492nd Edition, January 25, 2022

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January 25, 2022

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Vaccitech CEO Bill Enright Joins Rich Bendis on First BioTalk of 2022

Bill visits BioTalk to talk about being a serial entrepreneur, biotech executive, and their recent acquisition of Avidea Technologies.

Listen now via Apple https://apple.co/3fTySQM, Google https://bit.ly/3KDPMkh, Spotify https://spoti.fi/3rI7UB3, Amazon https://amzn.to/33DwOtH, or TuneIn https://bit.ly/3fS8C9f.

Orgenesis and Johns Hopkins University expand POCare in Maryland through creation of the Maryland Center for Cell Therapy Manufacturing

Center will expand Orgenesis’ Point of Care (POCare) Platform Capabilities in Maryland GERMANTOWN, Md., Jan. 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Orgenesis Inc. (NASDAQ: ORGS) (“Orgenesis” or the “Company”), a global biotech company working to unlock the full potential of cell and gene therapies, and The Johns Hopkins University, today announce the next phase of their collaboration. This new phase involves construction of a cell and gene therapy processing facility for point of care treatment of patients at Johns Hopkins which is planned to start in Q2 2022 and is expected to be operational in Q2 of 2023.

Construction of the new POCare Center, also known as the Maryland Center for Cell Therapy Manufacturing, has been funded in part by a $5 million grant from the State of Maryland. The new state-of-the-art 7,000-square-foot facility has been designed to meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards and provides Johns Hopkins clinicians and researchers with a more streamlined path to treat patients and take promising and novel treatments from the lab to patient trials. This path will enable local capacity for processing of clinical therapeutics at the point of care, rather than having to outsource clinical trial cell and gene therapy manufacturing to third parties.

University of Maryland Ranks in Top 10 in Research Funds – UMB News

The University of Maryland has again ranked among the top 10 research institutions in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey, placing 10th among public institutions in research and development (R&D) spending and 16th overall nationally for Fiscal Year 2020.

Univercells Technologies Partners with Frederick's RoosterBio to Advance Scalable and Continuous Exosomes Manufacture

Proof-of-concept of exosomes manufacturing in scale-X™ bioreactor to demonstrate advantages of intensified and integrated platforms. RoosterBio to leverage scalable, continuous bioprocessing technologies to deliver regenerative therapies at reduced timelines and costs, improving access for patients.

FREDERICK, MD. (PRWEB) JANUARY 20, 2022

Univercells Technologies, a leading provider of novel biomanufacturing technologies for flexible and scalable viral production, announces today a strategic partnership with RoosterBio Inc., a leading supplier of human mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hMSCs), highly engineered media, and hMSC bioprocess systems. This partnership will optimize manufacturing of extracellular vesicles (EVs) using scalable and continuous bioprocessing technologies to propel the commercialization of regenerative therapies at affordable costs.

Inside DC's $5B year: Here's why local venture capitalists say the VC boom is here to stay – Technical.ly

So, you just had a $5 billion venture capital year. Now what? With the final numbers for Q4 finally in, we can say with certainty that DC had a record-breaking year for investment across the board. To the tune of $4.9 billion, venture capital sang in 2021, with deals growing larger as the year went on.

For some scale, note that the DMV raised just under $2 billion in all of 2020, meaning it more than doubled its dollars in a year. It’s not alone in the bump, though. Nearby Baltimore had its best (albeit much smaller) year in recent history at $768 million and Philadelphia did, too, with a casual $8 billion raised.

Image: (Photo by Flickr user, used via a Creative Commons license)

United Therapeutics Corporation Announces Historic Achievements in its Xenotransplantation Programs

UKidney™ procedure data published in the American Journal of Transplantation; the first such data published in a peer-reviewed journal

UHeart™ recipient patient reaches a two-week milestone post-transplant

UThymoKidney™ procedure represents a historic first preclinical human model study

SILVER SPRING, Md. & RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– United Therapeutics Corporation (UT) (Nasdaq: UTHR), a public benefit corporation with a purpose to provide a brighter future for patients, announced today that the world's first recipient of an investigational genetically-modified xenotransplanted organ, UT’s UHeart™, reached a two-week milestone. University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) surgeons report continued post-operative cardiovascular improvement in the patient with normal organ function. In addition, the first peer-reviewed publication of a similarly gene-edited investigational xenograft, UT’s UKidney™, in a human preclinical model at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine (UAB) was published yesterday in the American Journal of Transplantation.

UMBC continues to advance Maryland’s biotech workforce through $900K biomanufacturing grant – UMBC NEWS

UMBC has received a $900,000 grant from the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) to develop and implement a new, short-term biomanufacturing training program. Four universities, all classified as minority-serving institutions (MSIs), received funding for similar programs, designed to meet critical national workforce needs.

Image: Charmaine Hipolito ’20, and Titina Sirak ’20, right, alumni of UMBC’s TLST program at The Universities at Shady Grove, speak with visitors at a celebration for the opening of USG’s new Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Building in November 2019. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Why Hasn't The Life Sciences Boom Come To Downtown Bethesda?

A life sciences building in downtown Bethesda seemed like a slam dunk when StonebridgeCarras and Donohoe Cos. first proposed it in 2018. The site at 8280 Wisconsin Ave. was located close to the National Institutes of Health, the largest source of life sciences funding in the country, and in an urbanized core primed to attract a vibrant millennial workforce.

Image: Bisnow/Jon Banister A view looking down Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda with Carr’s The Wilson and The Elm development in the background.

BIO Report Outlines Economic Impact of Booming Life Sciences Industry | BioSpace

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) provides a glimpse of economic development in the biosciences ecosystem at the state and regional levels. The report, which was developed in partnership with the Council of State Bioscience Associations (CSBA), was released as an industry analysis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the overall economy.

Launching an Advanced Manufacturing Institute in SPACE | ITIF

Time for a Concerted Effort to Explore Manufacturing in Microgravity Environments

Space is emerging as the next frontier for advanced manufacturing. The market alone for biomanufacturing in space is expected to reach nearly $3 billion by the mid-2030s. Similar microgravity markets exist in other engineering and technology areas.

Accordingly, the administration and Congress need a coordinated effort to take advantage of the incredible opportunity of manufacturing at scale in the microgravity environment. As a recent gathering of corporations, federal agencies, scientists, and engineers examining biomanufacturing in space noted: “The formation of a public-private consortium is needed to further prioritize opportunities, de-risk space-based research and development (R&D) and guide the translation of results into commercial applications on Earth.”

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