Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) and the bwtech@UMBC Cyber Incubator announced today that continuous monitoring solutions provider DB Networks® will be the fifth cyber startup to graduate from the highly successful Cync Program. A ceremony marking the occasion is scheduled for next week during the RSA Conference 2015 in San Francisco, California.
OptioLabs of Baltimore joins Cync this month as the newest cyber startup accepted into the program since it began in 2011.
The news broke just after midnight Thursday that D.C. tech accelerator 1776 would acquire Disruption Corp. — both its Crystal Tech Fund, which currently includes 12 portfolio companies, and the startup-focused, data-crunching software that formed the foundation of Paul Singh’s Crystal City enterprise.
It can’t be denied that 1776 has built a rather explosive brand since it first popped on the scene in 2013. President Barack Obama and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron have toured the premises. Partnerships have been forged with several monster corporations (like Comcast and Microsoft) and, as of this week, two local municipalities (Montgomery and Arlington). Legions of startups work out of the District offices. And Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe will be speaking at Thursday’s formal announcement of the deal.
The field of blood study and blood-related product development is a small one, and the field of autotransfusion (blood recycling) is even smaller. It often seems like everyone knows everyone else. We’ve had a lot of great mentors in the blood space from afar, but it hasn’t been until we tapped into the inner workings of the Baltimore/DC area that we realized quite how small.
Just six weeks ago, we moved to the Charm City for the DreamIt Health Accelerator program from our medical device manufacturing home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We were looking for other resources and mentors in both the blood transfusion and global health community to take our company to the next level, and we’ve found them.
AstraZeneca today announced that MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, has entered into a collaboration to conduct clinical trials in immuno-oncology with Immunocore Limited, a privately-held UK-based biotechnology company.
Under the terms of the agreement, Immunocore will conduct a Phase Ib/II clinical trial combining MedImmune’s investigational checkpoint inhibitors MEDI4736 (anti-PD-L1) and/or tremelimumab (anti-CTLA-4) with IMCgp100, Immunocore’s lead T-cell receptor-based investigational therapeutic, for the potential treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma. MedImmune has an exclusive relationship with Immunocore for the development of IMCgp100 in combination with MEDI4736 and/or tremelimumab, and will have first right of negotiation for the future commercial development of these combinations for tumours expressing glycoprotein 100 (gp100), a tumour-associated antigen.
Baltimore may not have the startup mecca reputation of Silicon Valley or Boston, but it is one of the fastest growing tech talent markets.
The city’s tech talent pool grew by 42 percent between 2010 and 2013, making Baltimore one of the fastest growing tech talent markets in the country, according to a new report by CBRE, a commercial real estate brokerage. Only San Francisco and the San Francisco Peninsula reported a faster growth rate than Baltimore. Tech talent grew 44 percent in those areas.
Venture firm New Enterprise Associates made some massive waves today on news that it’s closed its fifteenth – and largest – fund, which holds $3.1 billion. And a huge swath of that – 30 to 40 percent, according to Fierce – could likely be allocated to the healthcare space.
MedCity News reported initially on NEA’s plans to raise funds – it filed a document with the SEC in January indicating a $2.5 billion fundraise:
Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. is opening a Gaithersburg wet lab space in a project that may help fill a gap left when Montgomery County’s biotech incubator shuttered last year.
Called Alexandria LaunchLabs, the new space will create five lab and office spaces to accelerate early-stage life science companies. Each will have about 1,200 square feet and have access to supporting infrastructure and amenities such as an on-site gym. BioHealth Innovation, a public-private partnership created in 2011 to foster health and life sciences commercialization in Maryland, will provide startup and entrepreneur-in-residence programs to guide the early-stage life science companies.
Roche aims to have an immunotherapy cancer drug in 11 late-stage trials by the end of the year, the Swiss drugmaker’s head of medical affairs for oncology, Nico Andre, said at a conference on Monday.
The Basel-based company’s MPDL3280A, which is being tested in melanoma, as well as lung, bladder, kidney, bowel and blood cancers but has not yet been approved to treat any type of cancer, is the furthest developed of this class of drug. Some analysts have said such drugs could generate more than $30 billion in annual sales for the industry as a whole by 2025.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. made its first modest investment in Kendall Square about 14 years ago, developing a blocky five-story building it named The Science Hotel.
The building, on Memorial Drive, was designed to be an incubator for biotechnology startups as the industry was just emerging in East Cambridge. In the following years, biotech grew explosively in the Kendall Square area, and Alexandria grew, too.
New Enterprise Associates has closed more than $3.1 billion in new capital for its 15th fund and a joint “opportunity fund,” the Chevy Chase venture capital giant said Wednesday.
The raise marks the fourth consecutive $2.5 billion-plus fund and brings the total capital under the firm’s umbrella since its 1977 inception to nearly $17 billion.
