News Archive

Former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is known for his work with the University of Maryland, which hired him in 2014 to boost economic development in College Park.

Now, Montgomery County officials are hiring Ulman for a different task — luring the University System of Maryland and its flagship campus at College Park.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations with folks in the county about the desire to drive more higher education investment,” Ulman said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “Essentially, you have Montgomery County — an engine of innovation, a strong business community, but lacking a traditional four-year university.”

Image: Ken Ulman, a former Howard County executive and founder of the consulting firm Margrave Strategies. PHOTO VIA MARGRAVE STRATEGIES

Earlier this year, Crunchbase, a database that tracks startup companies and their investors, noted that biotech venture funding has been increasing in recent years, with corporate venture investors significantly increasing their funding into biotechs in 2018. Recently, The San Francisco Business Times pulled together a list of the Bay Area’s top-funded biotech companies from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019. Here’s a look at the top 10.

“The Biggest Biotech Bombshell in Years,” declared The Motley Fool of Biogen’s market-moving announcement October 22 that it was planning to file for FDA approval of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) candidate aducanumab, being co-developed with Eisai, despite halting two failed Phase III studies of the drug in March. Investors flocked to Biogen stock, sending the company’s stock price surging 40% before the start of trading that day. When the market closed, Biogen shares finished the day 26% higher at $281.87.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services this week announced the 25 participants selected to move on to the next round of its Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge.

WHY IT MATTERS

Launched this past March by the CMS Innovation Center, in collaboration with the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the AI Health Outcomes Challenge aims to give innovators a showcase for how they’re developing AI and machine learning technologies, deep learning tools and neural networks.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As a private investor, former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is focused on an area where few have found success in recent years: developing new antibiotics.

Since leaving the FDA in April, Gottlieb has revealed little about what types of investments he would make in his new role at New Enterprise Associates, one of the country’s largest venture capital firms where he worked prior to his time in government.

Image: FILE PHOTO: FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb speaks during an interview with Reuters in New York City, U.S., November 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo -https://www.reuters.com 

The former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, tells Reuters that in his new role as a venture capitalist, he is interested in supporting companies examining new antibiotics.

“I’m very interested in finding opportunities in the anti-infective space, particularly around multi-drug resistant organisms,” Gottlieb tells Reuters. “Anti-infectives have been unloved for a very long time. There’s a huge clinical need.”

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Oct. 31, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NexImmune, a clinical stage immunotherapy company developing novel T cell therapies, received Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance for the company’s first cellular therapy product. NEXI-001 is being developed for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients with relapsed disease after an allogeneic hematopoietic cellular transplant (allo-HCT).

Scott Carmer, NexImmune’s President and CEO, commented “we are excited to initiate clinical trials with NEXI-001, and to provide these patients with a promising new treatment option. NEXI-001 is a product that is meaningfully differentiated from other cellular therapies in that it contains multiple populations of antigen specific endogenous T cells with enhanced anti-tumor properties. Because of this, we are hopeful NEXI-001 will address key limitations observed with other cellular immunotherapies; specifically, tumor escape through single target down-regulation and tumor relapse due to diminished T cell persistence.”

The biotech company is developing a cell therapy that could help patients who have suffered a heart attack. It’s the latest company led by medtech entrepreneur Bill Niland. NeoProgen, a Baltimore-based company led by medtech entrepreneur Bill Niland, raised $1.5 million in seed funding as it develops a cell therapy for patients following a heart attack.

The round featured an all-Maryland lineup of investors: The University System of Maryland’s Momentum Fund, which contributed $245,000; TEDCO; and UM Ventures, which is the commercialization arm of the University of Maryland.

Like his earlier venture, Harpoon Medical, NeoProgen has origins in research at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. That’s where Dr. Sunjay Kaushal, a leading pediatric cardiac surgeon, found that a specific kind of stem cells are extremely effective in regenerating muscle tissue in the heart.

To cap off the TEDCO Entrepreneur Expo, there was a special ribbon cutting ceremony to welcome the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) to the state of Maryland.

Maryland Department of Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz did the honors of conferring the Secretary’s Citation to the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) on behalf of the citizens of the state for selecting College Park as the home of its HQ2.

We are excited to welcome back Brian Darmody and grateful to have the of Association of University Research Parks (AURP)’s HQ2. in the University of Maryland’s very own research park, the Discovery District.

AstraZeneca and BioHealth Innovations, Inc is hosting the semi-annual Bio Networking event on November 6th from 3pm-5pm at the AstraZeneca Campus in Gaithersburg, MD. Come to this FREE event, which will bring together biotech professionals from Maryland, DC, and Virginia (the BioHealth Capital Region). You never know who you will meet and what you can achieve together!

Please register to confirm your attendance. Although the event is free, registration is REQUIRED. Please contact admin@taylormadeexperience.com with any questions.