News Archive

BioFactura proudly announces the appointment of Dr. Jeffrey Hausfeld as the newly elected Chairman of the Board and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Hausfeld, a graduate from Yale University School of Medicine, practiced Otolaryngology and Facial Plastic Surgery in the Washington DC area for more than 23 years until he ventured into the business side of medicine. He obtained an MBA specializing in healthcare from Johns Hopkins University and a degree in Organizational Development from George Washington University. Along with having been highly acclaimed during his surgical career, Dr. Hausfeld has been a successful physician entrepreneur as well. He is the President of Memory Care Communities LLC, a syndicate which builds and operates Assisted Living facilities specifically designed for Alzheimer’s and dementia care patients. He is the Managing Director of FMS Financial Solutions, a full service debt recovery firm in Greenbelt, Maryland focusing on medical and multi-family housing debt collections. Dr. Hausfeld is one of the Founders and the Chairman of the Board of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (http://www.sopenet.org ), a global not for profit network focused on educating healthcare and life science professionals in Bioentrepreneurship and Innovation.

Five Johns Hopkins-affiliated tech startups were selected as finalists for the pitch competition at next week’s “Rise of the Rest” tour event, where they will vie for a $100,000 top prize.

The five-city “Rise of the Rest” roadshow, launched by AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case, kicks off in Baltimore on Monday. The tour is designed to bring attention and funding to startups outside of traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley and New York City.

The Baltimore City Health Department has received federal grant funding worth up to $22.8 million over four years that will go toward strengthening the city’s HIV prevention strategy.

Baltimore plans to use the money from the Centers for Disease Control to target outreach and prevention programs to men who have sex with men and transgender individuals, two groups at high risk for HIV infection.

Roche Holding AG’s product lineup is so strong that it can grow briskly even if it meets setbacks, the chief executive of the Swiss drugmaker told a newspaper.

“Roche could have six new active pharmaceutical ingredients approved within two years. We never had this before,” Severin Schwan told Finanz und Wirtschaft in an interview published on Friday.

On September 11, representatives of Zhongshan City, China, and Montgomery County, Maryland, signed a Memorandum of Understanding launching an economic development relationship between the two jurisdictions.

Through the agreement, the two authorities agree to actively support the other’s “efforts to promote culture, art and education exchanges,” including travel programs for members of their respective communities.

A new Science|Business analysis puts the spotlight on the most innovative clusters in Europe, uncovering what it takes to translate research from bench to bedside and highlighting the crucial need for policy support, innovation pull, and access to finance

The leading life sciences clusters in Europe have a long history of excellence in medical research, and with highly educated workforces, state of the art infrastructure, and well-established technology transfer organisations, are making significant progress in translation and commercialisation, according to a new Science|Business report that takes an in-depth look at 17 of Europe’s most innovative clusters.

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels has been awarded Carnegie Corp. of New York’s 2015 Academic Leadership Award, a prestigious recognition that comes with a $500,000 grant to the Baltimore school.

Daniels will use the $500,000 grant to make the university more accessible to students of Baltimore City public schools. He plans to increase support for low-income students through the Baltimore Scholars program, expand partnerships with local K-8 schools and create new initiatives that will help prepare students for college and careers.

The pictured device, produced by Baltimore-based Harpoon Medical, seeks to provide another in a series of recent improvements in mitral valve repair technology. While perhaps less revolutionary in form than Valtech Cardio’s Cardioband that received its CE Mark approval last week, the Harpoon does promise to cut traditional surgeries down to under an hour in length and drastically reduce the required incision size (to 2-inches or less).

Evidera, a leading provider of evidence-based solutions for the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce Evalytica™, a new software platform designed to support near real-time analyses of virtually any type of real-world data source, including claims, electronic medical records, and registry data. Evalytica™ uses standard data formats and published analytic methods that provide transparency and yield results that may be used in publications or submissions. 

“Evalytica™ marks a new frontier for Evidera as a leader in technology enabled tools for generating and communicating evidence of product safety and effectiveness,” said Jon Williams, President and CEO, Evidera. “The increasing focus on real-world evidence for drug safety analysis that has resulted from the FDA Sentinel, the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP), and the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) initiatives make tools like Evalytica™ that much more important.” 

Drugmaker AstraZeneca is harnessing the wisdom of crowds to help mix tomorrow’s cancer drug cocktails. 

The company said its decision to release preclinical data from more than 50 of its medicines was unprecedented in scale and would help accelerate the hunt for synergistic tumour-fighting drug combinations.