News Archive

The University of Maryland seeks a dynamic, forward-thinking individual to lead the newly-renamed Office of Innovation and Commercialization (OIC). The OIC is charged with cultivation, assessment, protection, and commercialization of intellectual property and other transferrable knowledge (frameworks, methods, copyrights, etc.) generated at the University. The OIC is an integral component of UM Ventures – College Park which has a mission to help drive economic and social impact from University research and discoveries through corporate partnering and entrepreneurial activities.

The Director leads and manages the OIC, overseeing personnel, budgets, and all aspects of intellectual property cultivation, assessment, protection, and commercialization. The Director establishes and implements strategies to maximize the social and economic impact of University research and discoveries through OIC’s commercialization efforts and its support of related entrepreneurial endeavors. The Director is responsible for developing and meeting annual OIC licensing goals and acts as primary point of contact and steward to resolve problems and issues affecting intellectual property and licensing at all levels within the University.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced a legislative proposal that would provide $500 million over five years for the life sciences sector, extending the state’s commitment to the biotech and medical technology industry. The money would be used for strategic investments in public infrastructure, research and development, workforce training and education. The proposal includes a $295 million bond authorization to provide capital funding,  up to $150 million in job-creating tax incentives, and $55 million for the Investment Fund, which would be provided through the annual consolidated net surplus, the same funding mechanism as the current initiative. The funding will continue to be managed by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) and build on earlier investments. MLSC was charged with implementing the $1 billion, 10-year state-funded initiative that was signed into law by former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in 2008 and expires next year.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett will be joined by County Council President Roger Berliner, members of the County Executive’s Economic Advisory Group and representatives from local chambers of commerce and business organizations to announce the launch of the County’s new Business Portal.

The business portal is a gateway to County-government services and information related to doing business in Montgomery County. It is modeled after national, best practices and based on input from an extensive survey in 2016 on improving government services for businesses. Integrating information from multiple County departments, the business portal is a single point of entry that aims to further streamline County services and operations to make it easier to start and grow a business in the County.

I founded my healthcare technology company, ClickMedix, while I was a graduate student at MIT’s Development Ventures class. Our mission is to improve the health of over one billion people. We currently have deployments in 18 countries, and serve more than a quarter million patients – all without investor money. I have been funding my startup by winning business plan competitions and through paying customers. Here are three steps to winning business plan competitions:

The Secretary of Health in Pennsylvania will leave the state to join the executive team at Geisinger Health System.

Karen Murphy, R.N., Ph.D., has been named executive vice president, chief innovation officer and founding director of Geisinger’s Steele Institute for Healthcare Innovation. Her last day with the state is Friday but she won’t start her new job at Geisinger until September.

emocha Mobile Health, a Baltimore-based startup company focused on medication adherence, today announced that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research award by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Through the NIH Fast-Track mechanism, the Phase 1 award will total $225,000, with an additional $1.5 million for Phase 2 granted upon achieving milestones. The project will demonstrate the feasibility of video directly observed therapy for patients undergoing the initiation phase of buprenorphine treatment through office-based opioid treatment (OBOT) programs. Outcomes of interest will include adherence, retention in care, measures of illicit opioid use and abstinence, and medication diversi

The National Institutes of Health has named two biological engineering researchers as winners in Phase 2 of its Follow that Cell Challenge. The winners will share $400,000 in prizes awarded for development of new tools and methods for predicting the behavior and function of a single cell in complex tissue over time – and how that reflects the health of the tissue. They were chosen from among several Phase 1 finalists.

New Enterprise Associates, Venrock, and Pelion Venture Partners—all early investors in Internet company Cloudflare—are now ponying up $100 million to fund startups that build applications atop Cloudflare’s technology, which speeds up web site performance and offers security to web applications. Cloudflare products handle an estimated 10% of the world’s web requests. If you click on a browser button, theres a good chance Cloudflare is expediting the response.