News Archive

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.

The premiere medical technology start-up competition has just announced they are accepting applications for their next batch of world changing companies. Medgadget had the chance to be present at the last MedTech innovator finals held at AdvaMed in Minneapolis this past October, which was clearly the highlight of the entire conference. Attendees were on the edge of their seats as the finalists laid out their personal stories and health-oriented technologies. The crowd, by popular vote, laid down judgement on our hopeful finalists awarding the grand prize to Green Sun Medical.

Horizon 2020 is the European Union’s largest research and innovation initiative, with nearly €80 billion in funding allocated for over seven years. The program focuses on three overarching priorities: excellent science, industrial leadership, and solutions to global challenges. Horizon 2020 is open to participants from anywhere in the world as the program recognizes the growing importance of internationalizing how knowledge is produced and used.

Please join our speakers to hear their testimonials and to learn about the different types of international cooperation that Horizon 2020 supports, namely on an individual, collaborative, or program level. The presentations will also address in detail the main elements of Horizon 2020 with regards to content, types of activities funded, forms of participation, and application procedures.

Dr. Francis Collins is being held over as the director of the National Institutes of Health by the Trump administration, his office announced Thursday afternoon. Collins had been prepared to step down from the post on Friday, after Trump’s inauguration, and return to his lab at the NIH Bethesda campus. However, with Thursday’s news, he will remain as director for the time being.

As Donald Trump is sworn into office today, we look at what the next 100 days and indeed the next four years could mean for the biopharma industry through his recent candidates for the top healthcare roles, his policies (which are still coming into focus), and the power that 140 characters can have.

Machfu Inc., a technology solutions company based in Germantown, filed to raise an added $1 million in private equity and extend the life of its 2016 offering.

The company has raised $425,000 since February of last year, when it initially reported raising $125,000, one quarter of its total offering amount at the time, according to a Thursday filing. The amended offering amount is $1.5 million.

AbbVie, a global biopharmaceutical company, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine today announced that they signed a five-year collaboration agreement with the goal of advancing medical oncology research and discovery at both organizations.

Designed to build strong collaboration between AbbVie and Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, the agreement will focus on several areas of oncology research, which could include lung, colorectal, breast, prostate and hematological cancer.

It’s been more than a decade since California launched an unprecedented experiment in medical research by direct democracy, when voters created a $3 billion fund to kick-start the hunt for stem cell therapies.