419th Edition – August 18, 2020

Are you a start-up in Maryland, DC or Virginia seeking feedback on your biohealth business idea, pitch deck, or commercialization plan? Schedule your complimentary virtual feedback session with BHI Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and Analysts on one of the following dates: 8/26. (45 minute blocks of time beginning at 9:00 in the morning. Pre-registration is required; sign up www.tinyurl.com/EIRFeedback. For questions/more information, contact BHI

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This invitation-only event is free for executive level biotech leaders and is presented by BioHealth Innovation, Virginia Bio, Children’s National Health System, Johns Hopkins University, JPMorgan, Maryland Department of Commerce, George Mason University, University System of Maryland, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, AstraZeneca, Deloitte, and Montgomery County Economic Development Corp.

The BioHealth Capital Region—Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC—sets the bar high for biotech innovation. So please join us for our 6th Annual BioHealth Capital Region Forum that will highlight the accomplishments of today and chart our successes of tomorrow.

For more information about our speakers and event schedule, please visit www.biohealthcapital.com/forum-2020

Click here to register!

#BHCRForum20

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Baltimore, MD. (Aug. 10, 2020) — The University System of Maryland (USM) Momentum Fund has invested $250K in miRecule, an emerging biotech company with a cutting-edge discovery platform to create RNA therapeutics alongside theFSHD Society as a co-investor. This investment is complemented by recent funding raised over the past year, which includes lead investor Alexandria Venture Investments as well as Pathway Bioventures, Alumni Ventures Group, and angel investors. In total, miRecule’s seed round raised more than $3.5M in private seed funding. In addition to its private investments miRecule has also been awarded a non-dilutive $2M Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute.

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GAITHERSBURG, Md., Aug. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the extension of the shelf life of NARCAN® (naloxone HCl) Nasal Spray from 24 months to 36 months. Narcan Nasal Spray was the first intranasal form of naloxone approved by FDA and Health Canada for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose.

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PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), an urban office REIT and the first, longest-tenured and pioneering owner, operator and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, is at the vanguard of the vital life science ecosystem that is advancing solutions for COVID-19 through a multifaceted, highly impactful strategy that includes a mission-critical focus on making rapid COVID-19 testing available to all Americans. Widespread screening and diagnostic testing, in addition to safe and effective vaccines and therapies, are desperately needed to resolve the global COVID-19 pandemic.

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Our annual cluster ranking profiles the top U.S. life sciences hubs and tracks the progress of the up-andcoming life sciencesmarkets that are fast becoming options of choice for life sciences companies and investors alike. Finally, the outlook introduces prominent industry trends that will provide new engines of growth.

In this report

In addition to highlighting the current state of life sciences real estate clusters across the U.S., this report will provide answers to three critical questions that both life sciences companies and lab developers must consider in order to remain at the crest of industry trends.

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Venlo, The Netherlands, August 13, 2020 – QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced that it will continue to execute its successful growth strategy aiming to create significant value for shareholders and other stakeholders after the voluntary public takeover offer by Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (NYSE: TMO) did not achieve the minimum 66.67% acceptance threshold from QIAGEN shareholders.

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GERMANTOWN, Md., Aug. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Precigen, Inc. (Nasdaq: PGEN), a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of innovative gene and cellular therapies to improve the lives of patients, today announced that the first patient has been dosed with Precigen’s PRGN-2009, a first-in-class, off-the-shelf (OTS) investigational immunotherapy utilizing the AdenoVerse™ platform designed to activate the immune system to recognize and target HPV+ solid tumors (clinical trial identifier: NCT04432597). HPV-associated cancers represent a significant health burden in indications such as head and neck, cervical, vaginal and anal cancer.

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SILVER SPRING, Md. and RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Aug. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — United Therapeutics Corporation (Nasdaq: UTHR) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted for review the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for Tyvaso® (treprostinil) Inhalation Solution for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension associated with interstitial lung disease (PH-ILD). United Therapeutics expects the agency’s review to be complete in April 2021.

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Maryland has become a key part of the strategy for Kite, a Gilead company, and its mission to find a cure for cancer. As the California-based company focuses more and more on cutting-edge cell therapy research and manufacturing, Kite is expanding its toehold in the BioSpace Hotbed region known as BioCapital.

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ROCKVILLE, Md., Aug. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Emmes today announced that it provided the data and statistical analysis support for the Phase 1 clinical trial of the investigational COVID-19 vaccine mRNA-1273. Three Emmes employees were co-authors on the Preliminary Report about the clinical trial, “An mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2,” published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 14.

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COLUMBIA, Md. (August 13, 2020)— TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced its recent round of investments in six (6) start-up companies and funding to fifteen (15) university projects through the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII).

Established in 2012, the MII program was created as a partnership between the State of Maryland and five Maryland academic research institutions: Johns Hopkins University; Morgan State University; University of Maryland, Baltimore; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and University of Maryland, College Park. The program’s mission is to accelerate promising technologies with significant commercial potential to market while leveraging each partner University’s strengths.

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We sourced the community, built a roster of Greater Washington’s hottest enterprises and innovators, and narrowed that list to the ecosystem’s 50 elite.

Then Thursday afternoon, we celebrated those fast-growing, move-making players: DC Inno’s 2020 Inno on Fire winners. All had banner years — for expansions, launches, fundraises and pivots — and all in a time of profound, unprecedented change.

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The 2020 Technology Showcase is going virtual! Reserve the afternoon of September 9th on your calendar for the 2020 Technology Showcase. The 4th annual event will highlight technologies being developed at the NCI and the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNL) to encourage technology licensing and collaborations, startup company formation and the translation of NCI discoveries into solutions to benefit patients. 

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Emergent BioSolutions CEO Bob Kramer joined Jim Cramer on “Mad Money” to discuss the biopharmaceutical company’s role in the quest to bring a Covid-19 vaccine to market.

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500® urban office REIT, is the first and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in life science, technology, and agtech campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. For more information, please visit www.are.com.

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Originally Aired: August 12, 2020 Time: 3:00 pm ET

Gene therapy has undergone a renaissance in recent years, with several drugs offering beneficial, even life-saving treatments, now approved by the FDA and EMA. A big reason for this turnaround is the emergence of adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a generally safe and efficient vector for therapeutic gene delivery.

Earlier this summer, reports emerged of two fatalities in young boys in a clinical trial for a rare muscle disorder using AAV. This sad news has turned the spotlight on viral dosage, vector manufacturing and immune responses as factors we need to better understand to ensure the safety of gene therapy treatments in the future.

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The incubation period of a disease is the time between infection and the emergence of symptoms. Although it varies from person to person, understanding the average incubation period of an infectious disease is critical to controlling it.

Authorities use the incubation period to determine the length of quarantine, for instance, as well as to understand how the disease is transmitted and to identify the source of the outbreak.

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It takes no time for Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, to recall the moment when he knew he wanted to be a scientist. “Tenth-grade chemistry class,” he says over the phone from his home office in Chevy Chase, Md., where he has been working since most of the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., shut down in March. Much of the science he had learned before then was “descriptive” and uninteresting, he explains—but for this class, students used experiments to figure things out. “It became clear to me that science is like a detective story,” says Dr. Collins, 70. “If you’re good at it, you’ll discover…

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Montgomery County is closing all testing sites Friday until further notice after issues were raised by the state with some testing kits.

Anyone who was tested at a county-sponsored clinic in the past two weeks should be retested at another community-based clinic, the county said on its website.

Maryland’s department of health raised questions about protocols used with some test kits by AdvaGenix, which uses self-administered kits to collect saliva. These kits account for about 7% of all tests conducted in the county, adding up to hundreds every day.

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