Rampaging animal spirits have given birth to a biotechnology unicorn. It’s apt that a stellar year for initial public offerings in the sector will be capped by its biggest float ever. Juno Therapeutics is a year old and revenue free, but its cancer fighting technology is hot. At nearly a $2 billion valuation, the company shows capitalism’s ability to catalyze investors’ hopes and resources.
Whether a startup makes or breaks depends on if you have the right people on the team. How can you know? During my start-up journey as an early employee of an online education startup, co-founder of a social enterprise, and sole founder of my health technology company, ClickMedix, I’ve been through and witnessed the birth, growth, decline, and eventual end of startups.
Marriott International Inc. is launching a restaurant incubator competition, hoping to tap the world’s growing cadre of food and beverage entrepreneurs to bring a new level of cool to its hotels.
The Bethesda hotel giant bills the competition, called Canvas, as a “global concept lab for food and beverage ideas.” The winners will get up to $50,000 each and six months to operate and prove their concepts.
In a world’s first, a double-amputee, with arms missing at shoulder level, received two prostheses, each of which he is able to control intuitively with his mind and manipulate different joints to control a total of 30 degrees of motion.
The system installed at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory relies on surgically connecting electrodes to existing nerves that used to lead to the different part of the arm and hand.
Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia have shown for the first time that gold nanorods can effectively stop the growth of cervical cancer cells. The laboratory study of attaching the nanorods to their cell receptors used the famous HeLa cell lines as a cervical cancer model.
The iGrow Hair Growth System from Apira Science (Boca Raton, FL) received the FDA green light for over-the-counter sale for women with Fitzpatrick skin phototypes I to IV and with Ludwig Baldness Scale Classifications of I to II.
The helmet, which includes a pair of headphones for listening to music or podcasts from your tablet or smartphone during at-home treatment, delivers red light to the scalp using lasers and light emitting diodes. The company terms this Low-Level Light Therapy (LLLT) and the system requires use for four to six months to get complete results.
England’s publicly funded healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS), announced 11 new Genomics Medicine Centres Monday, as part of a new DNA scheme that aims to tackle cancer and rare diseases.
Amgen Inc. announced an agreement Monday to become a sponsor of LabCentral, a biotech incubator in Cambridge, Mass.
The Thousand Oaks pharmaceutical company can nominate up to two biotech startups a year for residence in LabCentral’s facilities. The lab has 28,000 square feet and can house 28 early stage companies. Other sponsors of the project include Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, MIT and Johnson & Johnson Innovation.
From Steve Silverman, Directory, Montgomery County Department of Economic Development:
As 2014 draws to a close, I want to sincerely thank our 33,000-plus local businesses for all you do to support the local economy! Montgomery County benefits so much from our diverse, dedicated business community. I also applaud the many support organizations and entities that work with our Department, state and local governments to make sure you succeed.
Nearly every state added jobs in 2014, and 14 states experienced an employment increase of 2 percent or more, according to a Stateline analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.
