News Archive

Well just to lighten the mood I have just seen on my BBC news app that the Oxford University? Astra Zenaca group have just announced that they have tested 43,500 people from here and abroad and they are claiming that it prevents 90% of people getting Covid. They also announced there was no safety issues with this vaccine. Could this help life to start to get back to normal, they say they are approaching the government to start rolling it out next month, lets just hope this is the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

BioNTech, the German biotech which announced an apparent vaccine to coronavirus on Monday, is a classic European startup story: created by Turkish immigrants, funded by US and Asian investors and listed on the Nasdaq.

Along with pharma giant Pfizer, BioNTech is the first drug maker to show successful results from clinical trials of a coronavirus vaccine. Trials on thousands of volunteers found no serious safety concerns, meaning the companies will seek emergency use authorisation for the vaccine in the US later this month. 

Research parks and innovation districts historically have played important roles in development of innovation ecosystems in places like Silicon Valley, Boston, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle.

The DC/Md/Va region has strong universities and Federal labs, with a growing set of innovation parks and incubation facilities. Learn how communities of innovation are growing in the DC region through new research parks and contributing to a fuller range of technology commercialization activities.

Novavax Inc. has the option to raise up to $500 million in a possible stock offering as it shepherds its Covid-19 vaccine candidate through clinical trials, juggles its seasonal flu vaccine program and sees its stock sustain dramatic highs.

The Gaithersburg biotech said it could offer up to 5.37 million shares of common stock based on its Nov. 5 closing price of $93.11, according to documents filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That follows Novavax’s sale earlier this year of 3.4 million shares of common stock, which brought in $238.3 million in net proceeds.

In this conversation, Rachel King and Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath share stories underlying their careers in scientific innovation, from the lab bench to government, consulting, and venture capital; and their experiences as one of the few women CEOs in biotechnology. 

https://www.thinkmedium.com

Qiagen NV QGEN, -2.76% shares rose in the extended session Wednesday after the Netherlands-based medical diagnostics company said it will begin selling a portable COVID-19 test in the United States. Qiagen shares rose 4% after hours, following a 0.9% rise in the regular session to close at $46.51. Called the “QIAreach SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Test,” the company said the test can process up to 30 swab samples to detect antigens of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in people who are actively infected with the virus in up to 15 minutes. The test was developed by Qiagen in partnership with Australian digital diagnostics company Ellume. Qiagen said the QIAreach “will be particularly valuable when vaccines are introduced.”

Richmond, VA, Nov. 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Center for Innovative Technology announced the appointment of Sean Mallon as Vice President for its Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Division.  The division is one of four recently created at CIT in its role as the operating arm for the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority (VIPA). The other three divisions are Investment, Commercialization, and Strategic Initiatives.

The Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Division was established to connect and leverage the expertise and infrastructure of Virginia-based partner organizations and will work with stakeholders to develop and strengthen programs that support entrepreneurs in all regions of the Commonwealth. As Division VP, Mallon’s responsibilities will include developing a backbone of statewide resources to assist regional ecosystems and ensure that all programs are inclusive to communities that have been historically under-represented in entrepreneurship and capital formation. Mallon will be based in CIT’s Richmond headquarters office.

The Universities at Shady Grove (USG) marks its 20th anniversary this year and the campus has launched a new chapter in its history with the appointment of Dr. Anne Khademian as USG’s third executive director. Khademian, who joins USG after 17 years with Virginia Tech University, begins her tenure at a challenging time as USG and its partner universities grapple with the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. But she is making rapid inroads in building strong relationships with colleagues and community leaders, and in laying out some of her initial priorities for advancing USG into the future. They include a continued focus on ensuring student success, and on strengthening the future of USG, which she sees as a unique asset for bolstering economic and workforce development in Montgomery County, the state of Maryland and throughout the D.C. metropolitan region.

The State Technology and Science Index (STSI) provides a benchmark for evaluating the knowledge economies of all 50 US states. The index compares each state’s capacity for achieving prosperity through scientific discovery and technological innovation, by performing a cross-sectional analysis of their rankings on key indicators using the latest available data from US federal government and private-sector sources.

The index is a composite of five sub-indexes, which cover a diverse range of topics: research and development (R&D) inputs, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, human capital investment, technology and science workforce, and technology concentration and dynamism. By comparing how states rank in these areas, the index assesses their capacities for generating new scientific ideas, as well as for commercializing technologies that contribute to firm expansion, high-skills job creation, and broad-based economic growth.

MENLO PARK, Calif., Nov. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Talis Biomedical Corporation, a company dedicated to developing innovative molecular diagnostic tests for infectious diseases at the point of care, today announced it has strengthened its executive management team with the appointment of Rob Kelley as its first Chief Commercial Officer and Douglas Liu as Senior Vice President, Operations. Additionally, it has closed a new $126 million financing to support expansion of its operations and the commercial scale-up of the Talis One™ System and further expand the test menu. The Talis One System is a sample-to-answer, cloud-enabled, molecular diagnostic platform designed to provide rapid and highly accurate point-of-care tests for the detection of infectious diseases, including COVID-19.