Virginia emerged as a winner in the fierce, nationwide competition to house a headquarters for Amazon. The commonwealth stepped up with a standout higher education package, including a new Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, which will be located less than two miles from Amazon’s new location in Arlington.
Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE American: RNN), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies to improve outcomes in cancers that are difficult to treat, today announced that Douglas J. Swirsky, who has served as Rexahn’s president and chief financial officer since January 2018, has been named the company’s president and chief executive officer and appointed to the company’s board of directors effective immediately. Peter D. Suzdak, Ph.D., chief executive officer, has departed the company and resigned as a member of its board of directors.
SERAXIS Inc., a rapidly growing regenerative medicine company today announced the publication of important trial considerations for SR-01, its pluripotent stem cell-derived islet therapy for insulin-dependent diabetes.
Gene editing company CRISPR Therapeutics and cell-based medicines and life sciences firm MaxCyte have expanded clinical and commercial license agreement into oncology.
Today’s announcement that Amazon has selected New York City and Arlington, Virginia, as the locations for the company’s new headquarters is a win for Montgomery County. Amazon will invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs across the two new headquarters locations, with more than 25,000 employees each in location.
Groundhog Day?
This month, Forbes reported that venture capital investments in healthcare startups hit record highs, despite the infamous dissolution of Theranos. While this implies it is still a buyer’s market, hundreds of quality early stage-health technology companies ready for funding are not securing investments. At Inova Personalized Health Accelerator (IPHA), we researched this trend in our Health Tech Early Stage Funding Report, which we published this month. As reported in VentureBeat earlier this year, Rick Gordon, director of IPHA, detailed a troubling trend at the pre-seed and seed stage investment level for health technology startups – early stage health technology investments are declining.
NextCure Inc., a privately-held biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing the next generation of immunomedicines for cancer and other diseases, today announced the completion of a $93 million series B equity financing. The financing was led by Hillhouse Capital Management and Quan Capital, and included Bay City Capital, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Ping An Ventures, Taiho Ventures LLC, ArrowMark Partners and NS Investment. All existing investors also participated in this financing, including Canaan Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors LLC, Pfizer Inc., Sofinnova Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments. Additionally, Eli Lilly and Company invested $15 million in this financing in conjunction with the discovery and development partnership announced on November 5, 2018.
After a highly competitive site selection process that had communities across the U.S. touting their qualifications, Amazon has selected New York City and Arlington, VA, as the locations for the company’s new headquarters. Amazon will invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs across the two new headquarters locations, with more than 25,000 employees each in New York City and Arlington. The new locations will join Seattle as the company’s three headquarters in North America.
When the FDA issued its first approval for a gene therapy for an inherited disease nearly a year ago—a cure for a type of blindness—it was heralded as breakthrough, a moment decades in the making. With dozens of other genetically engineered therapies moving through clinical trials, the long-promised era of personalized, gene-based medicine seemed to be at hand.
New York City and Northern Virginia will be the homes for Amazon.com Inc.’s second and third headquarters, according to people familiar with the matter, ending a more than yearlong public contest that started with 238 candidates and ended with a surprise split of its so-called HQ2.
