News Archive

For more than a decade, Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation has been making grants to organizations that support its mission of increasing the number of adults obtaining postsecondary credentials.

That’s the typical playbook for private foundations—contribute to other not-for-profits that are trying to make a difference. But over the past year, Lumina has aggressively moved in a more novel direction, funneling more of its $1.2 billion endowment into venture capital. Instead of just handing out grants, it’s taking ownership stakes in for-profit businesses, mainly education-tech startups.

University of Maryland (UM) Ventures announced today that the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has granted worldwide, exclusive licensing rights for a new vaccine technology to Serenta Biotechnology, LLC, a Gaithersburg, MD-based startup. The license is based on technology co-owned by UMB and Northern Arizona University and is the basis for a multivalent vaccine against infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial strain often resistant to antibiotics.

Are you an NIH-funded investigator focused on medical device innovations? NIH recently announced the availability of administrative supplements to parent awards for a number of different activity codes with participation by four ICs (see lists below). Both SBIR/STTR awardees as well as recipients of a number of different research grants are eligible.

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.

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.