News Archive

After listening to hundreds of startup pitches, and reading even more business plans, most new venture investors develop their own favorite list of “red flags” that signal the beginning of the end of their interest. Others, like Guy Kawasaki, have irreverently called some of these “entrepreneur lies,” but I prefer to think of them as innocent enhancements or omissions that can kill your deal.

At any rate, here is my own list of red flags, from my years of experience advising and investing in aspiring entrepreneurs, which cause me to lose interest and start looking for a way out the door:

In order to address the unmet needs and create opportunities that benefit patients with rare disease in India, a group of volunteers created a not-for-profit organization named Organization for Rare Diseases India (ORDI; www.ordindia.org). ORDI plans to represent the collective voice and advocate the needs of patients with rare diseases and other stakeholders in India. The ORDI team members come from diverse backgrounds such as genetics, molecular diagnostics, drug development, bioinformatics, communications, information technology, patient advocacy and public service. ORDI builds on the lessons learned from numerous similar organizations in the USA, European Union and disease-specific rare disease foundations in India. In this review, we provide a background on the landscape of rare diseases and the organizations that are active in this area globally and in India. We discuss the unique challenges in tackling rare diseases in India, and highlight the unmet needs of the key stakeholders of rare diseases. Finally, we define the vision, mission, goals and objectives of ORDI, identify the key developments in the health care context in India and welcome community feedback and comments on our approach.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has a suggestion for humans who want to stay relevant in a future of artificial intelligence: merge with the machines.

“Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence,” Musk said at the World Government Summit in Dubai, according to CNBC. “It’s mostly about bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.”

Last month, we outlined our top 10 do’s and don’ts for getting your Phase I NIH proposal in shape and ready to submit before the April 5 deadline. This month we continue that theme by presenting what we have determined, over years of reviewing proposals, to be our top 10 brilliant ideas or stupid mistakes for Phase II proposals. Here are our favorites:

Orgenesis Inc. (OTCQB: ORGS), a fully-integrated cell therapy and contract development and manufacturing company, announced that its Belgian subsidiary, Orgenesis SPRL, has received the formal approval from the Walloon Region, Belgium (Service Public of Wallonia, DGO6) for a budget of EUR 12.3 million ($12.8 million) support program for the GMP production of AIP cells for two clinical trials that will be performed in Germany and Belgium. The project support will be for a period of three years commencing on January 1, 2017.

Of the approved amount, a total of EUR 3.3 million is budgeted for a development work at our Belgian-based subsidiary, MaSTherCell S.A.

In labs testing how brain implants could help people with physical disabilities, tales of success can be bittersweet.

Experiments like those that let a paralyzed person swig coffee using a robotic arm, or that let blind people “see” spots of light, have proven the huge potential of computers that interface with the brain. But the implanted electrodes used in such trials eventually become useless, as scar tissue forms that degrades their electrical connection to brain cells (see “The Thought Experiment”).

Which state has the nation’s most research-intensive economy? California? Massachusetts? North Carolina?

Actually it’s Maryland. A greater portion of Maryland’s economy comes from private, federal, and university research spending than any state (with the exception of rural New Mexico with its two large federal labs).  But not enough of us recognize that.

Hot off the (online) presses: the first annual Year-End Market Report produced by MCEDC. How does the employment rate in Montgomery County compare to the state? What are the biggest business highlights from last year? How does the future look for the county? Find these answers, and more.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) today announced that it has received a task order from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) valued at up to $30.5 million to develop monoclonal antibody therapeutics for viral hemorrhagic fever. This task order will utilize the company’s Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) facility located in Baltimore, Maryland. Using monoclonal antibodies from Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., the company will conduct technology transfer of process materials and information, perform process and analytical method development, execute small-scale production runs, and perform cGMP cell banking leading to cGMP manufacture of bulk drug substance. The task order consists of a 36-month period of performance with a base task order valued at $7.4 million and options that, if executed, will bring the total task order value over three years to up to $30.5 million.