
MCEDC talks with Douglas Liu, SVP of Global Operations for Qiagen, about how his company makes improvements in life possible.

MCEDC talks with Douglas Liu, SVP of Global Operations for Qiagen, about how his company makes improvements in life possible.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), an urban office REIT uniquely focused on collaborative life science and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, today announced that it has strategically partnered with Columbia University to open Alexandria LaunchLabs®, the premier life science startup platform, at the university in the spring of 2020. Building upon the success of the flagship Alexandria LaunchLabs site at the Alexandria Center® for Life Science – New York City, Alexandria LaunchLabs @ Columbia will increasingly focus on promising life science startups emerging from Columbia and peer institutions, which serve as the greatest source of new company formation in the NYC life science ecosystem.

Hundreds of politicians, Capitol staff members, and campus top brass will gather on Wednesday in Washington to hear about researchers’ work. The scholars aren’t leaving any detail to chance.

Last week two new partnerships were formed between Maryland and the United Kingdom. Biohealth Innovation, a MD based public-private nonprofit focused on accelerating commercialization for biohealth, will be collaborating with Catalyze, an Amsterdam based company dedicated to bringing non-dilutive funding for biomedical innovations.

Andrew Lees, Ph.D., is founder and scientific director of Fina Biosolutions, LLC (Rockville, Md.), a company focused on promoting affordable conjugate vaccines by making the technology available to emerging market vaccine manufacturers. Among his contributions in the field, Lees developed an efficient linking chemistry which is widely used in conjugate vaccines, a class that includes vaccines for S. pneumoniae and meningococcal disease. The chemistry has helped to reduce the cost of these vaccines.
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REGENXBIO Inc. (Nasdaq: RGNX), a leading clinical-stage biotechnology company seeking to improve lives through the curative potential of gene therapy based on its proprietary NAV® Technology Platform, today announced the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a gene therapy that leverages REGENXBIO’s proprietary NAV Technology Platform, Novartis AG’s ZOLGENSMA® (onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi; AVXS-101). ZOLGENSMA was approved by the FDA as a one-time infusion for pediatric patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who are less than two years of age.

How does the healthcare sector stack up on gender equality? To answer that question, we look at pipeline practices, employee experiences, and policies and programs the industry has implemented to promote diversity and inclusion. We also hear from industry leaders on what it takes to accelerate change across the sector.

A just-released study co-sponsored by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and AUTM provides new evidence of the significant contribution academic patent licensing makes to the U.S. economy. The report is the most recent in a series, and the numbers are astounding.
Gene therapies represent some of the most promising advancements in science and human health in recent history. The BioHealth Capital Region, and Maryland in particular, is rapidly becoming a hub for companies in this field. With the NIH and the National Cancer Institute at the nucleus, some of the most advanced scientific research and technology development in the field is happening in a short 30-mile radius around Montgomery County, Maryland.

Ceres Nanosciences, Inc. (Ceres), University of Virginia (UVA), and George Mason University (Mason) today announced the receipt of a $600,000 award from the Virginia Catalyst for the development of a Nanotrap® liquid biopsy collection device. This award will be matched by $1.2 million in product development funding by Ceres Nanosciences.