News Archive

BIoHealth Capital Region Ranked 4th and metrics improving towards goals of Top 3 by 2023

Charles Dickens’ opening line of A Tale of Two Cities—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”—was evoked recently by the head of the nation’s largest life sciences real estate owner to describe the past year for the industry served by his real estate investment trust.

“With respect to the industry, 2020 is the ultimate paradox: The worst year of our lives, yet the greatest year ever for the life science industry,” Joel S. Marcus, Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ executive chairman and founder, told analysts February 2 after releasing fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 results. “[There’s] much work to do to rebuild businesses and lives so devastatingly impacted, and I would say, it’s going to take a good part of this decade to do that for many people who’ve been really so devastated.”

After four years of extensive planning, Inova Health System and the University of Virginia School of Medicine this week opened the UVA Inova Campus, welcoming its first class of 36 UVA medical students. An additional 36 students will join the campus next year to complete a full complement of students for two years of clinical training.

The University of Maryland is a powerhouse of discovery, with decades of experience advancing a field that will help define our nation’s—and the world’s—future.

Image: https://quantum.umd.edu/

That’s the path for technology being developed by IonQ. The College Park-based company on Monday made official a deal to merge with special purpose acquisition company dMY Technology Group, Inc. III. When the merger closes and it begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol IONQ, the company is poised to be the first “pure-play” quantum computing company that is publicly traded, leaders said.

Image: Inside IonQ’s College Park quantum computing work. (Courtesy photo)

One thing both the Trump and Biden administrations have agreed on is that the U.S. needs to expand domestic manufacturing, and soon.

The pharmaceutical industry in particular has outsourced much of its manufacturing to take advantage of lower costs and more lax environmental laws in other countries. This has left Americans reliant on overseas drugmakers, largely in India and China, and vulnerable to gaps in the supply chain when quality issues or a pandemic halts production.

Image:  Ronald T. Piervincenzi  – Source: United States Pharmacopeia

Gaithersburg, MD, Feb. 22, 2021 – Cartesian Therapeutics, a fully integrated, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering mRNA-engineered cell therapy in and beyond oncology, today announced that it has initiated a Phase 2a clinical trial of its mRNA chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, Descartes-11, in patients with newly diagnosed, high-risk multiple myeloma.  Based upon the company’s research and analysis, this program is understood to be the first RNA-engineered cell therapy to enter clinical development for a frontline cancer. Descartes-11 is the third product candidate to be evaluated in clinical trials resulting from Cartesian’s RNA Armory℠ engineering platform.

Improving access to venture capital for life science entrepreneurs and emerging biopharma companies in the BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) is a top priority. However, elevating the region’s funding profile is not the only type of access undergoing a transformation in recent years.

Image: https://biobuzz.io

There’s an old joke about economists that I’ve always liked. A junior professor goes to his senior colleague with a brilliant new idea. The older man dismisses it. “That may be fine in practice,” he sniffs, “but it will never work in theory.”

Economists are like that, at least many of them. They don’t like to have reality intrude on their abstractions. One of the best examples has to do with mobility. Years ago, I read an article by a prominent economist downplaying the problem of a small-town factory that spews out pollution. What’s the big deal, he asked. There must be another town nearby without a soot-belching factory. The residents of the first town could just move over there. Pretty soon the polluter would get the idea.

“5 Questions With…” is a weekly BioBuzz series where we reach out to interesting people in the BioHealth Capital Region to share a little about themselves, their work, and maybe something completely unrelated. March is WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH and BioBuzz will celebrate by featuring Women in the BioHealth industry all month, especially in “5 Questions With…”. This week we continue the series with Destinie Burgan, Upstream Supervisor of Manufacturing, Emergent BioSolutions.

Image: https://biobuzz.io

The program, first conceived in 2016, puts the Charlottesville institution in Greater Washington and creates a new talent pool for the Falls Church-based organization.

Image: The Claude Moore Health Education and Research Center, part of the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus, houses medical school classrooms and offices for curriculum, student affairs and faculty affairs. COURTESY INOVA HEALTH SYSTEM