News Archive

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is innovating in terms of how it will invest in projects, creating a new public-private partnership known as BARDA Ventures, based on the 21st Century Cures Act and venture capital methods.

As a result, BARDA seeks proposals from existing nonprofit partners to manage a long term health security fund no later than Dec. 8, 2020. That fund will be used to guarantee support for breakthrough technologies and new means of preparedness and response to health security threats. This, the organization hopes, will help its ability to stimulate innovation and promote disruptive technologies to close gaps in pandemic response and other healthcare preparedness.

Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s crash program to inoculate 300 million Americans against the coronavirus, includes a number of pharmaceutical partners like Emergent BioSolutions in Baltimore. CBS News correspondent David Martin toured one of Emergent’s manufacturing suites where the company is producing two COVID-19 vaccines awaiting FDA approval. 

Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) said Monday it received a crucial status for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate as the pandemic drags on and coronavirus cases once again soar across the country.

The Gaithersburg company has earned fast-track designation from the Food and Drug Administration for NVX-CoV2373, a coronavirus vaccine candidate in late-stage development. It means the biotech can submit parts of its application on a rolling basis for a speedier review by the agency, and gives Novavax more direct and frequent access to the FDA.

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Praduman Jain, known to colleagues as “PJ,” is CEO and Founder of Vibrent Health and the Principal Investigator of the Participant Technology Systems Center of the National Institutes of Health Precision Medicine Initiative, the All of Us Research Program, for which the PTSC received a $75 million grant in 2017 and an additional award in 2020 with initial first-year funding of $39 million to build a national platform for health research and health management insights for 1 million people across the U.S. for at least 10 years.  Jain is also the Chair of the Security Board of the Committee on Access, Privacy & Security for the NIH All of Us Research Program; a member of the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; an invited external expert for eMERGE & Beyond, The Future of Electronic Medical Records and Genomics program of the Division of Genomic Medicine, National Human Genome Research Institute; and an external advisory board member for iTHRIVE – a Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Award.

Biopharma and Life Science companies in the BioHealth Capital Region are known for their work with cutting edge technologies such as gene and cell therapies. Those strengths were on display at the 6th annual BioHealth Capital Region Forum.

The Strengths of our Region: Cutting Edge Therapies panel, which was moderated by Mark Cobbold, vice president of Discovery in Early Oncology at AstraZeneca, brought together leaders from three other companies to discuss their disruptive pipelines, the strength of the region and challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cobbold touted the work performed by the three companies joining him on the panel, Cartesian Therapeutics, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, and Ziel Bio. Pointing to the work being done by those three companies and AstraZeneca, Cobbold said they are representative of why the BioHealth Capital Region has become one of the most successful BioHubs in the United States.

If you’ve ever kept track of your steps or the quality of your sleep, you’re familiar with wearable sensor technology apps. It’s a big deal in the fitness and wellness space, but did you know it could help older adults remain independent as they age?

In 2007, Ashkan Vaziri, Ph.D.and a few friends started a company called BioSensics to execute their vision for technology to help older adults age in place. More than a decade later, the company’s success — spurred in part by small business funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health — has led to a partial acquisition by electronics retailer Best Buy and to a continuing pipeline of innovative research projects.

Keeping kids safe at home is more important than ever – including safely storing medicines. Especially, as many families are living a new normal with children spending more time at home due to the pandemic.

Every hour in the United States, 5 children under age 6 are rushed to emergency departments for medication poisonings, many due to unsafe storage practices. There has been a 142% increase in prescribed medications over the past two decades. At the same time, an aging population and drastic increase in three-generation households, kids living with their parents and grandparents, are likely contributing to approximately 200,000 children visiting emergency departments each year due to adverse drug events.

Johns Hopkins University launched its popular COVID-19 map on Jan. 22 — just 2 days after the first person in the United States was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus.

Exactly 8 months later, Healio and others cited the university’s COVID-19 dashboard on Sept. 22 when reporting that the U.S. had surpassed 200,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Image: https://www.healio.com

This year, more than ever before, we’ve seen just how important it is for us all to stay connected and work together to build a stronger biotech ecosystem. In the face of great adversity, the biotech community has risen to the challenge and formed new collaborations and partnerships to innovate and rapidly develop new medicines and tools to help us beat this pandemic. 

That’s why we decided that this year was the right time to launch the first annual BioBuzz Awards.  This is an opportunity for us all to revisit the accomplishments of the past year and recognize the leaders and companies in the region who are doing great things to build a stronger BioHealth Capital Region across Maryland, DC and Virginia, and are making an impact on human health.