News Archive

Martine Rothblatt is one of the founders of Sirius Satellite Radio and the founder and CEO of United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company. Rothblatt founded United Therapeutics in 1996 to find a cure for her daughter’s rare lung disease. In 2013, she was the highest paid female CEO in the United States. Rothblatt wrote her dissertation for her Ph.D. in medical ethics of xenotransplantation, the act of transferring cells, organs or tissues from one species to another species. She is also the founder of the Terasem Movement Foundation, a nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting the ethical use of nanotechnology for extending human life. She has written several books, including Apartheid of Sex on gender identity and Two Stars for Peace on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rothblatt came out as transgender in 1994. Last Thursday, Rothblatt sat down with students from various campus media organizations for an interview before speaking in Finney Chapel as a convocation speaker.

Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUPN), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing products for the treatment of central nervous system diseases, today announced that it has received notice that, effective following the close of trading on November 11, 2015, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) distributed an aggregate of 3,820,625 shares of Supernus Pharmaceuticals common stock to its partners. “The distribution announced today is a continuation of the actions NEA took in June 2015 to distribute a portion of its position to its limited partners after holding that position for over nine years,” stated Jack Khattar, president and chief executive officer of Supernus. The NEA funds continue to hold 3,820,625 shares.

California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), the leading voice to drive innovation for California’s life sciences sector, and PwC US today released the 2016 California Life Sciences Industry Report. The annual report indicates that California’s life sciences sector has a profound impact on the state’s economy, showing industry increases in the areas of sector employment growth, wages, research funding and life sciences venture investment.

The new report suggests that while biopharmaceutical and medical device employment in numerous top-ranked biotech states, including New York and Massachusetts, has decreased in recent years, sector employment in California grew by six percent between 2010 and 2014. Overall, California’s life sciences sector directly employed 281,000 people in 2014 and indirectly employed another 581,000 – totaling nearly one million people employed due to life sciences innovation by Californians.

San Diego-based Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, which is developing antifungal agents that treat life-threatening fungal infections, has raised $40.5 million in Series B funding. RiverVest Venture Partners led the round with participation from other investors that included New Enterprise Associates and BioMed Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Dr. Niall O’Donnell, managing director at RiverVest Venture Partners and Ed Mathers, a partner at New Enterprise Associates, were added to Amplyx’s board of directors.

A new experimental monoclonal antibody developed by AstraZeneca is being watched as a possible contender to shake up the market for lupus treatments—a neglected disease space—by offering a more targeted approach to treating lupus.

Over the past 60 years there has been only one new FDA-approved treatment for the inflammatory disease: The FDA granted marketing approval to GlaxoSmithKline’s Benlysta in 2011.

If you’re tired of wearable fitness trackers fighting for space on your wrist, it might not be a problem in the near future: researchers say they can reliably measure your heart and breathing rates just by looking at data from a smartphone sitting in your pocket or bag.

Researchers at MIT are working on a project called BioPhone that derives these biological signals from your smartphone’s accelerometer, which they say can capture the small movements of your body that result from the beating of your heart and rising and falling of your chest. A paper on the work was presented at a conference in August.

Boehringer Ingelheim is launching a new research and development (R&D) strategy and a five-year R&D investment programme. This new plan was announced today at its R&D press conference in Berlin. The company pledges to invest a total of 11 billion euros in its new R&D programme over the next five years. Of the total investment, 5 billion euros will go to preclinical R&D with 1.5 billion euro thereof planned for collaborations with external partners. The company is aiming to develop the next generation of medical breakthroughs and maintain its excellent competitive position. The new R&D strategy embraces open innovation in the form of external collaborations to better leverage emerging science and Boehringer Ingelheim’s experience and capabilities for the discovery of new medicines.

Johns Hopkins tech transfer is at the heart of a new agreement meant to bolster the development of a DNA-based vaccine for allergies.

Formally, Rockville-based Immunomic Therapeutics inked a licensing deal with Astellas Pharma, which will develop the allergy vaccine. Through the deal, Immunomic will receive an upfront payment of $300 million, and is entitled to 10 percent royalties from vaccine products developed. Astellas, a Japan-based pharmaceutical giant, gets the right to produce the vaccine worldwide.

The University of Maryland has quietly started its next capital fundraising campaign with an eye on raising more than $1 billion.

In a wide-ranging conversation with the Washington Business Journal, President Wallace Loh said he hopes to build on his recent success, raising more than the record-setting multiyear “Great Expectations” campaign in the next three years. The campaign is in a quiet phase and won’t be officially launched until at least half of the goal is raised.

A new report shows that participation of corporate venture capitalists in life sciences investing has been increasing.

The MoneyTree report from the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers with data from Thomson Reuters show that in the nine months of the year, corporate VCs pumped a total of $1.18 billion into life sciences startups. Whereas in all of 2014, corporate VCs have shelled out $1.2 billion. Back in 1995, as far back as the MoneyTree report goes back, corporate VCs invested only $70.7 million dollars.