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MANASSAS, Va. & TEL AVIV, Israel–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ATCC, the world’s premier biological materials management and standards organization, and Tissue Dynamics, a disruptive pharma-tech company integrating advanced artificial intelligence tools with bionic human organoids, today announced a partnership to develop workflow friendly cardiac organoids-based kits for improved cardiac safety testing in drug development. The collaboration will be done under the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD) framework, which awarded both companies a two-year grant. The BIRD Foundation, established in 1977, bolsters transformative partnerships that stimulate, promote, and support industrial research and development in a wide range of technology sectors.

When the Biden Administration unleashed its proposed march-in guidelines last December, it claimed they would be a powerful tool for lowering drug prices by allowing the government to “march in” to license copiers under the authorities of the Bayh-Dole Act.

It did so despite previously joining every other Administration denying price control petitions as not authorized under the law. It should have known the proposal would have minimal impact on drug prices—but would have a devastating impact on American innovation. That’s because the guidelines apply to all federal R&D agencies—not just the National Institutes of Health — so they cover inventions across the spectrum, not just the life sciences.

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered an unexpected boom in entrepreneurship, as Americans opted to start businesses at record rates. Just as unexpected has been the boom’s durability. Would-be entrepreneurs have proven to be undaunted by recession fears, labor and supply-chain constraints, the highest inflation rates in a generation, and rapid interest rate hikes. In October 2023, over three and a half years after the pandemic’s onset, Americans were still filing 59% more applications to start new businesses than they were before the pandemic. The resurgence is all the more remarkable given how deeply startup rates and other measures of economic dynamism languished at or near all-time lows throughout the 2010s.

Thus, one of the most intriguing questions facing the U.S. economy right now is whether the pandemic has durably shaken the country out of its entrepreneurial slump. The answer to this question matters inordinately to the health and direction of the economy in the years ahead, affecting everything from job growth to productivity. And answering it requires digging into three things: what’s driving the boom, how economically significant it may be, and what policymakers can do to sustain it.

Being a university in Washington DC poses interesting challenges, but Georgetown University’s Tatiana Litvin-Vechnyak is determined to turn them into opportunities.

Weirdly, being located at the heart of the US capital doesn’t always help Georgetown University when it comes to creating spinout companies. State universities often have economic development mandates that they can follow, but in Washington DC Georgetown is in something of a vacuum — with little direction for what to focus on, less set funding and fewer people pushing to advance the technologies coming out of the institution.

GSK plc (LSE/NYSE: GSK) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Aiolos Bio (Aiolos), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on addressing the unmet treatment needs of patients with respiratory and inflammatory conditions.

As previously announced,1 the acquisition of Aiolos includes AIO-001, a potentially best-in-class, long-acting anti-thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) monoclonal antibody ready to enter phase II clinical development for the treatment of adult patients with asthma. AIO-001 could expand GSK’s respiratory biologics portfolio to potentially reach the 40% of severe asthma patients with low T2 inflammation (a type of overactive immune response associated with asthma).2 AIO-001 has the potential to be administered every six months due to its high potency and long half-life, which could redefine the standard-of-care.

AstraZeneca today announced the successful completion of the acquisition of Gracell Biotechnologies Inc. (Gracell, NASDAQ: GRCL), a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cell therapies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases, furthering AstraZeneca’s cell therapy ambition.

Washington DC: The heart of the BioHealth Capital Region

The BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) encompasses Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C., and more than 1,800 life science and companies are established there. BHCR is among the top-performing biotech clusters in the U.S., with first-class educational facilities, innovative companies, and over 70 federal labs. While the area of Washington D.C. is smaller than Virginia and Maryland where companies are spread across, Washington is still a destination of choice with innovative biotech companies and events. 

The BHCR was ranked third biopharma cluster in the U.S. by Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News behind the San Francisco Bay Area and the Boston/Cambridge area. The criteria to measure the performance of these hubs were the National Institutes of Health funding, venture capital funding, the number of biotechnology patents, the total lab space, and the number of jobs. This region, with Washington D.C. at its heart, is one of the most dynamic in the biotech industry.

Contention over the Bayh-Dole march-in rights provision is in the news again. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposes using the process as a “back door” for drug price controls. In comments on NIST’s Draft Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) states that the clause cannot be used for price controls.