News Archive

MdBio Foundation is hosting ATLAS College + Career STEM Symposium. This event targets high school upperclassmen and college undergraduates from backgrounds typically underrepresented in STEM.

ATLAS needs STEM professionals and graduate students to participate in upcoming events. Please contact Erica Smith if you would like to volunteer or for additional details.

Limited sponsorship packages are still available to support this highly successful program and other MdBio Foundation initiatives.  Contact Brian Gaines to learn more.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced today that three Maryland companies received funding from its Cybersecurity Investment Fund (CIF). Strajillion, Protenus, and Ridgeback are the first three companies, each receiving $100,000, through CIF. The Fund supports Maryland companies develop and commercialize new cybersecurity products or services by providing investments of up to $100,000.

“CIF is the first dedicated cybersecurity fund created in the State to help establish Maryland as the innovation hub of information security,” said Rob Rosenbaum, president and executive director of TEDCO. “We are extremely pleased to have funded these companies and believe they have created very unique products and with the financial support from CIF, are confident they can accelerate their development and commercial launch.”

A newly released independent study, commissioned by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), documents the significant impact academia-industry technology transfer makes to the U.S. economy.

The report, entitled, “The Economic Contribution of University/Nonprofit Inventions in the United States: 1996- 2013,” estimates that, during this 18-year time period, academia-industry patent licensing bolstered U.S. gross industry output by up to $1.18 trillion, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by up to $518 billion, and supported up to 3,824,000 U.S. jobs.

The world’s first venture capital fund dedicated to finding new ways to prevent and treat dementia has raised more than $100 million with the backing of the British government and several of the world’s leading drugmakers.

The global Dementia Discovery Fund is unique in focusing on a single difficult to treat disorder and in bringing together industry and government.

Qiagen acquired AdnaGen’s circulating tumor cell (CTC) enrichment technology to boost its capabilities in liquid biopsies. Separately, the company formed a partnership with Tokai Pharmaceuticals to combine its new CTC technology with a molecular assay to co-develop and commercialize a companion diagnostic for Tokai’s galeterone, which is in late-stage clinical trials for treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The noninvasive test will determine the expression of the AR-V7 biomarker, which in recent studies has demonstrated potential utility to guide therapy choice in CRPC patients, according to Qiagen officials.

GSK today announced it will be a key partner, with an investment of $25m (approx £17m), in a pioneering new global fund for dementia research. The Dementia Discovery Fund, which is being established by the UK government with initial commitments totalling $100m, brings together leading pharmaceutical companies, the UK government and Alzheimer’s Research UK to address the rising threat posed by dementia by supporting research into future treatments.

The fund aims to identify and nurture promising new avenues of research from around the world in the field of dementia and supports GSK’s commitment to explore novel, collaborative approaches in challenging areas of research. It is hoped that by providing critical financial support and expert advice during the early stages of research, the development of innovative new treatments for this disease could be accelerated.

For the second consecutive year, Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine are co-sponsors of DreamIt Health Baltimore, a four-month boot camp for entrepreneurs that prepares health information technology startups to present their innovative ideas to the world. is a four-month intensive boot camp for entrepreneurs,

The program, designed to accelerate new product development for health IT startup companies, provides six new startups with access to top-tier legal and accounting services, along with opportunities to meet and pitch their ideas to angel investors and venture capitalists. Each startup also receives seed capital of up to $50,000.

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015 | 4:30 – 7:00 PM

ALEXANDRIA CENTER® FOR LIFE SCIENCE – NEW YORK CITY

Converge at Alexandria is a quarterly series of panel discussions, presented by the
Alexandria Center for Life Science – NYC and the Roche Innovation Center – NY, exploring the most highly debated topics currently facing the life science community. Featuring a panel of experts representing key stakeholders from the R&D continuum, including researchers, clinicians, patients, funders, and non-profits, Converge at Alexandria will engage NYC’s life science community in discussions around current critical issues and provide the regular touch points necessary for ongoing connectivity and collaboration among NYC’s broad and diverse life science community.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2015–6:00PM to 8:00PM

With all of the focus on patient engagement, physician adoption, increased accessibility, lowering costs, improving outcomes and the millions of dollars pouring into the burgeoning Health IT space, this is an important discussion to have in terms of the sustainability and economic viability of these ventures.

At its growing East Baltimore facility, Emergent BioSolutions has produced a booster shot to go with a leading Ebola vaccine candidate, joining a competitive race to make a safe and effective tool to stop the spread of an outbreak that continues in West Africa and to prevent future outbreaks.