to solve some of the most critical and challenging problems in the industry, and helps ensure patients have access to the medicines that they need.  Pharmatech helps manufacturers satisfy global regulatory requirements to bring products to market, scale up manufacturing, effectively manage quality control, and remediate quality problems in a rapidly changing environment.