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As midterm season reigns on, Howard University’s administration still has one question left to answer: when exactly is its upcoming tech incubator opening?

At the beginning of the school year, those close to the project said they would be opening the incubator in fall 2016. Now, as of Wednesday, that date has been revised; the incubator won’t open until at least early 2017.

Although progress has been made, there is no denying the biotech industry continues to have a large gender gap. Women hold only 16 percent of the senior management posts at the top pharma companies, and of senior executive positions at emerging companies — the 10 companies that raised most in venture capital A rounds in 2014 — only 12 (17 percent) were filled by women.*

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.