News Archive

There were few surprises for local colleges and universities in the oft-quoted U.S. News and World Report annual rankings released Tuesday.

The Johns Hopkins University maintained its 12th-place position for national universities, falling between Dartmouth and Northwestern. Hopkins is focusing on its undergraduate experience, with a goal of making it among the top 10 in the nation by 2020.

Neuroscience Catalyst to Focus on Mood Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease

Janssen Inc. (Janssen) today announced it has signed an agreement, facilitated by the Johnson & Johnson Innovation center in California, with the University of Toronto’s Centre for Collaborative Drug Research (CCDR) to form an open-source collaboration focused on novel therapeutic approaches to the treatment and management of mood disorders and Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s no surprise that social-media campaigns can raise awareness of an issue, but the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge may be unprecedented in its impact on a relatively rare disease. The campaign, in which participants must donate to an ALS cause or take videos of themselves being doused in ice, has gone viral since it began in late June. But it has also generated controversy, with some questioning the attention and flood of cash for a disease that affects a small number of people.

As of Friday, the ALS Association had received $53.3 million since July 29, compared with $2.2 million by that time last year. To put it in perspective, the National Institutes of Health’s yearly budget for ALS research is $40 million. Other ALS charities are also benefitting similarly from the campaign.

The low-interest loan program called the BioFund has issued more than $2 million in loans to 12 businesses that account for 135 jobs in Southeast Louisiana, said a progress report released Wednesday (Aug. 27) by the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, which runs the fund.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development provided the funding to support businesses in a 12-parish area impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The Louisiana Office of Community Development, Disaster Recovery Unit, channeled the money to the program at the BioInnovation Center.

According to CB Insights data, funding to digital health/health IT companies has already topped $2.2B in the first half of 2014.

With the space becoming increasingly crowded and well-funded, one effective way innovation trackers can understand which areas (and likely companies) will play a key role in future of the digital health space is by following the smart money.

Two Washington entrepreneurs with a history of building successful companies have teamed with a local businessman to start a venture capital fund focused on seed stage companies focused on applications that run on mobile devices.

The fund, called Kiwi Venture Partners I , has raised $2.5 million from 24 limited partners, including 12 from the Washington area. The LP investments range from $25,000 to $500,000.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (EBS) announced today that it has signed a contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop a dry formulation of NuThraxTM (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed with CPG 7909 Adjuvant), also known as AV7909, the companys next generation anthrax vaccine candidate. This five-year contract, valued at up to $29 million, provides funding for manufacturing and non-clinical activities through the preparation of an Investigational New Drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The dry formulation of NuThrax is intended to increase stability of the vaccine candidate at ambient and higher temperatures, with the objective of eliminating the need for cold chain during shipping and storage.

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG said on Monday the European Union has approved the use of its drug RoActemra in patients with early-stage rheumatoid arthritis.

Roche said the European Commission has backed RoActemra as a treatment for patients with severe, active and progressive rheumatoid arthritis who have previously not been treated with methotrexate.

MIMETAS, in a consortium with Radboudumc and FHNW, has received 1.6 million USD funding for development of a kidney-on-a-chip for toxicological applications. A panel of experts from GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Roche, NC3Rs and renowned academic institutions selected MIMETAS’ solution from a strong line-up of competing technologies.

The funding is awarded in the context of the NephroTube Crack-it Challenge to support development of a microfluidic renal model predicting renal toxicity during pre-clinical development. In collaboration with the Radboudumc Pharmacology-Toxicology Department and the Swiss FHNW, MIMETAS will use the funds to develop a high-throughput kidney-on-a-chip model by combining its OrganoPlate™ 3D-culturing technology with the human renal cell line ciPTEC™, analyzed and validated in three separate sites. The resulting model will be used to detect renal tubular injury observed in drug-induced nephrotoxicity. The model’s early prediction of nephrotoxicity will help to reduce animal experiments.