While most agencies try to imitate advances in the private sector, the Department of Health and Human Services instead is emulating the process that fuels many recent innovations: startup accelerators.
Venture capitalists had a big year in Maryland in 2015.
In the fourth quarter of last year, they invested more than $451 million in 14 different Maryland companies — the largest quarter ever in the state since 2006.
Microscopic robots, powered by bacterial flagellation, are a curious branch of robotics research, potentially leading to devices that can deliver drugs, perform surgical tasks, and help out with diagnostics. While bacteria has been harnessed in the past to power small devices, having those devices actually navigate to a desired target has been a challenge. At Drexel University researchers are now using electric fields to help their bacterial biobots detect obstacles and float around them on their way to the final destination.
Looks like ARCH Venture Partners is gearing up for its ninth fund, with aims to raise $400 million, according to a regulatory filing. The Chicago-based early stage venture firm has a deep history in tech and life sciences investments – with some notable recent plays like Illumina offshoot Grail, Harvard 3D printing spinout Voxel 8, and Doug Williams’ brainchild Codiak Biosciences.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Miltenyi Biotech said they will partner to develop new cell and gene therapies through a collaboration whose value was not disclosed.
The collaboration is designed to combine GSK’s expertise in developing cell- and gene therapy–based treatments with Miltenyi Biotec’s global leadership in cell processing and related technologies in cell therapy, the companies said.
The biotech investment climate sank into deep insecurity by the close of 2015, as shown in EP Vantage‘s new “Pharma & Biotech 2015 in Review” report. The flutterings around companies raising capital, via venture capital or IPO, diminished – which invites a retrospective on the investment environment in years past. Perhaps this will help inform how cash-hungry companies will fare this year.
Montgomery County’s Bethesda Hyatt will be the venue for the CONNECTpreneur XVIII Forum on April 28. The event, which will be held 7:00 to 11:00 am, features a “fireside chat” with serial entrepreneur and CEO Mark Walsh.
With more than 250 CXO’s and investors, along with a strong lineup of speakers and presenters, the Big Idea CONNECTpreneur XVIII Forum is shaping up to be a record-setting event.
Virginia Bio, the premier statewide non-profit association representing life science industry in the Commonwealth of Virginia, elected Dr. Reg Seeto, Vice President, Head of Partnering and Strategy at MedImmune, the biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, as a new member of their Board of Directors for a term of three years.
Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore CEO Thomas Sadowski has taken a high-ranking economic development position with the state’s public university system.
Sadowski, who has headed the business advocacy group known as the EAGB since 2008, is becoming the vice chancellor for economic development at the University System of Maryland. He’ll start May 2 at the public education system, which is made up of a dozen institutions with 163,000 students.
Whether you are talking to peers, competitors or investors, you as an active entrepreneur will be judged on your familiarity with today’s startup and funding jargon. I’m not recommending that you saturate your discussions with lingo, but responding with a blank stare once-too-often won’t convince anyone that you can build the next world-changing business or outpace the market.