News Archive

Introducing The Medical Capital Innovation Competition to be held April 25-26, 2017 at the Global Center for Health Innovation, Cleveland OH in the HIMSS Innovation Center. Where innovators with big ideas on the collection, management, analysis and optimization of healthcare big data can submit their idea(s) and present their innovation.

With $100,000 in cash prizes, the competition will reward the best innovations with meaningful funding, mentoring, and potential access to three world class healthcare systems and collaborators who can turn big ideas into new big business realities. The Medical Capital Innovation Competition is open to and encourages participation from professional and collegiate teams.

The Greater Washington Partnership, a group of chief executives and business leaders from the Baltimore-Washington area, has tapped a former White House staffer as its CEO.

Jason Miller, who previously worked as deputy assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, begins his tenure as CEO of the newly formed business group April 1.

“John knows exactly what he’s doing and needs little management. He works rapidly but without any mistakes so he delivers an amazing amount of high quality work. No one can do what he does.”

This was the response I received when I asked a manager how John was doing. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Read on.

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, an audacious biotech billionaire who has pledged to “solve health care,” has been in talks with the Trump administration about the possibility of serving in a senior role overseeing the US health care system, according to individuals familiar with the discussions.

Soon-Shiong, a trained surgeon, has met with President Trump and his advisers at least twice in recent weeks. During those discussions, he raised the possibility that he could serve as a “health care czar” with a broad portfolio in the administration as it seeks to reshape the health care system and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A few weeks before I began my freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I received an official- looking envelope from a student group. Expecting information about a club or event, I was surprised to find such sentences as “MIT certainly lowers standards for women and ‘underrepresented’ minorities” and “The average woman at MIT is less intelligent and ambitious than the average man at MIT. The average ‘underrepresented’ minority at MIT is less intelligent and ambitious than the average non-‘underrepresented’ minority.” (MIT’s Association of Student Activities later stripped the student group of its official recognition as a result of the unapproved mailing.)

The MdBio Foundation, a non-profit that provides STEM education and workforce development to underserved communities, will unveil its new mobile laboratory, the Mobile eXploration Lab (MXLab), in Annapolis, Md., on January 24. The event will include an open house and tour of the MXLab, as well as a ribbon cutting ceremony featuring Gov. Larry Hogan, state officials and business leaders.

The MXLab is the largest mobile laboratory of its kind in the U.S. and will enable MdBio to expand its mission of giving students the opportunity to experience hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The lab provides students with access to cutting-edge technologies and techniques not typically available at schools and experience with practical, real-world applications in use by today’s scientific and tech communities.

So, here we are: With a new president come new concerns over surveillance powers that could so forcefully bite us in the ass.

The public has good reason to believe that President Donald Trump would love to expand data-collection programs in his administration. He’s said, repeatedly, that he’d like to surveil mosques. Rep. Mike Pompeo—Trump’s pick for CIA director who’s likely to be confirmed in the next few days—has also advocated for expanded spy efforts. All signs point to lots of little electronic eyeballs, watching us always.

President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze will last only as long as it takes his administration to come up with an alternative attrition plan, according to a memorandum released by the White House Monday, and could provide broad exemptions for agency leaders.

Trump said his hiring moratorium would “be applied across the board in the executive branch” and apply to any positions vacant as of Jan. 22. It would bar agencies from creating new positions. Agency heads can exempt positions they deem “necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities.”

NHLBI seeks to facilitate and accelerate the development of new clinical interventions by bridging the gaps between mechanistic, discovery, and early translational research. This includes providing appropriate mechanisms to support investigator-initiated research, addressing resource and knowledge gaps, and creating initiatives to support career development of translational scientists and biomedical entrepreneurs.

The NHLBI is considering providing support for the earliest phases of developing a target/compound/biologic for use as a therapy or diagnostic. It is envisioned that projects assisted by such a program would be investigator-initiated grants of relatively short duration, designed to answer one to two specific questions (which may or may not be hypothesis driven), and focused on whether the target in question is reasonable to pursue as a therapy or diagnostic.

Psyadon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company focused on treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders, announced today that its lead product — ecopipam — produced significant reductions in total tic severity scores in children (7-17 years) with Tourette’s Syndrome.

The study’s primary endpoint was a statistically significant reduction in the mean Yale Global Tic Severity Score Total Tic Score (YGTSS-TTS). This is a well-validated and standard measure of the clinical efficacy of drugs treating Tourette’s Syndrome. Ecopipam caused significant reductions in the YGTSS-TTS at both two- and four weeks after initiating treatment. Furthermore, the side effects seen in the subjects taking ecopipam were comparable to those seen in the placebo-treated subjects, including no clinically significant changes in standard clinical lab tests or ECG’s, and no increases in body weights.