News Archive

emocha Mobile Health received a Small Business Innovation Research grant to further development of its mobile app that provides video-based healthcare observations in some cases where visits were previously required.

The NIH grant, which is for about $200,000 over two years, will allow the Johns Hopkins-based startup to gather data on its miDOT app from Tuberculosis patients in four health departments around the state, said cofounder Morad Elmi. The system is already in use at Baltimore’s health department.

Most companies make a conscious and deliberate decision to embrace digitization and the information revolution. Yet the role of big data in medicine seems almost to compel organizations to become involved. In this interview, Dr. Eric Schadt, the founding director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, tells McKinsey’s Sastry Chilukuri how data-driven approaches to research can help patients, in what ways technology has the potential to transform medicine and the healthcare system, and how the Icahn Institute is building its talent base. An edited transcript of Schadt’s remarks follows.

This week, Andreessen Horowitz said it’s launching a fund dedicated to investments in bioinformatics and “beyond the pill” technology.  The venture capital firm had already gotten its feet wet with investments in these areas, but a dedicated fund is something new and indicates an interest in ramping up its strategy. With its fund, the firm could make a big impact. Here are some insights on some challenges and opportunities in these areas and some companies the firm should consider.

First of all, it’s worth noting some of the health and life science IT companies that Andreessen Horowitz have invested in so far. It’s only a handful to date:

The new president and chief executive officer of Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology has roots in high flight and high finance and every intention to bring skills from both sectors to his new job. Ed Albrigo, appointed Nov. 2 by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to succeed Peter Jobse, who has returned to the private sector after 13 years with the nonprofit CIT, says his goals are lofty — maybe seeding Virginia companies to remotely mine for minerals on the moon and bring them back for use in fusion energy.

Pfizer has clinched a blockbuster merger with a fellow drug maker, one worth more than $150 billion, that can best be described in superlatives.

When it is announced — most likely on Monday, people briefed on the matter said — the deal to buy Allergan, the maker of Botox, would be one of the biggest ever takeovers in the health care industry. And it would be the largest acquisition yet in a banner year for mergers.

PHARMACEUTICAL majors AstraZeneca and Sanofi have agreed to swap 210,000 compounds from their proprietary libraries as part of efforts to encourage open innovation in drug development. No money will change hands between the two companies, in what is a relatively new collaborative approach. Both companies will be able to increase the diversity of their compound libraries. AstraZeneca and Sanofi have chosen compounds from each others’ libraries which plug gaps in their own, and will share chemical structures and the procedures to make them.

Dr. Robert L. Caret was inaugurated as chancellor of the University System (USM) of Maryland on November 19, 2015 at the Christopher Columbus Center in Baltimore, Md. The event featured remarks by several Maryland dignitaries and members of the USM community; musical performances by current USM students; as well as the following video tribute.

Imagine you’re back in high school and you’re sent on a field trip to a local pharmaceutical company. You spend the day talking to scientists, touring the labs and … making ice cream?

That’s what your day would look like if you showed up at Emergent BioSolutions Inc. as part of MdBio Foundation’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education opportunities.

This week, PricewaterhouseCoopers came out with a report on remaking primary care for what the consulting form called “the New Health Economy.” We would have covered it straight up on Wednesday, but a certain provider-focused health IT reporter at MedCity News was busy at the American Medical Informatics Association conference.

Since it’s not breaking news anymore, we have to take a different angle. A major component of the future of primary care, according to PwC, will be digital health.

On November 4 more than 400 regional business and government leaders joined us for our Annual Meeting to celebrate the people and companies that make this region great. Attendees heard from 20 individuals who share their stories about their connection to Baltimore.