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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced a $3.2 billion plan Thursday to build up the country’s supply of drugs to treat Covid-19 and future viral threats.

The plan, called the Antiviral Program for Pandemics, will spur clinical trials and the manufacturing of promising treatments for Covid-19, with the goal of gaining authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for some antivirals and making them available to the public within a year, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Image: https://www.nbcnews.com – From Video

“The Protenus team is excited to continue to scale and set a high standard for how health systems ensure compliance,” CEO Nick Culbertson said in a statement.

Image: Nick Culbertson, CEO of Fells Point-based Protenus. ERIC STOCKLIN

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many problems in American society ranging from public health and racial disparities to economic challenges and supply chain limitations. As was true with many nations around the world, the United States was caught without a detailed plan for dealing with a pandemic. Hospitals were unprepared for the deluge of patients and health care providers did not have access to the supplies they needed to protect themselves. State and national leaders provided mixed cues on how to shut down and when to reopen, and there continue to be sharp partisan differences in how people feel about wearing masks and getting vaccinations.

The U.S. Small Business Administration recently made important clarifications to its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Policy Directive, giving the industry more certainty about whether and when a successor-in-interest to a Phase I/Phase II SBIR/STTR awardees is eligible for Phase III awards.

“5 Questions With…” is a weekly BioBuzz series where we reach out to interesting people in the BioHealth Capital Region and Greater Philadelphia to share a little about themselves, their work, and maybe something completely unrelated. 

Well, we decided to shake things up. Instead of publishing an interview-style “5 Questions With…” featuring one of our community members, we asked our community “5 Questions About” our very own Andy Eckert.

Studying procrastination used to be a terrific way to avoid doing things I was supposed to be doing. It hasn’t been as much fun for me since one of the things I supposed to be doing was writing this column on how to manage procrastinators. Rats!

One thing I learned before I was distracted from my studies is that about 20 percent of adults identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. That is, they are habitually unable to perform tasks on time, even when there are serious consequences involved. Moreover, reports DePaul University psychology professor Joseph Ferrari, author of Still Procrastinating? The No-Regrets Guide to Getting It Done, the incidence of procrastination is pretty consistent across age cohorts, gender, and nationalities. As yet, procrastination researchers have not identified any “blue zones” — Shangri-las in which people not only live longer, but also never miss a deadline.

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and U.S. Representatives Jason Crow (D-Colo.) and Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) introduced the Next Generation Entrepreneurship Corps Act to encourage new business and job creation in underserved communities through a competitive fellowship for entrepreneurs. With a six-year investment of $330 million, the bill will identify talented entrepreneurs through a national competition and directly support the creation of 320 new businesses each year.

Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV) has had a significant impact on the Maryland life sciences ecosystem since its founding in 2014, assisting with hundreds of licensed therapeutics in development and backing nearly 200 startups that have collectively nearly $3 billion in venture capital funding, 30% of which has remained in the state.