14th Edition – September 17, 2012

Maryland Biotechnology Center Opens Applications for Up to $200K in Individual Awards | Baltimore Citybizlist

The Maryland Biotechnology Center, an office of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, opened the application process for its FY 2013 biotechnology development awards. Since 2010, the program has made nearly two dozen awards totaling $4.5 million to Maryland companies.  The deadline to apply for the awards that range from $50,000 to $200,000 is October 17 and applications are available online here.

“Though we’re just entering the third year of our awards program, it already has enabled organizations to begin translating their research to reality,” said Dr. Judith Britz, Executive Director of the Maryland Biotechnology Center. “Because of our award, companies like Telcare are partnering with industry leaders like QualComm and are able to attract significantly larger private investments.”

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Tech Council of Maryland quietly promotes Jacoby to top spot – Baltimore Business Journal

Art Jacoby’s turn as chief of the Tech Council of Maryland was intended as a stop-gap gig, meant to fill the interregnum between the departure of the Old Boss and the arrival of the New Boss. This summer, the council’s board quietly made Jacoby the New Boss, dropping the “interim” of his job description.

Perhaps his promotion didn’t merit an announcement because, practically, nothing had really changed. Since his arrival in January, Jacoby has never really acted like anything but the full-time CEO.

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MedImmune, WuXi AppTec to develop new biologic for China – Pharmaceutical Business Review

AstraZeneca biologics arm MedImmune and WuXi AppTec have formed a joint venture (JV) to develop and commercialize MEDI5117, a new biologic for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases for China.

As part of the JV, MedImmune will provide technical and development support while WuXi AppTec will provide local regulatory, manufacturing, pre-clinical and clinical trial support.

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QIAGEN Teams with China’s Lepu Medical to Provide Rapid Diagnosis of Heart Attacks Using Point of Need Testing

QIAGEN N.V.  today announced an agreement with Lepu Medical Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., a leading medical device company in China, to provide QIAGEN’s ESEQuant Lateral Flow System for use in emergency rooms with Lepu’s tests for cardiac markers that diagnose acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). The agreement expands QIAGEN’s presence in China and adds a new point of need diagnostics application.

China’s State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has approved the ESEQuant Lateral Flow detection system with Lepu Medical’s five cardiac marker tests. Lepu will market the system in China under the name LEPU Quant-Gold. Globally, this is the first regulatory approval in human healthcare for QIAGEN’s pioneering ESEQuant platform which was acquired in 2010.

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MedImmune preparing for Gaithersburg campus expansion

Representatives for Gaithersburg biotech company MedImmune hinted at an expansion of their campus at a mayor and council work session Monday evening.

Medimmune Executive Vice President of Operations Andy Skibo mentioned a “need to reassess how space is divided” on MedImmune’s Gaithersburg campus. “There are no specific construction plans at this time,” he said, though the company is working on a master plan with the city.

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Nancy Floreen to talk economic development at White House – Maryland Politics – The Washington Post

Montgomery County Council member Nancy Floreen has been invited by the White House to attend a special forum on economic development, the county announced Tuesday.

The conference, which will take place next Wednesday at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, will bring together U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, senior White House officials, business leaders and municipal government officials to discuss effective economic development strategies.

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TEDCO awards $1.2M to 16 area startups – Baltimore Business Journal

The Maryland Technology Development Corp. awarded almost $1.2 million to 16 Maryland startups in its latest round of funding.

The funding, through TEDCO’s Maryland Technology Transfer and Commercialization Fund, is aimed at helping early-stage companies commercialize products they have developed working with universities and federal laboratories in Maryland.

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StartUp Maryland Pitch Tour Bus Revs Up Entreprenuerial Spirit

By tour’s end, between 60 and 100 Maryland entrepreneurs will have met the StartUp Maryland Pitch Tour bus now traversing the state to offer an exciting opportunity— to have their ideas heard and possibly realized.

The incandescent yellow and black bus, swathed with the Maryland flag started its tour in Ocean City, Maryland on its way to Baltimore’s Merriweather Pavilion on September 28th, with 20 stops which have already included Salisbury, Cambridge, Easton, Chestertown, Wye Mills and Annapolis among others.

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For young Md. immigrants, a path out of the shadows – The Washington Post

They call themselves “shadows” — young Maryland residents brought to this country as children by their parents.

They worked hard. They excelled in our public schools. They want to go to college so they can be more productive members of our workforce. They do not ask for a free ride. Yet they remain shadows because their parents came without immigration papers. The Maryland Dream Act would bring these young people into daylight.

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Entrepreneurs Invited to Get on the Bus and Celebrate Their Innovations and Businesses During the Pitch Across Maryland Tour

Startup Maryland Teams with Regional Innovation Stakeholder to Co-Host Tour Stops Across the State of Maryland

Startup Maryland is launching Pitch Across Maryland, a state-wide startup tour and business pitch competition. Taking place September 11 – 28, this two and a half week tour across the state will travel from the Eastern Shore to Western Maryland; from Cecil County to St. Mary’s County; from the Baltimore Beltway and the DC Beltway — and everywhere in between.

The bus will travel the state to visit incubators, economic development agencies and universities—all in the name of celebrating entrepreneurship.  At each stop, Startup Maryland will hold rallies sharing information about the incredible entrepreneurial resources across the state and within their region. Additionally, entrepreneurs will get coaching and support from business mentors and other leaders of Maryland’s innovation economy.

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Forbes names Becton, Dickinson one of ‘world’s most innovative’ – Baltimore Business Journal

Apparently, there’s lots of innovation going on up at BD Diagnostic Systems in Sparks.

Forbes listed its New Jersey parent company, Becton, Dickinson & Co., to its list of “World’s Most Innovative Companies” in its latest issue. The medical device company employs 29,000 people total — including 1,600 in Baltimore County. It makes diagnostic equipment for the microbiology and molecular biology industries.

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Vaxin moves from Birmingham to Maryland | al.com

Vaxin Inc., a promising biotech company spun from research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, quietly moved from Innovation Depot to a new home in Maryland as it continues development of vaccines for the flu and anthrax.

The company, founded in 1997, has consolidated its staff and lab space on the East Coast in order to be closer to funding and a number of other vaccine development companies, Chief Executive Bill Enright said Thursday. He said other reasons for the move were to consolidate costs and get closer to the company’s primary source of funding, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Developm

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Tech Council of Maryland MdBio Leadership Breakfast Focuses on Issues of Importance to Maryland’s Biotech Industry – MarketWatch

Peter Greenleaf, president of MedImmune, the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based global biologics arm of AstraZeneca, addressed many of the challenges and growth opportunities for Maryland biotech companies at today’s MdBio Leadership Series breakfast, hosted by the Tech Council of Maryland (TCM).

“Maryland is a hotbed of activity in the biotech sector, so changes taking place in the industry — related to competitive threats and growth opportunities — will no doubt have a big impact on businesses based in our state,” said Art Jacoby, TCM’s CEO. “Peter’s remarks this morning provided valuable insight — from not only his role as president of MedImmune, but from the perspective as chairman of the Maryland Venture Fund Authority — into the changes taking place in the biotech market and how companies at all stages can position themselves for success.”

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After growth, MedImmune pushes on midstage pipeline – Washington Business Journal

MedImmune is increasingly concentrating its workforce in Maryland, both through new hires and consolidations from California, as it prepares to take a host of midstage drug candidates through clinical trials.

The Gaithersburg biotech is entering a pivotal period. Its parent, British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca PLC, is laying off employees by the thousands at the same time that it is investing more heavily in its Maryland-based biologics arm.

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Biotechnology Development Grants – FY2013 Awards (up to $200K) Applications Now Available

Deadline to Apply: October 17, 2012 at 5:00 p.m.

The Maryland Biotechnology Center’s (MBC) Biotechnology Development Awards provide funding to advance biotechnology research and development in Maryland along the path to commercialization.   

Applications for the Maryland Biotechnology Center’s FY2013 Biotechnology Development Awards for Biotechnology Commercialization or Translational Research now are available in the column to the left.

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RxAnte gets $4.6M investment – Washington Business Journal

McLean-based RxAnte, developing technologies that help make sure people take their prescription drugs, has received a $4.6 million investment from Aberdare Ventures and West Health Investment.

The company will use the financing to continue development of its technologies and take them to market.

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As Tuberculosis Grows More Difficult to Control, Vaccine Candidate to Prevent Disease Enters Clinical Testing

Aeras and the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) announce today the start of the first clinical trial of IDRI’s novel tuberculosis vaccine candidate, ID93 + GLA-SE. The Phase I clinical trial will assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the vaccine candidate in 60 healthy adult volunteers. The study will be conducted by Johnson County Clin-Trials in Lenexa, Kansas, in close collaboration with Aeras and IDRI.  

Tuberculosis (TB), which kills more people than any other infectious disease except HIV, has orphaned 10 million children, and costs the global economy an estimated $1 billion every day. An increasing number of diagnosed multidrug-resistant TB cases are making the disease more difficult to control and multiplying the cost and time it takes to treat patients, which can take two years or longer for multidrug-resistant TB.

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Fyodor Biotechnologies Inc Awarded a National

Fyodor Biotechnologies, a Baltimore-based diagnostic and biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the National Science Foundation has awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant. With the $150,000 funding, Fyodor plans to develop a novel recombinant antibody to be used in a urine-based test for the point-of-need detection of Leptospirosis.

Leptospirosis is a worldwide, potentially serious but treatable bacterial disease that occurs in humans and domestic animals, including pets. The causative bacteria are spread through the urine of infected animals, which can get into water (including swimming pools) or soil, and can survive there for weeks to months. Clinical signs of leptospirosis are nonspecific, and current diagnostic tools rely on complicated testing methods that are unsuitable for use in many point- of-need settings. Therefore, a simple one-step test is urgently needed for rapid diagnosis.

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SureScripts strikes health records deal with Epic – Washington Business Journal

Arlington-based Surescripts will partner with health record-keeping giant Epic Systems Corp. to allow doctors to transfer records between the two patient data networks, the company said Thursday.

Surescripts, which specializes in transmitting prescription data, launched a network for doctors to share all clinical data in 2010. Under the deal announced Thursday, doctors using that network will be able to connect to physicians using Epic’s own network, known as the Care Everywhere interoperability platform.

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Looking for Cures Lost in Translation

In a recent article in Slate magazine’s Future Tense project,  Pascal Zachary made a key observation about the strange estrangement of science from technology in U.S. policy when he wrote:

“Neither candidate will ask, for instance, why taxpayers spend some $30 billion annually to try to understand the basic causes of diseases but virtually nothing on delivering effective new medical therapies to the ill.”

Indeed, over the past 10 years, $340 billion in federal funds have been allocated for basic medical research to improve and lengthen the lives of Americans. But how much money does the government spend actually translating medical science discoveries into workable therapies? Surprisingly little.

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Mapping The Next Three Decades of Health Technology | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

When science fiction films depict the future, the best writers and directors are often less concerned with accurately predicting how specific technologies might reshape the world than they are with confronting the moral or philosophical quandaries of present day. It’s what makes those stories compelling–and relatable. When futurists attempt to tell us how (and when) technology leaps will occur, they’re not only speculating about what we’re capable of achieving in the coming decades but also imploring us to prepare–scientifically and psychologically–for those events.

Envisioning Technology, the firm behind the massive infographic explorations of the future of emerging technology and the future of education technology, is, as you might guess, run by a futurist: Michell Zappa. His most recent visualization maps the next three decades of health technology, charting how regeneration, augmentation, diagnostics, treatments, biogerontology, and telemedicine will change over time. According to ET, the stuff of science fiction–from cryogenics to all-out life extension, from robot health care to 3-D-printed synthetic organs–will be very real before too long.

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U.S. Life-Sciences Valuations Creeping Upward, Law Firm Says – Venture Capital Dispatch – WSJ

Law firm Fenwick & West, which handles legal issues for a variety of technology companies, has examined 186 venture fundings of U.S.-based companies in the life-sciences sector over the first half of 2012, and found that valuations have ticked upward.

Matt Rossiter, a partner at the firm and co-author of a recent survey on life-sciences deals, said he has also noticed increased involvement in deals by public medical-technology companies, who often turn to start-ups for new innovations.

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The FDA Turns Friendly Toward Pharma in 2012 | Xconomy

The FDA, for most of the past 10 years, was the regulatory agency that many people in biotech and pharma loved to hate. Critics have long complained about bureaucratic foot-dragging, byzantine organization, poor communication, excessive aversion to risk, and arbitrary decisions around whether to approve new drugs for sale in the U.S.

But FDA bashers, at least in the pharmaceutical world, haven’t had much to complain about in 2012. Suddenly the FDA and the pharma industry it regulates look like best pals. The FDA, under commissioner Margaret Hamburg, has been making noise for some time about its desire to not just ensure the safety and effectiveness of the U.S. drug supply, but to also help promote the development of innovative new medicines. This year, the agency has absolutely done everything it can to back up its rhetoric with actions that prove it isn’t an adversary but more of a partner in the development of new medicines.

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Baltimore Innovation Week 2012

Baltimore Innovation Week is a week-long celebration of technology and innovation in Baltimore. The annual week of events is intended to grow the impact of this innovative region through programming focused on technology, collaboration and improving Baltimore.

Baltimore Innovation Week 2012 takes place September 20 to September 29.

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Smith School Launches Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program

A trio of social entrepreneurs with industry success in technology, law and fashion are appointees to the inaugural Social-Entrepreneur-In-Residence team at the Robert H. Smith School of Business Center for Social Value Creation at the University of Maryland.

The appointees are Kim Persons, a partner with the KAP Group and founding president (1999-2010) of Gecko Traders Inc., a manufacturer and global distributor of handbags and women’s fashion accessories; Drew Bewick, managing director of Tree House Ventures, LLC, a technology and innovation consulting firm serving multiple companies and non-profit organizations; and Darius Graham, co-founder of the DC Social Innovation Project – a non-profit providing seed funding and pro bono services to spur creative, new projects tackling pressing social issues in Washington, D.C.

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