A reception for friends and alumni in the Baltimore
corporate community to connect with the University of
Maryland, College Park
PlantVax, Inc. has been contracted by a tier one US defense contractor as the primary supplier of Recombinant Human Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in support of a Program of Record chemical warfare disclosure spray. The disclosure spray is a first-of-its-kind plant derived enzyme-based sensor that users apply to wide surfaces, enabling rapid visual indication of chemical warfare agents. The spray requires the high expression and stability levels in the AChE that PlantVax specializes in providing. The end product is the first product of its kind that is able to utilize a recombinant, plant-expressed AChE.
This month, we talk with David Narrow, chief operating officer of Baltimore startup Sonavex, which is developing a patent-pending, ultrasound-based system that pinpoints potential postsurgical blood clots.
Narrow started developing EchoSure, Sonavex’s ultrasound system, with Devin O’Brien Coon in 2012, when they were both in their first semester of Johns Hopkins’ biomedical engineering graduate program at the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design.
Marriott Hotels is jumping on the accelerator bandwagon with the launch of TestBED for early-stage startups.
The group is looking for startups with products or services that further the traveller experience and are ready to go to market.
Startup incubator 1776 has selected Accenture (NYSE:ACN) to provide guidance and insights to its growing roster of digital health startups.
“1776 is thrilled Accenture is with us in the mission to drive health care into the future,” said Evan Burfield, 1776 cofounder & co-CEO. “There is so much opportunity to improve health care dramatically, but it can’t be done unless talented new entrepreneurs and prestigious established institutions work closely together.”
Accelerate Baltimore, Emerging Technology Centers’ seed accelerator program, landed $250,000 from the Abell Foundation to help fund its sixth year.
The four-month accelerator program gives each participating company $25,000 in seed funding, free office space, access to an advisory team, instructional programming, mentors and connections to potential investors. The program ends with a Demo Day, attended by angel investors and venture capitalists.
Under Armour is partnering with a California tech company to provide more people with access to nearby fitness classes nationwide directly through the MyFitnessPal application.
Through the partnership with San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based Mindbody Inc., millions of MyFitnessPal users in the U.S. will be able to search, book and pay for classes at tens of thousands of fitness studios in the Mindbody network. Classes include indoor cycling, martial arts, boxing and yoga.
Mark Cuban has had a bumpy relationship with the healthcare community, but his approach seems to be evolving with a recent step into the world of healthcare venture capital.
According to Inc., the Shark Tank host is the latest to note the issues with healthcare’s middlemen, and has decided to do something about the problem by specifically targeting pharmacies. Cuban describes his vision as a world without the Main Street staple of modern healthcare delivery, predicting that “over the next 15 to 20 years, medicine will be so personalized there will be no drugstores.”
The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced today the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF) Request for Proposals (RFP) for FY2017. The solicitation opens today and Letters of Intent (LOIs) are due by Thursday, November 10th. Award announcements are planned for early June 2017.
The CRCF grows Virginia’s economy by supporting high-potential technology commercialization projects at Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities, the private sector and nonprofit research institutions. A single solicitation for $2.8 million will be offered in FY2017, with five programs available for funding: Commercialization, SBIR Matching Funds, STTR Matching Funds, Matching Funds and Eminent Researcher Recruitment.
VLP Therapeutics, LLC. announced today that it has received a grant for approximately US$960,000 from the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (“the GHIT Fund”) for early-stage research to develop new vaccines for dengue fever using virus-like particles that would target all four strains of the virus. Dengue fever is one of the world’s most serious public health problems, threatening more than half the world’s population, and infecting 50 to 100 million people every year.