I got the news that EPA’s Water Technology Innovation Cluster was dead during the webcast of the final public meeting of the Administration’s ROI Initiative. About two hours into the program a speaker mentioned it during his three-minute statement. The two of us may have been the only ones listening that knew about this project. Just a few years ago I’d called it a “model technology transfer program.” Now it was gone, taking down several public-sector entrepreneurs with it.
The DRIVe (Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures) website looks like it belongs to a VC company rather than a federal agency – smart graphics and succinct descriptions. That’s not an accident. DRIVe is taking a venture approach to solving some intractable health issues.
When you hear the term “government research” do the words “entrepreneur”, “start-up”, “commercially relevant” or “industry partner” come to mind?
For many, they would not. However, if you attended the Second Annual Technology Showcase last week hosted by NCI and the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) those are the words that came up in each and every presentation. This event wasn’t your average government research poster session showcasing incredibly interesting, yet commercially irrelevant studies. This event was all about the commercially relevant technologies being developed at the NCI and FNLCR that have the potential to take to patients, and the success stories of those that already have.
Fledgling biotechs and medical-technology startups in the U.S. and Europe have found a new source of funding for their costly research: China.
Business partnering, education and networking was the focus of 3500 biohealth industry leaders who attended the BIO International Convention (BIO) Conference earlier this month in Boston. At the event, BIO set the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for the Largest Business Partnering Event with 41,400 partnering meetings. Many of these meetings took place in the pavilion hosted by the Maryland Department of Commerce which included space for meetings BioHealth Innovation, Montgomery County Economic Development Corp (MCEDC), Rockville Economic Development (REDI), the City of Gaithersburg, Viva White Oak, PIC-MC (Montgomery College), University of Maryland Ventures, Johns Hopkins University, Fina BioSolutions, Integrated Pharma Services, Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., Emergent BioSolutions, AsclepiX, and US FDA’s Tech Transfer Office. Others from the BioHealth Capital Region who attended included: ABL, American Gene Technologies, AstraZeneca / MedImmune, Altimmune, BioMarker Strategies, Bytegrid, Children’s National Health, CRBE, Creatv Microtech, GlycoMimetics, IDT Biologica, Immunomics, Intrexon, Leidos Health, MacroGenics, Maryland Tech Council, MaxCyte, Newport Board Group, Novodux Paragon Bioservices, REGENXBIO, MacroGenics, Neuronascent, Scheer Partners, Smithers Avanza, TEDCO, the University of Maryland Baltimore, and the University of Maryland’s Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research.
The StartRight! Women’s Business Plan Competition was founded in 2004 by Rockville Economic Development, Inc. (REDI) to encourage and support women’s entrepreneurship. Now run by the Maryland Women’s Business Center, an initiative of REDI, StartRight! awards prizes for winning business plans each year. The women who enter our competition receive more than the opportunity to win a top prize of $5,000; they also receive valuable coaching and feedback on their business plan!
Complete plans are due electronically by July 12th. For more information, click here.
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 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for RGX-111. RGX-111 is a novel, one-time investigational treatment for Mucopolysaccharidosis Type I (MPS I), that is designed to deliver the human iduronidase (IDUA) gene directly to the central nervous system (CNS) using the NAV AAV9 vector.
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 that it has received an accelerated license payment of $100 million under its license agreement (the License Agreement) with AveXis, Inc. (AveXis) for the development and commercialization of products to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), due to the acquisition of AveXis by Novartis AG (Novartis).
RoosterBio Inc. has joined the new NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies, known as CMaT. The center, launched in 2017 with a $20 million investment from the National Science Foundation, aims to revolutionize the treatment of cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases and other disorders by enabling scalable manufacturing and broad use of potentially curative therapies that utilize living cells – such as immune cells and stem cells – as “drugs.”
Baltimore biotechnology firm WindMIL Therapeutics has raised a $32.5 million to support clinical trials and further development for new cancer therapies.
