Maryland Technology Development Corp. is offering $300,000 to the person or organization that comes up with the best idea for how to support and grow technology companies in the state.
The Concept to Clinic: Commercializing Innovation (C3i) Program is designed to provide NIH-funded medical device innovators with an entrepreneurship training program to include specialized business frameworks and essential tools for successful translation of biomedical technologies from lab (concept) to market (clinic). The curriculum and customized mentoring provided by the program are intended to guide investigators in assessing the commercial viability and potential business opportunity for their innovation.
We are pleased to report that 20/20 placed first place among 21 pre-selected entrepreneurial contestants this month at the U.S. China Innovation & Investment Summit InnoSTARS competition in Houston, Texas: http://www.uschinainnovation.org/innostars/ . As a result, we have won an all-expenses paid trip to China to meet with and pitch to investors in that country as part of the Final Stage of the contest. The contest involved a 7-minute pitch by the CEO of 20/20 followed by Q&A before a panel of judges comprising Chinese and American VCs and business executives.
On April 26, hundreds of people came to East Baltimore for the grand opening of FastForward 1812. The event, billed as a celebration of a new physical space to support innovation, was just as much a celebration of the innovation hub’s promise to impact the future of Johns Hopkins, the city of Baltimore and people around the world by helping bring life-changing technologies to market.
“[This space is] a physical manifestation of our commitment to bringing together the necessary ingredients of innovation,” Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels said during the celebration’s opening remarks.
Last year, Johns Hopkins University and MedImmune announced their collaboration on a unique new initiative, the Johns Hopkins-MedImmune Scholars Program. The program has just selected its first Ph.D. candidates for a curriculum that will prepare them for careers in the biopharma industry.
Inez Lam and Natalia Majewska, both first-year Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. students, will participate in the five-year program, the first-of-its-kind in the United States, to gain a better understanding of the process and challenges of drug discovery and development. Upon completion, they will receive a traditional Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University.
University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher’s efforts to hotwire the region’s fledgling life sciences industry is getting a spark from a new seed capital fund targeted to helping develop new medications.
The Pittsburgh Revolution Fund is soliciting $200 million, which will be made available in the form of investments in drug research teams with the idea of spinning out companies, said Bill Newlin, chairman, Newlin Investment Co., a seed-stage investment firm in Sewickley.
Saluda Medical has raised $40 million in a round led by a GlaxoSmithKline VC fund. The series D gives Saluda the means to take its spinal cord stimulation (SCS) device through a pivotal trial in the U.S. while commercializing it in Europe and its home country, Australia.
Senator Bill Frist, MD, is among the country’s most important healthcare leaders. He is a partner at Nashville-based Frist Cressey Ventures, a heart/lung transplant surgeon and a serial entrepreneur. He’s also the former US Senate Majority Leader and has had a ring-side seat at the development of Nashville’s healthcare startup scene, which is now one of the most mature in the country.
GlaxoSmithKline, once the largest real estate owner in Research Triangle Park, has sold what’s left of its once-sprawling RTP campus and will lease back a small portion of the property where 3,000 employees and contractors work.
The deal, involving 20 buildings, was announced late Friday by Los Angeles-based Parmer Innovation Centers, which purchased the property, and by CBRE, a Los Angeles-based real-estate advisory that represented GSK in the real estate sale. The sale price was not disclosed.
Senseonics is set to raise $41 million to support the anticipated commercialization of implantable continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system Eversense. The fundraising attracted the support of major existing shareholders New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Roche.