394th Edition – February 25, 2020

Judy Costello is the Managing Director of Economic Development for BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI). A longtime supporter of the region’s entrepreneur and start-up communities, Judy Costello joined BioHealth Innovation in August 2017. Prior to that she served as Director of the Maryland Department of Commerce’s Office of BioHealth and Life Sciences and Deputy Director of the department’s BioMaryland Center. She previously worked for fifteen years for the Business Alliance organizing venture pitch forums, entrepreneur bootcamps, tech transfer showcases, educational seminars, and other programs connecting entrepreneurs, faculty innovators, students, and industry leaders in Maryland, DC and Virginia with each other and with those providing funding and other resources to young companies.

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Register Now for the 6th Annual BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) Forum held on April 14-15 at AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg, MD. Join your peers biotech and life science executives and expert speakers from industry, academia, healthcare, government, finance and real estate development, among others, converged to discuss the BHCR’s path forward to becoming a top three U.S. biotech cluster by 2023.

Register Now

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By Ethel Rubin

Opportunities abound for every investor looking for deal flow. Conversely, there have never been so many opportunities for entrepreneurs to pitch, network and mingle with investors. No matter what space you are in – fintech, biotech, edtech, cleantech, medtech – the world of investor showcases is exploding. Nevertheless, whatever the stage of your technology, there is nothing like a “warm” introduction and a few surefire ways of getting investors to take a look at you:

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If you have been in fundraising mode anytime in the past 2-3 years and have gotten any term sheets with terms that were either outrageous or draconian, we want to hear from you. BHI Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Ethel Rubin is working on a future blog post and would like to hear from you. Email here at erubin@biohealthinnovation.org and share your term sheet stories today. Any information shared will be de-identified before adding to her post and you name/company will be kept confidential.

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WASHINGTON (February 19) – Today, a diverse group of research and scientific organizations, as well as those directly involved in commercializing new products, launched Bayh-Dole 40, a coalition that will celebrate and protect the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, better known as the “Bayh-Dole Act.”The Bayh-Dole Act has empowered universities, small businesses, and nonprofits that have received federal grants to retain ownership of any patented inventions — and license those patents to private firms, who then turn promising ideas into real-life products that improve peoples’ lives. Thanks to Bayh-Dole, the public and private sectors have worked together to translate basic scientific research into life-saving drugs and medical devices, internet and GPS technologies, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, and countless other innovations.

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Orgenesis Inc (NASDAQ:ORGS) announced a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University to utilize its point-of-care platform to develop and supply gene therapies and technologies.

The company’s POCare cell therapy platform is designed to advance the development of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products — medicines based on genes, tissues or cells — through collaborations and in-licensing with other companies.

CEO Vered Caplan is confident in the pedigree and resources of the Baltimore research university.

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LumaCyte, an advanced bioanalytical instrumentation company specializing in vaccine and cell and gene therapy bioprocess, production, and R&D analytical capabilities, announces its expansion into Europe with the establishment of LumaCyte, B.V. in The Netherlands. LumaCyte has experienced a rapid increase in global demand for Radiance®, it’s label-free single cell analysis instrument, with a large portion of that demand coming from Europe. In the fall of 2019, LumaCyte reported that it was strengthening its infrastructure to support a growing customer base, with strong efforts being placed on servicing the expansive European market. The company has expanded its US headquarters, significantly increasing manufacturing and laboratory footprints, as well as completed the rigorous EU specific regulatory CE mark certification, indicating Radiance® conformity with EEA health and safety standards, which is a prerequisite for its instrument sale and use.

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Incoming University of Maryland President Darryll Pines may describe himself as a bit of a joker — but he is serious about building out the school’s tech and startup ecosystems.

“The university is an incredible innovation ecosystem, but we were not leveraging every aspect of it. Now you will start to see a lot more startups coming out of the University of Maryland,” Pines told the Washington Business Journal in an interview after a Friday press conference punctuated by accolades, off-script jokes by Pines and plenty of Terrapin pride.

Image: Darryll Pines has been named the next president of the University of Maryland, College Park. JOHN CONSOLI, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

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The BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) is evolving quickly and it can be tough to keep pace with the latest news emerging from the host of biotech, medical device and cell, and gene therapy companies in the area. BioBuzz, when combined with some strategic social media follows, can help you stay on top of the latest developments, news and thought leadership coming out of the BHCR.

Image: https://biobuzz-io.cdn.ampproject.org

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U.S. healthcare providers in 2019 experienced almost triple the number of breaches to their records than they did in 2018.

That’s the assertion of healthcare compliance analytics platform Protenus in its Protenus Breach Barometer report, which reported that 41 million patient records were breached in 2019. The increase in breaches was a 48.6% difference from 15 million in 2018, while the trend of at least one health data breach per day — a trend first reported in 2016 — remains.

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Less than 4% of money raised for cancer research targets pediatric cancers, but a D.C.-area charity that’s devoting resources to benefit young cancer victims is sponsoring trials at Children’s National Hospital.

Clinical trials underway for about a year are turning patients’ own immune system cells into an army of soldiers to attack their brain cancer tumors.

“We’re all really excited,” said Dr. Eugene Hwang, associate division chief of oncology at Children’s National Hospital. “The biggest problem would have been if we ran into a big side effect or toxicity signal, and we have not.”

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WASHINGTON (February 19) – Today, a diverse group of research and scientific organizations, as well as those directly involved in commercializing new products, launched Bayh-Dole 40, a coalition that will celebrate and protect the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, better known as the “Bayh-Dole Act.”

The Bayh-Dole Act has empowered universities, small businesses, and nonprofits that have received federal grants to retain ownership of any patented inventions — and license those patents to private firms, who then turn promising ideas into real-life products that improve peoples’ lives.

Image: https://www.ipwatchdog.com

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Date: 1/22/2020 Expressions of Interest are due no later than 4:59pm EST on Monday, March 2, 2020. CAPCaT Contact: Mary Dubuque Email: mary.dubuque@umassmed.edu

Funding Opportunity The Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies (CAPCaT) in Heart, Lung, Blood, and Sleep Disorders (U54HL143541) announces the 2020 solicitation of grant applications focused on developing, adapting, or validating point of care technologies that can be rapidly applied to heart, lung, blood, or sleep disorders, with additional interest in projects that incorporate complementary and integrative health approaches. We plan, based on the receipt of meritorious applications, to fund up to six awards of up to $100,000 over 12 months, with one or more award(s) focused on complementary and integrative health.

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BALTIMORE, Feb. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The W. P. Carey Foundation, whose generosity launched Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, has made a $25 million commitment to the school to recruit renowned faculty, enhance academic programs, and help launch student careers. The gift will be matched with commitments from Johns Hopkins University and contributions from other donors for a total of $50 million.

The W. P. Carey Foundation’s new gift provides Carey Business School with support to ensure its path of growth and advancement in shaping business leaders of the future.

Image: Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

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Doylestown-based Pennsylvania Biotech Center (PABC) this week announced a sponsorship program intended to support early-stage biotech companies via supplier services, education and collaboration.

This comes seven months after PABC announced a $50 million dollar investment fund and accelerator providing seed and Series A and B funding to its incubator companies.

The program was created by Hatch Biofund Management, LLC, the operators of the life science venture fund. Sponsors in the program will specifically work with early-stage companies in PABC’s incubator and the Unite IQ incubator PABC runs at The Discovery Labs in King of Prussia.

Image: Pennsylvania Biotech Center’s future expanded campus.

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Most companies would admit that they miss more often than they hit when it comes to talent.

McKinsey & Company recently cited three rather stunning stats about talent: (1) 82% of Fortune 500 companies don’t believe they recruit highly talented people; (2) Of companies that do believe they recruit great talent, only 7% believe they can retain it; (3) and only 23% of managers and senior executives that deal with talent-related issues believe their current strategies actually work.

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It’s highly appropriate that the 40th anniversary of the Bayh-Dole Act occurs in a year as politically contentious as that in which it passed. In 1980, many predicted that our best years were behind us and that the United States would soon lose its place as the world’s economic superpower. Experts proclaimed the best remedy was to adopt the “Japan, Inc.” model, where the government bureaucracy orchestrated a coalition of dominant companies boldly plotting the future (that idea was particularly popular with many in Washington, D.C.). The patent system was under constant attack for being unfair, the U.S. suffered from double digit unemployment and inflation (dubbed “the misery index”) and energy costs skyrocketed. Congress discovered that despite billions of dollars invested annually in federally funded R&D, few inventions were being brought to the marketplace where they could benefit the American people. It felt like the bottom had fallen out from under the feet of our nation.

Image: https://www.ipwatchdog.com

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