News Archive

For the first time in five years, federal funding for higher education research and development increased in both current and constant dollars, according to recently released data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation. In FY 2016, universities reported $72.0 billion in total R&D expenditures, a 4.8 percent increase from FY 2015. Of this amount, more than half (54 percent) came from the federal government. Institutionally financed research represented 16 percent, the second largest source of R&D funds at universities in FY 2016.

Epidarex Capital (“Epidarex”), an early-stage, transatlantic life science venture fund, today announced that its portfolio company, Harpoon Medical, Inc. (“Harpoon”), a pioneer in beating-heart repair for degenerative mitral regurgitation (DMR), has been acquired by Edwards Lifesciences for up to $250 million. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Edwards paid $100 million in cash for Harpoon at closing on December 1, 2017 with a potential for up to an additional $150 million in pre-specified milestone-driven payments.

The Emmes Corporation today announced its statistical and data management support of a clinical trial that offers new hope for children with cerebral palsy (CP).  Stephen Wease and Dr. Beth Blackwell joined a team of prominent researchers from Duke University Medical Center to test whether umbilical cord blood would improve motor skills function in children suffering from the disorder. 

The move is welcome news for Prime Minister Theresa May, who has struggled to win over large sections of industry as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

Proteros biostructures GmbH today announced that the Company’s Supervisory board had appointed Dave Lemus, previously a non-executive director at Proteros, as Executive Vice Chairman, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Proteros Biostructures GmbH. Additionally, he will serve in the role of Non-Executive Board Chairman of Proteros USA, Inc., the Company’s newly formed subsidiary in the U.S.A., where he will be based.

A Rockville-based research and development company working on a cheap and fast diagnostic test for infectious diseases will be the first tenant of Inova Health System’s new accelerator that officially opened Thursday.

When the 13 teams that made up Fed Tech’s fall 2017 cohort took the stage for their first pitch night in September, it wasn’t entirely smooth sailing.

The entrepreneurs, some of whom had been introduced to their assigned technology just days earlier, struggled to pronounce long scientific words or, in some cases, explain what the technology is at all. The task wasn’t easy, but the entrepreneurs didn’t get a pass either. “You gotta tell me what you do,” the group of rowdy mentors lobbed at one team. “Tell me who cares.”

A reindeer with a red glowing nose.

A heart, two sizes two small, that suddenly grows three sizes.

A trip to the past and to the future — all in one night.

Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest seed fund has raised $150 million from a cavalcade of high-profile investors.

Investors in the new fund, named after Case’s yearslong effort to draw more attention to nontraditional areas outside of Silicon Valley and New York, include Amazon chief and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, The Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and members of the Koch, Pritzker and Walton families, according to a release.

The landscape for the delivery of health care in the United States is changing, but the traditional care-delivery players are not the change agents. The recent announcement of CVS’s $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna brings an insurer together with a large network of primary care providers: CVS has built more than 1,100 Minute Clinic locations inside its pharmacy stores in 33 states and the District of Columbia.