News Archive

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced today that 19 companies have received over $1.9 million in funding from the organization’s Seed Investment Fund in the last six months. The funding will be used to advance the companies’ technology and product commercialization efforts. “TEDCO’s Seed Investment Fund exists to support seed/early-stage, technology-based businesses in Maryland,” said John Wasilisin, president and chief operating officer of TEDCO. “We make investments in these companies to help them reach a critical milestone that will increase the company’s valuation and better position it for follow-on investment, sustainability, growth, and job creation.”

Root3 Labs, Inc. recently moved operations to their new prototyping and manufacturing facility in Randallstown, MD. This marks an exciting opportunity to increase engineering and manufacturing capabilities in the area.“With over 3,700 sq ft of combined offices and industrial space, we’ll have more room to support our customers growing engineering and product development projects,” said Chad Schneider, President and Founder of Root3 Labs. “The new facility provides office space for our growing staff, a comfortable meeting place for customers and suppliers, a high-tech fabrication and assembly workshop, and storage for prototype and low-volume production units. This expansion will help us better support the broad range of R&D activities needed by our customers.”

ConverGene has entered into an exclusive license agreement with the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health.  Under this agreement, ConverGene has the rights to commercialize jointly developed small molecule BET bromodomain inhibitors that have a unique core structure as compared to other cancer therapeutics currently in clinical trials.

Since its inception, biotechnology has been preoccupied with virus filtration, the clearance of invasive and adventitious viruses from biopharmaceutical products. And now, far from waning, virus filtration is set to become even more important. Virus filtration, reports Markets and Markets, constitutes a global market that is growing 12% each year. At present, this market is valued at $1.8 billion. By 2020, it will reach $3.3 billion.

GSK will inaugurate its newest global vaccines research and development (R&D) center in Rockville, Maryland, further strengthening and expanding its vaccines presence in the USA. Up to 200 new jobs will be created at the Rockville facility, with GSK investing over $50 million in the next two years to continue to develop the site with latest state-of-the-art scientific research technology and equipment.

Inova Health System, the giant nonprofit hospital network serving Northern Virginia, is creating a new start-up incubator and investment program focusing on “personalized” medicine innovations.

Executives say they plan to invest at least $100 million over the next three to five years making $2 million to $5 million bets on promising young companies with products that have gained some traction in the marketplace.

Craig Sager II is a managing editor and sportswriter based in Atlanta covering high school sports as well as working with the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Atlanta Falcons. ‘What I can do and what anyone can do is bring the same passion into each day that he did.’

Russ Ramsey, Peter Scher and Ted Leonsis have joined with 14 other CEOs to create the Greater Washington Partnership to boost the regional economy and tackle transportation issues. It joins several other business groups with similar goals, though its focus will be on the broader region from Baltimore to Richmond.

Major industries from retail to aeronautics are leveraging big data. But despite the abundance of data in healthcare, and the clear promise of big-data analytics, the sector has been slow to put it to work. Among the obstacles to adoption are laws aimed at protecting patient information, and a shortage of technical talent; hospitals and clinics compete for big data engineers whose technical skills can be agnostically applied across industries. Nonetheless, in 2015 Geisinger Health System implemented an IT system called a Unified Data Architecture (UDA) which allowed us to integrate big data into our existing data analytics and management systems.

Few people realize that the world’s biggest early stage investment fund in the NIH. Unlike most investors, every penny you get, if you should be so lucky, is non-dilutive. That is not to say there are no strings attached and that the funding is not tranched, but scores of products we see day in and day out, from blockbuster drugs, vaccines, medical devices to health IT benefitted from your US tax dollars at work.