News Archive

The MdBio Foundation, Inc. (MdBio), a nonprofit organization, today announced that it has received a grant of $50,000 from AstraZeneca and its Gaithersburg, Md.-based global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune. The grant will enable the foundation to expand its focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and prepare today’s students to become the workforce of tomorrow.

“Our goal is to show students the many possibilities their future can hold with a strong foundation in STEM,” said Brian Gaines, CEO of MdBio. “AstraZeneca’s and MedImmune’s generosity will enable us to expand our programs to ensure that we reach students who can benefit from enhanced educational opportunities. Our state is well-known for its strength in the bioscience market, and we hope to foster the next generation of employees for the companies that call Maryland home.”

Let’s face it: pre-Election Night, this year’s race for Maryland governor was pretty underwhelming, the kind where your mother might reveal she’s thinking of voting for Republican businessman Larry Hogan because she remembered his dad to be a nice guy back when he was Prince George’s County executive in the 1970s.

(Hi, Mom! For the record, I don’t know who she ended up voting for.)

iHealth is one of the leading developers of connected health devices, with devices on the market ranging from the BP5 connected blood pressure cuff to the Align wireless glucometer. As we recently highlighted, they have also been at the forefront of integrating the data captured by these devices with the electronic health records used by clinicians.

We had the opportunity to talk with Jim Taschetta, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Retail Sales at iHealth, about their current work at Duke & Stanford exploring EHR integration, views on integration of Android devices, and more.

The University of Maryland earned a gold medal in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) held in Boston from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, 2014.

The competition engages student-led teams from universities across the globe to present novel synthetic biology projects that address real-world problems.

University of Maryland University College recently swept two divisions of the Maryland Cyber Challenge for the second consecutive year, capturing first place in the College and Professional divisions of the premier Maryland cyber competition held at the annual Cyber Maryland conference in Baltimore.

“This is a tough competition and to beat many great teams just to get to the finals in the college and professional divisions is an amazing accomplishment. We fielded four teams for this competition (two in each division) and all four made it to the final round. That speaks to the quality of our teams, ” said Jeff Tjiputra, chairman of UMUC’s undergraduate cybersecurity program and academic advisor to the cyber competition teams. 

The Pentagon’s technology arm is prepared to invest up to $700,000 in a promising idea in the field of biological sciences and technology. The goal is to turn theoretical concepts into actual products, such as better sensors for prosthetic limbs and techniques to cope with infectious disease outbreaks.

Under a new initiative by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, inventors will be able to send in proposals without having to trudge through miles of red tape as they would have to in traditional government contracts.

Photo Credit: DARPA

Dr. William Kirwan, chancellor for the University System of Maryland, announced over the summer that he will be stepping down, but not until his replacement is hired.

He’s lost count of the number of college graduations he’s been a part of since taking the job as Maryland’s education chancellor more than a decade ago.

The Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index enables business leaders, government policymakers, and taxpayers to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much is collected in taxes by state governments, the Index is designed to show how well states structure their tax systems, and provides a road-map to improving these structures.

Johns Hopkins University, Biomedical Engineering, CBIDMonday, December 8, 2014 from 3:00 PM to 7:30 PM (EST)Baltimore, MD

Join us December 8th for a review of 16 exciting healthcare design projects at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design (CBID).  CBID MSE and Undergraduate projects will be presented.  This year we’re honored to have as our Keynote Speaker Dr. John Kostuik.  Dr. Kostuik is Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of K2M Inc, a world leading spine surgery company.  The event will also have a Shark Tank competition with a panel of tough judges and real cash prizes.  Refreshments will be provided.

Considering that Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE: EBS  ) has regular government contracts and other manufacturing contracts — so regular that it’s willing to give quarterly guidance, which many companies wouldn’t dream of — it was a little surprising to see by how much the biotech beat the guidance it gave three months earlier. Third-quarter revenue came in at $138 million, substantially higher than the guidance of $110 million to $125 million it gave three months ago.

But, as it turns out, this is just an accounting issue. In the third quarter, Emergent BioSolutions set up a collaboration with MorphoSys to develop its prostate cancer drug candidate ES414. Under the terms of the agreement, Emergent BioSolutions got a $20 million upfront payment — the biotech recognized $15.3 million of this in the third quarter. Back out the payment, and Emergent BioSolutions’ revenue falls within its previous guidance, fortunately at the upper-end.