News Archive

Saturday, November 8, 2014 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

University of Maryland, College ParkVan Munching Hall/ Smith School of Business

Advancing Tomorrow’s Leaders + STEM (ATLAS) is a one-day college and career symposium hosted by the MdBio Foundation and Tech Council of Maryland, in partnership with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS), the University of Maryland’s Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations and Elizabeth Seton High School. This inaugural Prince George’s County-based symposium is the third ATLAS event in Maryland, and is part of a larger initiative and formal partnership with PGCPS to encourage interest of high school juniors, seniors and college undergrads, who are typically underrepresented in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.

Baltimore health IT startup Emocha Mobile Health Inc. is partnering with Baltimore City to test out its medication adherence application with tuberculosis patients.

Emocha’s miDOT records video of patients taking their medication, notes symptoms and sends a report to doctors. The company is letting Balitmore’s health department use the program for free in an effort to begin building market interest and credibility for the program.

Antti Korhonen – NIST-TEDCO* Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Thursday, November 6, 2014 10:30 AM – 12:00 Noon Admin Bldg (Bldg 101), Lecture Room A

Recognize an invention’s value by developing its “Value Proposition”

Learn about discovering the “Value Proposition.” Something every NIST researcher and manager needs to know

• Inventions can be 
• smart and clever—and stay in the lab forever
• scientific breakthroughs—but still have no commercial value
• Inventions that are patented are well protected in the market—assuming they have market value that needs protection
• Inventions with the greatest social and economic impact are those having clearly defined market value

Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche hopes to obtain fast-track US approval for a rapid diagnostic test for Ebola, its director general said in an interview published Sunday, amid the worst-ever outbreak of the killer disease.

The diagnostic test is ready for use in scientific research but the company now wants to register it for clinical use.

As a partner at Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Casper de Clercq has seen countless digital health startups try to get solutions off the ground. He’s also seen many fail.

According to de Clercq, 60 to 70 percent of digital health startups are likely to fail because they are unclear about their go-to market strategy, and don’t have a good understanding of who’s ultimately going to pay for their product.

The University of California recently announced its entry into the venture capital arena with a $250 million commitment to spinning promising technologies out of its top-notch, 10-campus system. Perhaps every major research university in the US — collectively, recipients of over $40 billion in federal research funding yearly, not to mention the inflows of corporate research funds — wishes to emulate Stanford’s success in capitalizing on the market successes of university-developed technology (think Google).

Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) might plan an initial public offering (IPO) of a minority stake in ViiV Healthcare, a global business focused on developing treatments for HIV, reports FierceBiotech.

Created five years ago, ViiV is GSK’s majority-owned joint venture with Pfizer and Shionogi. In the past 18 months, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two new HIV treatments from ViiV: Tivicay (dolutegravir) and the combo-tablet Triumeq, which includes Tivicay. These successes come at a time when GSK is planning to slash nearly $1.6 billion from its annual budget.

It’s no secret that Washington has a funding problem, with lawmakers and federal departments currently operating under unprecedented fiscal constraints.

It’s a very different story for the city’s entrepreneurs.

Pfizer Inc. has officially transferred an unused building on its campus here to Connecticut United for Research Excellence for use as a bioscience incubator hub, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Friday.

The 24,000-square-foot Building 286 will become CURE Innovation Commons, which is expected to be fully operational by July 1, 2015.

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Thursday named Peter Kiener — whose past roles includes CEO of Zyngenia and head of biologics R&D for MedImmune — as its chief scientific officer.

Kiener, a heavyweight research hire, worked alongside Sucampo CEO Peter Greenleaf at MedImmune, where Greenleaf served as president until early 2013. Kiener then departed to launch Zyngenia Inc., a New Enterprise Associates-funded biotech focusing on antibody-based therapeutics, which he departed last year.