News Archive

The White House said that President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative is generating interest from companies and philanthropies in a sign of what it calls a wider partnership developing around the U.S. administration’s most prominent science initiative, first unveiled in 2013.

The White House had committed to spending $100 million this year on the project, which seeks to develop new technologies for studying the brain. As part of that, today the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced $46 million in awards to 58 research groups.

Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX) today announced plans to form a new global innovation and research and development (R&D) center in Cambridge, Mass., for Baxter’s biopharmaceuticals business, which is expected to become a separate, independent global company known as Baxalta Incorporated in mid-2015.

The business selected the Cambridge biotech community as the primary location for its global innovation and R&D operations after a global search. The new location will position the company to enhance patient care by advancing and building its robust innovation pipeline, which is centered on core areas of expertise in hematology, immunology, and through technology platforms like gene therapy and biosimilars.

Limited partners are actively returning to venture capital and many are looking beyond the industry’s giants. “I think this is the first year that LPs have realized that you can make a lot of money in small venture funds as well,” said Hans Swildens, founder and CEO of Industry Ventures.

The firm has closed on $170 million, more than twice the size of its previous fund, for a fund of funds targeting venture capital funds of less than $250 million. That’s another sign of rising investor interest in these smaller pools, Russ Garland reports for Dow Jones VentureWire.

The year 2014 has not just started out on a good note for the digital health and health IT market, but it seems to be all set to be the best year ever. The top 20 venture capital firms have been busy right from the start of the year investing in this arena and giving a massive boost to deal activity here. A CB Insights data report indicates that funding to the tune of $2.65 billion has come into this sector over the past four quarters. What is even more significant is that the highest quarterly funding amount came about in Q1 of this year. With investors deploying $1,108.6 million over the first three months of 2014, this quarter has witnessed a whopping 210% increase in funding when compared with the same period last year.

As the Obama administration tries to stop companies from avoiding taxes by moving their headquarters overseas, the makers of some of the world’s most lucrative and expensive medicines are using another tactic to reduce their payments to the government.

Take the case of Gilead Sciences, which has come under severe criticism for the high cost of its in-demand new hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, which sells for $1,000 a pill, or $84,000 for a typical course of treatment.

Henry Ford kept lowering the price of cars, and more people kept buying them. The San Diego–based gene sequencing company Illumina has been doing something similar with the tools needed to interpret the human genetic code.

A record 228,000 human genomes will be completely sequenced this year by researchers around the globe, said Francis de Souza, president of Illumina, the maker of machines for DNA sequencing, during MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For more than ten years, the LIVESTRONG Foundation’s iconic yellow wristband has symbolized the struggle against cancer.  While many charities and foundations are focused on only the medical aspects of cancer research, LIVESTRONG emphasizes advocacy and assistance for the millions of people living with cancer.

These people will face countless issues outside of their medical care, such as fertility concerns, emotional wellbeing, practical challenges, financial issues, clinical trial matching, etc.  Addressing all of those concerns are elements of what they call “patient-centered care”.  They aim to make this approach the care standard around the world and recently announced a partnership agreement with the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin to create the LIVESTRONG Cancer Institute.  LIVESTRONG will invest $50M over 10 years to help create a new model of patient-centered care.

U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski (both D-Md.) today announced that the Department of Labor (DOL) has awarded $14,957,899 in federal funding to fourteen Maryland community colleges as part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) initiative. The TAACCCT program allows community colleges and other institutions to expand their ability to provide quality education and job training programs in two years or less.

Of the nearly $15 million, Montgomery College received $5,371,743 to lead and fund the Cyber- Technology Pathways Across Maryland (CPAM) Consortium. CPAM is comprised of fourteen Maryland community colleges.  It seeks to train and educate Trade Adjustment Assistance workers, veterans, the un- and –under employed and low skilled adults. The Consortium will work to connect participants with employers looking to fill thousands of unfilled job openings. CPAM focuses on bringing women and other underrepresented populations into the growing fields of cyber technology and cyber security.

The ‘Pitch Across Maryland’ Bus rolls into Montgomery County on Wednesday, October 1. Bring your energy, ideas and a stack of business cards for a day of great networking with entrepreneurs and the businesses that support them.

RSVP for guest reservation for October 1 Montgomery County

Morning Stop: 9:00-11:00am
Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnical Research
9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD 20850

Co-hosted by Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnical Research and NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence on The Universities of Shady Grove Campus. Sponsored by BioHealth Innovation, Montgomery County DED and MCCC.

Afternoon Stop: 3:00-5:00pm
UberOffices-Bethesda
7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814
West Tower Elevator to the 4th Floor

Co-hosted by UberOffices-Bethesda and Bethesda Green. Sponsored by Montgomery County DED and MCCC.

Thursday October 9, 2014 9:00 AM – 3:15 PM

The DC I-Corps Fall 2014 Regional Cohort officially kicks off on October 9th at the Microsoft building in Chevy Chase, MD.  Please register to join us for our Showcase lunch, in which successful teams from previous cohorts will present their businesses and discuss lessons learned from the I-Corps program.

Showcase agenda:

• Welcome and lunch
• Introduction of incoming Fall cohort teams
• Presentations by Accelerator teams
• Q&A

About DC I-Corps: DC I-Corps is a regional program designed to foster, grow and nurture an innovation ecosystem in the nation’s capital, the nearby states of Maryland and Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic region. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and jointly run by the University of Maryland College Park, George Washington University, Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins University. The program provides real world, hands-on training on how to successfully incorporate innovations into successful products. The ultimate goal is to create a new venture or licensing opportunity for program participants.