News Archive

Bruce Booth, D.Phil., a partner at Atlas Venture, astutely observed earlier this year that two key resources fueling the growth of biopharma were until recently somewhat geographically spread among the 10 or so regions of the nation where the industry began to arise a generation ago.

“In recent years, this has changed—Boston and San Francisco are now the preeminent biotech clusters.  And their gravity in the ecosystem is only getting stronger,” Dr. Booth concluded in a March 21 post on his Life Sci VC blog. “Beyond having great science and the right ‘pixie dust’ in the local environment, two fundamentally important ingredients to the success of any cluster are capital and talent—and both are aggregating into the two key clusters.”

President Trump announced Tuesday that he will keep Francis S. Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Collins was first nominated for the position in 2009 by President Obama. Shortly after he took office, Trump announced that Collins would stay on in an interim role, and many scientists have wondered if Collins would be offered the position or would accept it on a permanent basis in the new administration. Trump surprised many this year by proposing cuts of nearly 20 percent in the budget of the NIH, which normally has support from Democrats and Republicans alike.

The 2017 Omnibus Grant Solicitations of the NIH, CDC, and FDA are now available for the SBIR and STTR (NIH only) programs.

The 2017 SBIR/STTR Omnibus solicitations and accompanying resources can be found below:

• SBIR: PA-17-302
• STTR: PA-17-303
• 2017 Program Descriptions and Research Topics and Appendix A (SBA approved topics for budget waivers)
• SF 424 (R&R) Online HTML Application Guide
• SF 424 (R&R) PDF Guide Application Guide for SBIR/STTR Grant Applications
• Annotated SF424 SBIR/STTR Form Set  

Standard Application Due Dates: September 5, 2017 and January 5, 2018.

The Maryland Tech Council (MTC), Maryland’s largest technology trade association, announced the winners of its 29th Annual Industry Awards during a celebration and ceremony at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center attended by more than 550 business leaders from around the state.

“MTC was honored to recognize the Industry Award winners this year whose innovations are improving and saving lives,” said Tami Howie, CEO, Maryland Tech Council. “This year’s winners gave inspiring and heart-felt messages on their advancements and how they are changing the world.”

The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) has been awarded two $115,000 grants to commercialize technologies based on improving protein-based therapeutics utilizing a novel biopolymer and an alternate way to treat Niemann-Pick disease patients. The grants are funded by the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) as part of the Technology Council of Maryland’s (TEDCO) effort to support commercialization of academic-based scientific research and the state’s efforts to foster economic development in Maryland. The MII program is a collaboration between the State of Maryland and five Maryland institutions: University of Maryland, Baltimore; University of Maryland, College Park; Morgan State University; UMBC; and Johns Hopkins University.

Qiagen this past weekend said that it signed separate agreements with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johns Hopkins University related to next-generation sequencing assay development.

Under one agreement, Qiagen and BMS will initially explore the use of NGS to develop gene expression profiles as predictive or prognostic tools for use with several BMS immuno-oncology therapies. The companies also plan to enter into a further agreement to develop diagnostic products using the jointly developed profiles to expand the use of NGS technology with other BMS immuno-oncology therapies.

Several technology research and commercialization research projects are getting money thanks to the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund Awards.

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced $2.7 million in funding for 40 projects across the Commonwealth, including several in Albemarle County.

QIAGEN (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced it has received premarket approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its automated artus® CMV QS-RGQ MDx kit for use on QIAGEN’s QIAsymphony platform, providing fast, reproducible, high-quality test results for use as an aid in the management of solid organ transplant patients who are undergoing anti-CMV therapy.

Patients who have undergone organ transplantation have an elevated risk of infection from CMV, which is a common virus that infects people of all ages. Over half of all adults by age 40 have been infected with CMV, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Once CMV is in a person’s body, it stays there for life in latent form and can reactivate.

Join MCCC in congratulating David Nguyen as he receives the MCCC 2017 Chairman’s Award.

David’s contributions to the MCCC Board of Directors are strategic and impactful. An exemplary thought leader, he has advanced the Chamber’s Metro Maryland concept, grown our membership and provided innovative solutions to advance the MCCC mission.