News Archive

Thursday, July 30, 2015 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM (EDT) Washington, DC

The Washington DC region is part of an east coast corridor rich in life science talent, technical know-how and business development expertise. Montgomery County, Maryland itself is host to a unique ecosystem of potential resources for startups in health tech: centers of research, strong universities, leading biotech and pharma companies, and government agencies. This ecosystem means that health tech founders can immediately access resources and build the strategic partnerships to support their rapid growth.

This event will discuss Relevant Health, a new health tech startup accelerator program based in Rockville, Maryland, and the regional environment for startups in health tech. Come ready both to hear about opportunities for startups and discuss your experiences and needs as someone interested in building our health tech capital.

Vaxin Inc. today announced that it has added key patents to its expanding Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio. The clinical stage vaccine and immunotherapeutics company confirmed that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for two patents that protect important elements of its Densigen platform technology for immunotherapeutic treatment of Hepatitis B virus infection, and its RespirVec non-invasive adenoviral vector influenza vaccine. The patents include U.S. Application Serial No. 13/977,265 (the ‘265 application) entitled “Fluorocarbon-Linked Peptide Formulation”, and U.S. Application Serial No. 13/426,037 (the ‘037 application) entitled “Rapid and Prolonged Immunologic-Therapeutic”.

A Notice of Allowance is issued after the USPTO makes a determination that a patent can be granted from an application. Vaxin now has 37 patents protecting its products in 13 countries.

The University of Maryland students who join the Startup Shell incubator are all working hard to turn their ideas into successful businesses. As the new executive director of Startup Shell, 20-year-old Chris Szeluga is working just as hard to help make that possible. Now in his third year at UMd, the finance major has been involved in helping grow Startup Shell since it began, during his freshman year. His new role puts a new responsibilities on him though, making Startup Shell rather more than just a club or hobby.

“I consider Startup Shell to be pretty much my full-time job,” Szeluga said. “I definitely spend at least 30 to 40 hours a week working on it in some way.”

Since Medicaid’s creation in 1965, it’s become the largest health insurer in the country, covering more than 70 million Americans. Initially covering only poor, single parents and their children, the program now also offers government-subsidized insurance to disabled people, able-bodied adults without kids and some elderly.

The program’s expansion may slow down a bit, but it’s not likely to stop anytime soon, and there’s a whole lot of reform going on, along with major shifts in coverage.

It was Coney Island in the early 1900’s. Beyond the Four-Legged Woman, the sword swallowers, and “Lionel the Lion-Faced Man,” was an entirely different exhibit: rows of tiny, premature human babies living in glass incubators.

Barkers, including a young Cary Grant, called out to passersby, enticing visitors to come see the preemies.

The White House is getting ready to honor five years since the creation of Challenge.gov — the central web portal for government competitions intended to spur innovation and solve problems — with a forward-looking celebration.

Touting the $72 million in prizes awarded across 400 challenges in the last five years, the Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a special event this fall that will highlight some of the major breakthroughs and civic issues solved through the program.

Synthetic Biologics, Inc. (nyse mkt:SYN), a clinical-stage company focused on developing therapeutics to protect the microbiome while targeting pathogen-specific diseases, today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of shares of its common stock. All of the shares in the offering are to be sold by Synthetic Biologics. The Company intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15 percent of the share amount sold to cover over-allotments, if any. The offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.

Jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) represent some of the best opportunities for workers in today’s economy. The work can be rewarding as well as coming with high pay and good benefits (like a 401(k) and health insurance). Diversity in STEM, however is a problem, one that has captured the attention of CEOs like Jeff Bezos and policymakers including the president himself.

The truism about biopharma being a global industry has never been truer than when it comes to the top 20 IPOs for the first half of this year.

The U.S. had exactly half of the therapeutic, diagnostics, and tools/tech IPOs that were completed or began trading their first shares on public markets during January-June 2015. The rest of the world accounted for the other half, with Europe being home to seven of the 10 ex-U.S. top IPOs, followed by China, Canada, and Bermuda with one each.

I’m a huge fan of R&D collaborations between pharma and academia, so I should be thrilled by Sanofi’s latest tie-up with seven top-tier centers – so why do I have mixed feelings?

On first glance, there’s a lot to like: Sanofi has committed $2.4M per year to seven top centers, including Johns Hopkins, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Columbia, to fund about 20-25 seed projects annually, with no strings attached and a wide-open scope. Who knows what will emerge – but it won’t take much for this to look like a pretty good investment for Sanofi.