News Archive

CHICAGO/TEL AVIV-YAFO (January 7, 2020) – LionBird has a new partner: Robert Lord. Lord is the co-founder of Protenus, a healthcare compliance analytics company from LionBird’s second fund. Lord joins LionBird to provide strategic insight as the company prepares to hone its digital health focus for its upcoming fund, LionBird III. In addition to his role at LionBird, Lord is the Chairman of the Board of Protenus, providing support to the Protenus team while also completing his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

BioSpace is proud to present its NextGen Bio “Class of 2020,” a list of up-and-coming life sciences companies in North America that launched* no earlier than mid-2018.

To come up with this list, BioSpace sorted companies into that age grouping, and they were then weighted by a number of different categories and finally ranked in a cumulative fashion, based on the points awarded for each category. These categories were: Finance, Collaborations, Pipeline and Innovation (view methodology below).

Image: https://www.biospace.com

Oncology, neurology, and fatty liver disease are among the areas where one can expect to see significant activity this year, according to forecasts from investment bank analysts.

Anticipated highlights for 2020 include potentially the first regulatory approval of a drug to treat the liver disease nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH; the launches of two new drugs for sickle cell disease; and late-stage data for a drug to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, among others. Several company executives also shared their insights in a story published over the weekend.

Competition for startups aims to increase the pace of development and commercialization of critically needed pediatric medical devices. In the world of innovation, devices used for pediatric medical care, particularly the very young, are lagging behind those created for adult purposes. A contest is now open, inviting innovators to do something about it. Top contenders will be awarded with support from an innovation accelerator to further develop their device and an opportunity to win up to $250,000 in grant money.

A new initiative spearheaded by Johns Hopkins is setting out to organize and grow the digital health community in the region, with an aim of fueling successful startups.

The Chesapeake Digital Health Exchange (Chesapeake DHX) wants to create more connectivity between the stakeholders in digital health, such as companies, investors and healthcare providers. The regional effort aims to include Maryland, D.C. and Northern Virginia.

COLUMBIA, Md., Jan. 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced its recent round of funding for select projects through the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII). This round of funding includes project grants for technology assessment and investments in the spin-out companies, from its five partner universities for a total of $2.63M.

Established in 2012, the MII program was created as a partnership between the State of Maryland and five Maryland academic research institutions: University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; University of Maryland, Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University; and Morgan State University. The program’s mission is to accelerate promising technologies with significant commercial potential to market while leveraging each partner University’s strengths.

The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) today announced that CIT GAP Funds has invested in Herndon, Va.-based Jeeva Informatics Solutions Inc. (Jeeva), a precision medicine data science company focused on significantly accelerating clinical trial operations by taking trials to patients’ homes. Using AI and digital health technologies, Jeeva fast tracks patient recruitment, improves adherence to trial protocols, and reduces patient burden and dropout rates, solving some of the pressing challenges in bringing innovative medicines to market effectively. Jeeva plans to use the GAP Funds investment to advance customer pilot projects and use cases for further validation.

NexImmune, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel immune-therapeutics based on a proprietary Artificial Immune Modulation (AIM) nanotechnology platform, announced that industry veterans Han Myint, MD has been appointed as the Company’s Chief Medical Officer. Additionally, John Trainer, MBA has been appointed as the Chief Financial Officer.

Image: https://biobuzz.io

NexImmune, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel immune-therapeutics based on a proprietary Artificial Immune Modulation (AIM) nanotechnology platform, announced that industry veteran John Trainer, MBA has been appointed as the Company’s Financial Officer. Additionally, Han Myint, MD has been appointed as the Chief Medical Officer.