News Archive

Pharmaceuticals and life sciences companies are experiencing a wave of competing challenges as part of what could be called the New Health Economy. They include consolidation among providers, especially hospitals, intended to produce efficiency gains; the changing demands and expectations of patients, who seek a greater role in their own care; increasing cost pressures from payors leading to calls for pricing reform; and the declining autonomy of the individual physician as rule-based, protocol-driven care becomes ascendant. The resulting healthcare system will focus increasingly on paying for the value rather than the volume of medical care; in other words, it will be a more consumer-facing industry.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) today published the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for its 2017 Regional Innovations Strategies (RIS) program. The application period will close June 23, 2017.

The $17 million being made available through the RIS NOFA will help to spur innovation capacity-building activities in regions across the nation. Under this competition, EDA is seeking applications for two separate funding opportunities: the i6 Challenge and the Seed Fund Support (SFS) Grant competition.

Collaboration across academia, government, non-profits, and the biopharmaceutical industry fosters innovation and groundbreaking discoveries in science and research. During the 2017 BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) Forum held at our Gaithersburg, Maryland campus, world-renowned speakers and local leaders convened to showcase the benefits of continued collaboration that can help us prevent, treat, and find cures for deadly diseases.

Emergent BioSolutions is one of the vaccine producers that the federal government can tap in case of a virus pandemic, and now it has doubled the size of one of its manufacturing and development facilities with funding help from the feds.

VLP Therapeutics, LLC (“VLP”), a biotechnology company focusing on the research and development of therapeutic and preventative vaccines and antibody agents, today announced that it completed a convertible note financing with an angel investor Dr. Tomy Kamada, through his investment firm TomyK Ltd., that supports technology startups which pioneer new markets and create new industries with their innovative technologies.

When the next flu pandemic strikes or, perish the thought, the Ebola virus starts spreading in the United States, a newly expanded pharmaceutical plant in East Baltimore stands ready to respond.

Emergent BioSolutions, in partnership with the federal government, spent $80 million to double the size of its East Lombard Street plant near Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Today, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed into law a measure aimed at providing additional support to Maryland small biotechnology companies.  Senate Bill 226 sponsored by Senator Roger Manno, and House Bill 373 sponsored by Delegate Darryl Barnes will support Maryland small and innovative biotech companies by amending the Biotechnology Investor Incentive Tax Credit (BIITC) definition of a Qualified Maryland Biotechnology to allow investment in companies that have been in business no longer than 12 years and in active business for up to 15 years if completing the process of regulatory approval.   The BIITC Extension has been a legislative priority of BioFactura and the Small Biotechnology Business Coalition, and our Coalition has worked closely with Delegate Barnes and Senator Manno on this legislation.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed more than 200 bills Thursday afternoon, including one that will present the University of Maryland with $1.5 million a year to establish a new Maryland Energy Innovation Institute on the campus.

The Maryland Clean Energy Center and the University of Maryland Energy Research Center collaborated to work out the details of the initiative, which aims to increase job opportunities and protect the environment by commercializing environmentally-friendly technology statewide, according to Eric Wachsman, director of the Energy Research Center and the Institute.

MSBDFA promotes the viability and expansion of businesses owned by economically and socially disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

MSBDFA uses include working capital, supplies and materials, machinery and equipment acquisition, land acquisition or real estate improvements. Other uses include the purchase of an existing franchise, construction or renovation and franchise fees or obtaining bid, performance and payment bonds for contracts, which receive the majority of their funding from federal, state or local government.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced an agreement to feature Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)-funded early-stage biomedical companies in an Innovation Zone at the 2017 BIO International Convention. The Innovation Zone companies, focused on drug discovery, diagnostics and other therapeutic platform technologies, will have dedicated exhibit space and participate in BIO’s One-on-One Partnering™ system. Select companies will make 15-minute company presentations in the BIO Business Forum.