News Archive

Come to this information breakfast to learn about Relevant Health, the new accelerator now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class!

Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to a cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem. The accelerator will be located in the Rockville Innovation Center.

The Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has received a five-year $24.5 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to partner with the Government of Botswana and impact the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Botswana, and to demonstrate that comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment programs can stop the epidemic. PEPFAR is a $48 billion initiative launched in 2004 by former President George W. Bush, and continued by President Barack Obama, to combat major infectious diseases around the world, including HIV. The announcement was made on the heels of two recent IHV milestones including surpassing more than 1 million in patients in overseas care and treatment and a $50 million grant to combat HIV/AIDS in Zambia.

Victor and Lynne Brick, owners of Brick Bodies Fitness Services, Inc., a chain of coed and women-only health clubs, established the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation (501c3) to support research and education in mental health. Honoring Victor’s brother John, who suffered from schizophrenia and eventually succumbed to complications from the disease, the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation is dedicated to advancing research towards a comprehensive scientific understanding of relationships between exercise and mental health. The John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation will support a program of studies for that purpose, and the dissemination and application of results.

From SBIR Gateway:

There are a number of items I want to discuss with you but tonight there is only time for a few very time sensitive items that may be of interest to you.  Item #1 is the DoD SBIR submission site because Tuesday is your last full day to submit for the DoD 15.2 SBIR and 15.B STTR, (submission closes Wednesday June 24, at 6:00am edt).  Item # 2 is all important patent legislation which is supposed to be voted on this week in the House (H.R. 9 “Innovation Act”) and the Senate’s version (S. 1137 “Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship” [PATENT] Act).  Both of these items have the potential for causing small businesses plenty of grief. 

The Washington DC/Baltimore chapter of Women In Bio invites you to our July 8, 2015, networking happy hour, hosted by our newest sponsor BioHealth Innovation Inc. in Rockville, Maryland. We will be welcomed by Mr. Richard Bendis, Founder, President and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, Inc., followed by an evening of networking. Please come out and meet our new and exciting professionals from the DC/MD/VA area and learn more about the burgeoning biohealthcare industry in Maryland. Numbers are limited – register early!

Medical care today is episodic. We’re assessed by our doctors at our annual physical exams, and we’re treated by our doctors when symptoms of ill-health become manifest. In the periods in between, we’re unmoored and untended, perhaps engaging in behaviors that will sabotage our health. And because medical care today is driven by data derived from physician encounters, it becomes an explicitly physician-focused dynamic. If health care data were to be continually collected and assessed independent of physician encounters, medical care might finally be transformed to become a patient-focused dynamic instead, yielding efficiencies, improved outcomes, and lower costs.

MedCity ENGAGE is an executive-level event featuring the most innovative thinking from payers, providers, policymakers, health IT and beyond to highlight best-in-class approaches to one of the biggest challenges in healthcare: patient engagement. It will feature speakers discussing the current attempts to innovate in care delivery and reimbursement, along with the innovations that will form the backbone of technological infrastructure.

Thank you for joining us at Health Datapalooza 2015! The event was a huge success, bringing together more than 1,600 consumers, providers, payors, researchers, innovators, policy makers, and many more health data thought leaders for three days of networking and learning.

This year’s event highlights included a new series of main stage panel discussions as well as the announcement of the Obesity Challenge, a groundbreaking initiative to improve health and well-being in both the U.S. and U.K.

This is the first in a 3-part series about the use of crowdfunding in health and biotech start-ups. We start with the story of a tech start-up which set records for funding through a Kickstarter campaign, triggering interest in crowdfunding by entrepreneurs in capital-intensive industries.  Part 2 will discuss the JOBS Act and the government’s attempt to overcome regulatory hurdles facing companies which want to use crowdfunding to raise equity investment capital. Part 3 will address some Potential Dangers inherent in the system of crowdfunding being devised.  We hope you find the series educational and invite you to contact the authors with questions.

Same acronym… new innovative meaning. The Biotechnology Industry Organization… better known as BIO will soon become the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. This news release from BIO says the change is to highlight the scientific innovation the group brings.

“I’m pleased to announce that the BIO Board has approved a change to BIO’s name… from the Biotechnology Industry Organization to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization,” said BIO’s new Board Chair, Ron Cohen, CEO of Acorda Therapeutics. “Still BIO, but now with a name that better expresses the essence of what our member companies represent.”