News Archive

Peter Thiel knows a promising tech startup when he sees one. The investor was the first outside investor in Facebook. But does he have the same touch in biotech?

The prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist’s investment fund has put its largest ever bet on a biotech company called Stemcentrx, a private and all-but-unheard-of San Francisco company developing cancer drugs that debuted this week with a spectacular valuation worth billions (see “Peter Thiel Backs Biotech ‘Unicorn’ Fighting Cancer Stem Cells”).

San Francisco and Boston accounts for the most investment in digital health and the largest volume of deals. But research from The Brookings Institution shows another way to size up digital health investment beyond these two bookends by looking at the proportion of VC money in metropolitan areas going to digital health.

Billionaire physician-entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong seems to be orchestrating an entire M&A ecosystem within his own entities.

Two more Nant companies reporting mega-funding: NantOmics has raised $150 million and NantCell has raised $100 million, both from a single investor, according to two SEC filings (here and here). These startups fall under the umbrella company NantWorks that was launched by Soon-Shiong in Los Angeles in 2011.

Research involving editing the human genome, including research with human embryos, is essential to gain basic understanding of biology and germ cells and should be permitted, according to one of the first global meetings to debate the controversial new techniques.

The bold statement was published today (Thursday, Sept. 10) by the Hinxton Group, a global network of stem cell researchers, bioethicists, and experts on policy and scientific publishing, who met in Manchester, England, September 3–4.

Six new research professorships have been endowed with $14.9 million in private donations and state funding, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) announced Wednesday. The state funds were committed through the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative, which matches private donations to universities for basic and applied research in scientific and technical fields.

The University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland Baltimore; and Johns Hopkins University each received $2.1 million through the program to be split among a pair of new professorships at each school.

AstraZeneca, in a move to increase its biologics manufacturing capacity in the United States, has acquired a high-tech biologics bulk manufacturing plant in Boulder, Colo., from Amgen Inc.

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, and Cancer Research UK today said they have opened a new laboratory focused on the discovery and development of new biologic cancer treatments and diagnostics.

The CRUK-MEDI Alliance Laboratory in Cambridge, UK, on Granta Park, was opened this week by UK Life Sciences Minister George Freeman, MP. The new lab reflects an alliance involving MedImmune, Cancer Research UK, and its commercialization and development subsidiary Cancer Research Technology.

University System of Maryland (USM) schools once again have been recognized among the nation’s top universities in recent rankings by multiple publications.

The U.S. News & World Report 2016 edition of America’s Best Colleges released this month recognizes several USM institutions for academic excellence.

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center on Thursday will break ground on its planned $100 million, 184,00-square-foot cancer center.

The Skip Viragh Outpatient Cancer Building, named for Maryland mutual fund investment leader and former Hopkins patient Albert P. “Skip” Viragh Jr., is expected to open in 2017 at the northeast corner of Fayette Street and North Broadway. Hopkins first announced the project in May 2014.

After more than a year, MOVE continues to bring business to the county

The MOVE program continues to offer financial incentives to companies moving to Montgomery County a little more than a year after it was inaugurated. The county launched the program in February 2014 following its announcement by County Executive Isiah Leggett. It was actively marketed on both the our websites, through direct mail, with digital and print ads, along with a radio advertising campaign.

The first company to take advantage of the program was computer pioneer L-Soft. In October 2014, L-Soft’s Founder and CEO Eric Thomas moved his company’s operation from Virginia to Montgomery County.