News Archive

A “Wired for Health” study recently reported by The Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego poses a significant challenge for those working to realize the potential of digital health technologies.

The Scripps team has been investigating the relationship between wireless health-monitoring technologies, healthcare costs, and outcomes in patients with chronic disease. After equipping one cohort of patients with an iPhone and a connected tracking device, researchers analyzed claims and medical data to track care utilization and outcomes, ultimately finding no significant economic or clinical benefit for the patients being monitored versus a control group.

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) acquired the HIV portfolio from Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). Both sides announced the preliminary deal in December. GSK pays $350 million up front and could pay an additional $1 billion depending on developmental and sales milestones.

Venture capital organization NextGen Venture Partners is launching a Baltimore office with the goal of bringing more investors to Baltimore and doing more deals in the city.

NextGen Venture Partners is a national network of early-stage investors that taps into cities’ entrepreneurship communities to draw out new investors. The organization has hubs in five cities and is launching in three more, including Baltimore.

University System of Maryland (USM) Chancellor Robert Caret’s schedule Monday showed a full day of meeting, greeting, and listening on the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) campus. In the morning, UMB’s deans and vice presidents shared accomplishments and talked about their goals for each of the university’s seven schools. For lunch it was a special edition of UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD’s regular brown bag affair, with attendees unaware of their star guest until he walked through the door! Later, student leaders had a chance to question Caret and express their interests and concerns.

I have provided capital for many start-up businesses, and raised money for a few of my own. I am often asked for advice on how or whether an entrepreneur should seek venture capital. My initial advice is simple: Don’t.

Entrepreneurs usually start businesses because they need autonomy and independence; they cannot work for someone else. As my granddad used to tell me, “no one gives you money for nothing.” That is certainly true for investors. They give entrepreneurs cash because they want to make more cash. They expect to be listened to, or at least have their financial interests regarded as the entrepreneur uses their capital to grow his or her business. Boom. Just like that — by taking outside capital — the entrepreneur sacrifices autonomy.

At 7 A.M. on a midsummer day in Piracicaba, a city in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, Cecilia Kosmann sat in the back of a van surrounded by plastic take-out containers filled with genetically modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Every two minutes or so, she shook a container through a plastic funnel, releasing them into the cool outside air.

By the time the van finished its daily route through two neighborhoods here, she’d released about 250,000 of them.

The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award has become the mark of world-class individuals leading world-class companies. We invite you to be part of this exciting program. At a time when innovators are leading the way to a better world, we are seeking your help to identify those individuals whose diligence and relentless pursuit of their dreams set them apart from the rest.

EY Entrepreneur Of The Year honors entrepreneurs whose ingenuity, hard work and perseverance have created and sustained successful, growing business ventures. The program is celebrating its 30th year and has expanded to more than 145 cities and 60 countries around the world. EY forms a group of individuals from the business community to participate as the independent panel of judges for the program. This panel is made up of past award winners and C-suite leadership of high-growth entrepreneurial organizations. It also includes influential business leaders from the venture capital and private equity communities.

This position is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation that will have responsibility for overall administrative and management direction for the organization. The primary mission of MCEDC is to market Montgomery County worldwide as the region of choice for business investment and expansion. This leader will position MEDC as the County’s lead economic development and marketing organization for promoting, recruiting, and expanding businesses in Montgomery County. The ability to retain and grow existing businesses is of paramount importance. The CEO will lead an organization that enhances the impact of all companies invested in Montgomery County including small business and culturally diverse entities. The CEO will also advocate for strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem helping to develop a community that cultivates and encourages entrepreneurs while making maximum use of the local diverse, skilled population.

The United States has long had the world’s most effective and competitive system for discovering and developing new drugs—and for more than a half century, there has been a bipartisan consensus that there are two reasons for that success: First, the federal government provides robust funding for scientific research, mostly through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Second, the U.S. system encourages vigorous innovation in the private sector by providing strong intellectual property protections and a drug reimbursement system that together allow companies to earn sufficient revenues to reinvest in highly risky research and development.1 But today that consensus is fraying as populists on the left and libertarians on the right question both the policy means and the end result. If the center cannot hold and the longstanding bipartisan policy framework falls apart, then the future of U.S. biomedical innovation will be in peril.

Virginia’s House and Senate finance committees released two-year budget proposals Sunday that boost funding for economic development in a state bludgeoned by federal spending cuts, The Washington Post reports.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, has made growing and diversifying Virginia’s economy one of his top priorities.