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Business of Bio @ The BioPark – Wednesday, September 5 at 10:30am to 1:00pm

University of Maryland BioPark, Life Sciences Conference Center

Meet with Bahija Jallal, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of Research and Development, MedImmune The Changing Face of the Biopharmaceutical Industry—Creating a Culture of Innovation

The biopharmaceutical industry is not the same as it was even a decade ago. Today, there are even more pressures to produce not just safe and effective drugs but safe and effective drugs that the payers are willing to pay for. We also know that research and development costs are increasing while R&D productivity continues to be on the decline. How can we continue to make it in the industry when our ultimate goal is to provide much needed drugs to patients with unmet medical needs?

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Vaccine maker MedImmune has a new AZ chief – FierceVaccines

Five years ago this summer, AstraZeneca ($AZN) decided to pony up to purchase Maryland-based MedImmune for a cool $15.6 billion, a deal that left many wondering whether the bills matched the product. Now, incoming CEO Pascal Soriot has his work cut out for him.

Come October, the French-native will jump over from Roche ($RHHBY), where he served as chief operating officer since 2010. He’s inheriting a vaccines and biotech drugs division with 2,600 Maryland employees and 4,000 globally, The Washington Post reports. The company will also shutter two California offices, leading to a loss of 200 jobs and a shift of 100 more to other sites.

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The 2013 Omnibus NIH/CDC SBIR Contract Solicitation has been posted

The deadline for contract proposal submissions is Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Details and solicitation materials are available at the NIH SBIR Website in the Funding Opportunity Table: http://sbir.nih.gov/.

Applications must respond to a topic in the solicitation. All submissions must be on paper. Contract proposal forms are available electronically at PHS 2013-1 PDF [http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/SBIRContract/PHS2013-1.pdf] or MS Word [http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/SBIRContract/PHS2013-1.doc]. Please follow the direc­tions in the solicitation very carefully.

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National Institutes of Health signs big lease in Bethesda – Washington Business Journal

The National Institutes of Health has renewed a Bethesda lease, staying put for at least another decade.

The General Services Administration signed a 10-year lease renewal for NIH’s Democracy Plaza location, for nearly 356,000 square feet, about three miles from the NIH headquarters on Rockville Pike.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine wins $8.9M patient safety research grant – Baltimore Business Journal

Johns Hopkins Medicine received an $8.9 million grant Tuesday to put toward patient safety research.

The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, based at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, was awarded the grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The foundation plans to award $500 million over the next 10 years for research on eliminating preventable harm in hospitals.

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Unigo: Top 10 Colleges for Budding Entrepreneurs

In this weekend edition of the 2013 Unigo College Rankings we’re showcasing the colleges across the country that, according to students, have built exemplary entrepreneurship programs and made resources for aspiring founders readily available.

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Universities at Shady Grove grows with Montgomery County’s needs

The Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville is bringing in a program this fall that leaders say will help educate the county work force to match the opportunities available.

After watching the growth of the health care industry, and talking with students and local businesses, the campus will offer the University of Baltimore’s Master of Science in health systems management program, said John Callahan, program director for the University of Baltimore’s health systems management program.

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SAIC to split into two companies – Washington Business Journal

McLean-based Science Applications International Corporation says it will split into two separate, publicly traded companies.

The newly formed spin-off company would focus on government technical services and enterprise information technology, it says.

SAIC expects the spin off to take place in the latter half of its next fiscal year. It will not require a shareholder vote, though the board, which has authorized management to pursue the plan, will have final approval.

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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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Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover Link Between A Protein And Aggressive, Recurring Prostate Cancer

In a study to decipher clues about how prostate cancer cells grow and become more aggressive, Johns Hopkins urologists have found that reduction of a specific protein is correlated with the aggressiveness of prostate cancer, acting as a red flag to indicate an increased risk of cancer recurrence.

Their findings are reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Aug. 27, 2012.

The team focused on a gene called SPARCL1, which appears to be critically important for cell migration during prostate development in the embryo and apparently becomes active again during cancer progression.  Normally, both benign and malignant prostate cancer cells express high levels of SPARCL1, and reduce these levels when they want to migrate. The team correlated this reduction or “down regulation” of SPARCL1 with aggressiveness of prostate cancer.

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University Inventions Earned $1.4-Billion in 2011 – Administration – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Universities and their inventors earned more than $1.4-billion from commercializing their academic research in the 2011 fiscal year, collecting royalties from new breeds of wheat, from a new drug for the treatment of HIV, and from longstanding arrangements over enduring products like Gatorade.

Northwestern University earned the most of any institution reporting, with more than $191-million in licensing income.

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Global Biotech Bases U.S. Headquarters, Commercial Operations at University of Maryland BioPark

The University of Maryland BioPark announced today that Fluxome Inc., a nutraceutical ingredient company using novel metabolic engineering and fermentation methods, is the newest company to join the growing community of commercial tenants at the BioPark. According to Fluxome’s lease with building owner Wexford Science & Technology, LLC, Fluxome has based its U.S. headquarters and commercial operations in the BioPark building at 801 West Baltimore Street in Baltimore.

Said Jane Shaab, University of Maryland Research Park Corporation Senior Vice President, “It’s exciting to have another international tenant join us and it is especially rewarding to welcome Fluxome’s President and CEO Angela Tsetsis, who was previously on the management team at Columbia-based Martek (now Royal DSM N.V.), back to Maryland’s business community. Under Angela’s leadership, Fluxome is an example of a next-generation Maryland life sciences company.”

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Rockville Economic Development Inc. declares winners in StartRight competition – The Washington Post

Rockville Economic Development Inc. has chosen the winners of its annual Start­Right business plan competition, awarding the top prizes to entrepreneurs who created a social networking Web site and a device for people with sensory processing issues.

The competition, now in its ninth year, aims to foster women in business by inviting female entrepreneurs to pitch a detailed business plan and doling out roughly $20,000 in prize money.

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Mid-Atlantic Bio Announces SBIR Workshops and Panels – MarketWatch

As a special offering presented during the upcoming annual Mid-Atlantic Bio conference, co-hosts announced a comprehensive line-up of programming focused on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to help interested companies learn more about specific opportunities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Sessions will include an update on the recent rule changes and new requirements, advice on how to apply for the competitive program and the opportunity for individual meetings with program managers from a variety of Institutes of the NIH.

"The SBIR program continues to be an important source of funding and support for emerging companies seeking to commercialize innovative research and develop market applications," Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Virginia Bio Interim Executive Director and co-host of Mid-Atlantic Bio said. "We are particularly grateful that our geographical proximity to NIH’s world class program managers allows us to provide conference attendees individual interactions and one-on-one meetings during our upcoming event."

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A New and Exciting Way to Search for Federal Technologies – One Stop Shop

It’s now much faster and easier to search for federal laboratory inventions that are available for transfer to business partners. The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) has developed a free online search engine that can quickly locate a particular type of technology anywhere in the nationwide system of federal labs and research centers.

Instead of sifting through the websites and records of each lab, users can now make a single search—typing in the keywords for the technology they’re looking for. The search engine, which uses Google technology, scans available federal lab technologies and quickly returns all relevant results.

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NIH SBIR Contract Solicitation Now Available | atdc.org

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have issued the new SBIR contract solicitation aimed at supporting the development of innovative biomedical and behavioral research technology with the potential for commercialization.

This SBIR solicitation is a separate and independent offering from the NIH and is not connected to their year-long Omnibus SBIR/STTR Grants solicitation. The contract solicitation is much smaller, and the topics are more focused and specific to each agency’s mission.  For example, topics available in this year’s solicitation range from New Methods to Detect and Assess Myocardial Fibrosis to Smartphone Application for Global Birth Defects Surveillance.  Budgets are also strictly enforced, and are limited to $150,000 for Phase I and $1 million for Phase II.   

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Review of NIH’s Big Hitters | The Scientist

According to a new policy announced this week (August 20) by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), scientists receiving more than $1 million in direct NIH grant funds each year will be more carefully reviewed when they submit new proposals. The policy is a variation on one instituted in May that initiated an additional layer of review for researchers with $1.5 million or more in total annual funding. This extra scrutiny is designed to avoid overlap from ongoing research and stretch the flat NIH budget as far as possible.

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Johns Hopkins researchers return blood cells to stem cell state

Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the body.

The work, described in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), is Chapter Two in an ongoing effort to efficiently and consistently convert adult blood cells into stem cells that are highly qualified for clinical and research use in place of human embryonic stem cells, says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

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Under CIT’s Mindus, new angel network takes shape – Washington Business Journal

Angel investing stands to benefit from economies of scale. Solo startup investing isn’t quite as terrifying a process as solo entrepreneurship, but it still involves the same sort of iron guts and optimism in the face of probable failure. It’s your cash on the line, after all. Finding good deals, performing due diligence, haggling with founders over valuation — all can be daunting jobs for a single angel. Getting it wrong means lot of grief and an eventual tax write off.

The wisdom of crowds, especially seasoned, sophisticated crowds, has much to offer in this regard. And that is the basic idea behind angel networks, which boost not only the amount of capital available to an entrepreneur, but also – if done correctly — the intelligence on the other side of the table.

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TWO MEDIMMUNE FACILITIES AWARDED PRESTIGIOUS LEED® GOLD BUILDING CERTIFICATION

MedImmune, the global biologics arm of AstraZeneca, announced today that it has been awarded LEED® Gold building certification established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI).  Two facilities, the 308,000 square-foot R&D laboratory and 9,800-square-foot fitness center, received the certification.  LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – is the nation’s preeminent program for design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

“We’re very proud to achieve LEED Gold certification. MedImmune is committed to environmental sustainability and strives to be a good corporate citizen and neighbor to surrounding communities,” said Andy Skibo, Executive Vice President, Operations, MedImmune.

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Telcare secures $25M in equity funding – Washington Business Journal

Bethesda-based Telcare Inc. has secured more than $25 million in equity funding.

Telcare, the developer of the first FDA-cleared wireless glucose monitoring system for people with diabetes, will use the funds for marketing, sales, research and development and ongoing operations.

Sequoia Capital led the round, which includes backing from existing investor, Qualcomm Inc., acting through itsQualcomm Life Fund.

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Scheer Partners Represents the Tech Council of Maryland in New Lease | Maryland Health Sciences Commercial Real Estate Services | Scheer Partners

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM) has moved its headquarters to a new location within Rockville, the result of a transaction recently put together by two executives at Rockville-based Scheer Partners.

The leading provider of fully integrated commercial real estate services for the technology and health science industries in the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan areas announces today that it has negotiated on behalf of TCM in a 3,962-square-foot lease on the top floor of 9210 Corporate Blvd.

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Montgomery College seeks to meet bioscience industry demands

As Maryland’s bioscience industry focuses more on running clinical trials for drug developers, there’s a growing demand for the highly-trained workers needed.

Montgomery College answered that call this summer, with a course that focused on clinical trial project management and was offered to anyone with a bachelor’s degree. Eighteen people graduated from the course Saturday, including one who was immediately snapped up by Amarex Clinical Research, a Germantown contract research organization.

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Rock Health investors up seed funding for startups to $100K | mobihealthnews

Digital health accelerator Rock Health’s investor partners have upped the amount of seed funding they will invest in startups that participate in the program from $20,000 to $100,000. The startups will each receive a total of $100,000 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Mohr Davidow Ventures, Aberdare Ventures, and the Mayo Clinic. Rock Health, which is itself a non-profit, will continue to take no equity in the startups.

Rock Health just graduated its first class of startups from its Boston-based (well, Cambridge, really) summer program. Rock Health CEO Halle Tecco told MobiHealthNews that it is interested in making the Boston-based program an ongoing one instead of a summer program, but it is looking for more help from Boston-area partners to make that happen. Harvard Medical School and Merck supported this past summer’s program.

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You might be a healthcare startup mentor if … (5 must-have qualities of a good mentor) | MedCity News

These days, everyone thinks he’s a mentor.

With accelerators, incubators and innovation events sprouting everywhere, there’s plenty of opportunity for seasoned entrepreneurs to pass on their knowledge to a new generation of startups. But according to the people who work with them, not every good entrepreneur makes a good mentor.

I (informally) polled leaders at a couple Boston incubators, as well as some of the entrepreneurs they work with, to see which qualities are valued most in a mentor. What they told me is that you might be a good startup mentor if you have these five qualities:

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Fina Biosolutions Licenses Rights to its Vaccine Conjugation Technology for Development and Manufacturing of PNEUMOCOCCAL vaccines in China to Chengdu Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd

Deal will accelerate development of affordable Pneumococcal Vaccines in China

Fina Biosolutions LLC, a research and development stage biotechnology company focused on developing affordable conjugate vaccines, and The Chengdu Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd (CDIBP) announced their agreement to license Finabio’s conjugate vaccine technology for the development and manufacturing of Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in China. The agreement will accelerate the multi-valent Pneumococcal vaccine development program at CDIBP.

The structure of the license in China includes an upfront payment, payments based on achievement of Chinese regulatory milestones, and royalty payments that are contingent upon successful development and commercialization. The agreement includes process development, personnel training at Fina BioSolutions labs in Rockville MD and scalable manufacturing of conjugate vaccines at CDIBP.

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University of Maryland MIPS program awards $4M – Baltimore Business Journal

University of Maryland’s Maryland Industrial Partnerships awarded $4 million to 19 technology development projects.

The projects team Maryland technology companies with university researchers in an effort to bring promising technology to the commercial marketplace.

MIPS contributed $1.5 million of the grant money; the companies involved in the projects contributed the remaining $2.5 million.

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Mid-Atlantic Biotech Conference – September 27-28, 2012

Policy and partnerships.  Innovation and investment.  Access and awareness.  Mid-Atlantic Bio:  at the epicenter of bioscience R&D, capital and policy.

Mid-Atlantic Bio is the premier regional biotech conference for senior-level executives, policymakers, academia, financiers, media and service providers.  First launched in 2005, the conference is a joint initiative of the founding host organizations: the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, the Virginia Biotechnology Association, and the Technology Council of Maryland. The Conference is also pleased to welcome  the North Carolina Biotechnology Center as a Strategic Partner for 2012.

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CardioNet buys Cardiocore Lab, will expand services

CardioNet Inc. entered into a definitive agreement Monday to acquire Cardiocore Lab Inc. for $23.5 million.

Rockville-based Cardiocore is a centralized cardiac testing laboratory services company with locations in San Francisco and London.

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Connelly to lead Human Genome Sciences | NorthCentralPA.com

Deirdre Connelly ’83 will take the helm as president and CEO of Human Genome Sciences following the company’s acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.

HGS, headquartered in Rockville, Md., exists to place new therapies into the hands of those battling serious diseases.

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Care.com Raises Another $50 Million Led By Institutional Venture Partners | BostInno

Care.com, the site that matches users with childcare, pet care and related services, announced today that it has raised a whopping $50 million in Series E funding, led by Institutional Venture Partners. The round was joined by Matrix Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Trinity Ventures.

Founded in 2006, the Waltham-based company has upwards of seven million users in 15 countries.

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Johns Hopkins, NIH to Host Second Annual Symposium on Infection Imaging | Children’s Hospital at Johns Hopkins | Baltimore, Maryland

Johns Hopkins imaging specialists are teaming up with investigators from the National Institutes of Health to host the second annual molecular imaging symposium on Sept. 21.

The inaugural event, held last September at Johns Hopkins, was the brainchild of Sanjay Jain, M.D., a TB expert and an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and his colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Center for Imaging Research.

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University of Maryland vaccine center gets $4M grant from Wellcome Trust – Baltimore Business Journal

The Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine received a $4 million grant from The Wellcome Trust, considered among the most prestigious grant-giving charitable foundations.

The Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Indian partner Bharat Biotech will use the grant for pre-clinical and clinical research for a vaccine that fights an infectious disease stemming from non-typhoidal Salmonella. The disease is common in sub-Saharan Africa and can lead to meningitis and sepsis.

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Two Baltimore Business Leaders are BioHealth Innovation, Inc.’s Newest Board Members – Baltimore Business Journal

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today the appointment to its Board of Directors of two Baltimore-based business leaders: M&T Bank Corporation Senior Vice President/Regional President Baltimore Scott E. Dagenais and Ernst & Young’s Baltimore Office Managing Partner Jay S. Ridder.

"As the first Central Maryland intermediary created to connect Baltimore’s strengths in university and hospital biohealth research with the bioscience industry and federal lab assets in Montgomery County, it is important for the BHI Board to have leadership and representation from both parts of our region," said Scott Carmer, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Chairman of the Board and MedImmune Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations. "I am pleased to welcome Scott and Jay to the BHI Board.  They will both bring valued expertise from the Baltimore community and also provide depth in commercial banking and accounting experience."

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The Third Annual Technology Transfer Summit North America – October 22-23, 2012

TTS Ltd., the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Johns Hopkins University Technology Transfer are pleased to announce that the 2012 edition of the TTS North America takes place at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins University in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Often immitated but never equaled, since 2007, and in North America since 2010, the TTS Global Initiative has been the original and leading international meeting for biotech sector Industry-Academia licensing, partnering  & technology transfer.  Designed to help all Tech Transfer Offices build the same expertise and relationships that enables the top TTOs to do the deals and sign the licensing agreements that have brought so much benefit to their universities, insitutes, departments and researchers. The TTS North America is the pillar of this key international inititiative and community of the leading technology transfer, licensing, IP and early stage biotech innovation and venture professionals world wide.

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Venture capital: ‘It’s a very challenging market’ in Maryland

Most of the $25.5 million in venture capital pumped into Maryland businesses in the second quarter went to just two companies and was primarily focused on later-stage firms, according to a new report.

The $25.5 million total, which was split among eight companies, was the smallest quarterly total in almost 16 years, according to the new MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.

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Could FastStitch Device, Invented by Undergrads, Be the Future of Suture? « News from The Johns Hopkins University

After a surgeon stitches up a patient’s abdomen, costly complications—some life-threatening—can occur. To cut down on these postoperative problems, Johns Hopkins undergraduates have invented a disposable suturing tool to guide the placement of stitches and guard against the accidental puncture of internal organs.

The student inventors have described their device, called FastStitch, as a cross between a pliers and a hole-puncher. Although the device is still in the prototype stage, the FastStitch team has already received recognition and raised more than $80,000 this year in grant and prize money to move their project forward. Among their wins were first-place finishes in University of California, Irvine, and University of Maryland business plan competitions and in the ASME International Innovation Showcase.

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Health News – University of Maryland School of Medicine Researchers Identify Gut Bacteria Associated With Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified 26 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiota that appear to be linked to obesity and related metabolic complications. These include insulin resistance, high blood sugar levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as “the metabolic syndrome,” which significantly increases an individual’s risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

The results of the study, which analyzed data from the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, PA, were published online on Aug. 15, 2012, in PLOS ONE, which is published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS). The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (UH2/UH3 DK083982, U01 GM074518 and P30 DK072488)

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Sara Nayeem, George Bell IV – Weddings – NYTimes.com

Dr. Sara Michelle Nayeem and Dr. George Wall Bell IV were married Saturday evening at River Farm in Alexandria, Va. The Rev. Michael Godzwa, an Assemblies of God minister, officiated. Enlarge This Image

Susie Soleimani Photography Dr. Nayeem, 34, works at New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm in Chevy Chase, Md., where she helps the firm invest in biopharmaceutical companies. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and received an M.B.A. from Yale, from which she also received a medical degree cum laude.

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MdBio Leadership Series with Peter Greenleaf, President of MedImmune

The state of the Life Sciences Industry

The biopharmaceutical industry has experienced major changes in the past few years with more changes expected to come. MdBio is proud to have Mr. Greenleaf provide his perspectives of the state of the global biotech industry and critical business/regulatory/government issues impacting the industry.

As Chairman of the Maryland Venture Fund Authority, Mr. Greenleaf will also discuss recent developments within the Maryland life sciences industry, including an implementation update of the InvestMaryland Program.

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MedImmune’s Greenleaf, Clovis Oncology’s Mahaffy to Deliver Keynotes at 2012 Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference – MarketWatch

The Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference today announced that two industry-leading executives will deliver keynote addresses at the nationally recognized conference taking place on September 27-28 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference in Bethesda, Md.

Patrick J. Mahaffy, president and CEO of Boulder, Colorado-based Clovis Oncology, a biopharmaceutical company, will deliver opening remarks Thursday, September 27. Peter Greenleaf, president of MedImmune, the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based global biologics arm of AstraZeneca, will speak at the Conference’s closing luncheon Friday, September 28.

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The CyberMaryland Conference – October 16-17, 2012

Join cybersecurity leaders, luminaries and rising stars at CyberMaryland 2012.

Be at the epicenter of information security and innovation during Cyber Security Awareness month when more than 1,000 people convene in Baltimore for the region’s premiere professional cybersecurity gathering.

Register today as a conference attendee, challenge participant, showcase exhibitor or awards banquet guest. CyberMaryland 2012 includes:

• CyberMaryland Conference with 28+ Sessions in Three Tracks
• Cyber Generation Showcase & Expo
• Maryland Cyber Challenge & Competition (MDC3) for High School, College & Pro Teams
• National Cyber Security Hall of Fame Inaugural Induction Ceremony & Awards Banquet

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Novak Biddle Venture Partners raising sixth fund – Washington Business Journal

Roger Novak, left, and Jack Biddle are embarking on their first fund in six years.

Bethesda-based Novak Biddle Venture Partners is setting out to raise its sixth fund, said co-founder Jack Biddle, its first such effort since the early-stage venture firm raised $227 million six years ago.

That fund will be accompanied by some big changes at the top. Two general partners, Phil Bronner and Tom Scholl, will take on reduced roles as venture partners in the next fund, according to Biddle. Bronner and Scholl, both tech brains with entrepreneurial backgrounds, were promoted to their current positions when the firm closed its fifth fund in 2006.

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More Applications; Many More Applicants NIH Extramural Nexus

We all know that NIH has seen a large increase in applications over the past decade, but how much of this is due to scientists writing more applications and how much is a result of a larger number of scientists doing biomedical research? I decided to take a closer look at this question, particularly at competing applications for investigator-initiated research project grants (RPGs), i.e., those that are not submitted in response to a specific request for applications.

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Brace Yourself: Biotech IPOs Are Beating Tech’s Big Names | Xconomy

The average American on the street has a Facebook account, an opinion about Facebook, heard about the Facebook initial public offering, and knows it collapsed. That same person doesn’t see how their life connects with biotech, probably can’t name a single biotech company, and certainly hasn’t heard of any members of the biotech IPO class of 2012.

But here’s something that might surprise both biotech insiders and the average guy or gal on the street. The biotech IPO class of 2012 has made money for investors, while tech’s most glamorous up-and-comers have been stumbling.

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Qiagen reports strong performance in second quarter

Qiagen has published its financial results for the second quarter of 2012, during which it experienced a strong increase in sales.

The company’s net sales rose by nine percent year on year to reach a total of $307.2 million (197.67 million pounds), with growth observed across all regions and customer classes.

Molecular diagnostics and applied testing product sales were noted as being particularly robust, while the firm was also able to expand through the acquisition of Cellestis, Ipsogen and AmniSure.

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5 quick tips to guard your digital health intellectual property

When you’re neck deep in starting a new business, you may not take the time to properly protect your inventions. As a result, you could see your intellectual property stolen or you could be sued for inadvertently stealing the intellectual property of others. Here are five easy tips on how to quickly develop an intellectual property strategy, specifically with respect to patents.

1) Give each team member an information disclosure form

The first key step to getting a patent is identifying ideas that are potentially novel and inventive. Discovering and understanding your employees’ inventions as early as possible will enable your patent lawyer to draft earlier applications with more accurate and comprehensive disclosures, which means stronger patents. Circulating an information disclosure form to your team will help your startup learn about technology being created internally.

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U.S. Biotech Clusters Are Losing Their Anchor Tenants, and It Hurts | Xconomy

Every industry needs its anchors, the companies that everyone looks up to as models of success. Think Apple, GE, Boeing. Biotech is no different, as it has been defined by trailblazers like Genentech, Genzyme, and more.

But if you look around, biotech is clearly losing its anchors. And this worrisome trend isn’t just happening in one or two places—it is playing out in most every regional cluster where the industry has grown up in the past 30 years.

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Guest column: Work with promise

What do I do after I graduate? That is never an easy question, but the July 19 Diamondback article, “Students struggle to find jobs after graduating with Ph.D.s in sciences,” suggests it might be even harder to figure out.

The article cited a recent survey showing 45 percent of computer, mathematical and natural sciences school graduates had accepted full-time employment after graduation. It stated, “CMNS Associate Dean Robert Infantino said job shortages coincide with the health of the economy and that the government must increase its investments in research and technology.”

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Finding the Right Business Incubator | LaunchHouse | Angel Investment & Seed Capital Fund

Did you know that the first business incubator was started in Batavia, N.Y., in 1956? Joseph Mancuso was the founder, and after seeing newly hatched chicks running around from one of his portfolio companies, he coined the business “incubator”. From there on out business incubators started gaining popularity. There are currently 1,200 in the U.S. They have caught the attention of local governments and universities interested in retaining entrepreneurial talent. An example of this is LaunchHouse’s partnership with the city of Shaker Heights.

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Nancy At Large: Celebrating BioHealth Innovation’s New Headquarters

County Executive Ike Leggett (center) and Councilmembers Nancy Floreen (second from right) and Hans Riemer (right) visited BioHealth Innovation’s Open House on July 23. BioHealth Innovation (BHI) was established as a public-private partnership to accelerate the technology transfer and commercialization of biohealth research in the Central Maryland region. At the event were BHI Chairman Scott Carmer (left) and CEO Rich Bendis (second from left).

I was happy to help celebrate the opening of the BioHealth Innovation’s new headquarters at the historic Wire Hardware Building in Rockville. BHI was established as a public-private partnership to accelerate the technology transfer and commercialization of biohealth research in Maryland, and that’s a great thing for Montgomery County. Congratulations BHI. We’re glad to have you in Rockville.

-Nancy Floreen, Montgomery County Council Member

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BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Caps Next Phase Of Development With Move To New Headquarters And Addition Of Staff – MarketWatch

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today that it has located its corporate headquarters in the historic Wire Hardware Building at 22 Baltimore Road in Rockville. BHI also announced the creation of two new staff positions filled by recent hires Ethan Byler as Director of Innovation Programs and Amanda Wilson as Operations Manager.

"Choosing the historic Wire Hardware Building as operational headquarters for BHI is symbolic of the marrying of the deep roots of this region with the untapped potential for truly inspirational advancement of the biohealth industry here, which is a primary goal of BHI," said Richard Bendis, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. President & Chief Executive Officer. "Opening our new offices in Montgomery County and welcoming our new staff are key steps to ensuring the success of BHI and demonstrate our firm commitment to Central Maryland."

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BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Moves to New HQ in Rockville

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, has located its corporate headquarters in the Wire Hardware Building at 22 Baltimore Road in Rockville.

BHI also announced the creation of two new staff positions filled by recent hires Ethan Byler as Director of Innovation Programs and Amanda Wilson as Operations Manager.

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BioHealth Innovation seeks to help Maryland companies secure more funding – Baltimore Business Journal

BioHealth Innovation Inc. is adding staff and office space to expand its operations in central Maryland.

The Rockville-based organization has created a new position, director of innovation programs, to lead the organization’s effort to help Maryland companies get a greater share of federal funding intended for near-commercialization projects. BioHealth Innovation is a public-private nonprofit organization that helps biohealth companies access funding to commercialize research and connects research outlets with the biotech industry.

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Executive Breakfast Brings Campus Companies Together

When it comes to the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus, membership truly does have its privileges. And the 26 attendees of the recent Executive Breakfast can certainly tell you a thing or two about it. Representatives from 10 of the companies housed on the campus, as well as one potential new company, gathered to provide updates on company activities and to learn more about BioHealth Innovation, Inc., from the organization’s CEO, Rich Bendis.

After a period of networking amongst the attendees, which included Dr. Theodore Abraham, Associate Dean for Research in the Capital Region, Johns Hopkins Medicine, attendees provided information about their research on campus. And each presentation made it clear that members of the community are applying their expertise to solve some of the world’s toughest problems. They are reaching across the borders of not only Maryland but the United States and the world. International activities included Open Health Systems Laboratory’s ties in India and TruBios’ work in Latin and South America.

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Congratulations to BioHealth Innovation Inc. on Its New Home

Yesterday it was a pleasure to attend the BioHealth Innovation Inc. (BHI) open house at the historic Wire Hardware Building in Rockville to celebrate the opening of the organization’s new headquarters. At the Open House, BHI President & CEO Rich Bendis welcomed guests and introduced Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett who talked about the important role of BHI and this industry – not just for the county, but for the entire state of Maryland.

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Richard Bendis of BHI interviewed at BIO International Convention

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GlaxoSmithKline to buy Human Genome Sciences for $14.25 per share – Washington Business Journal

Rockville-based Human Genome Sciences Inc., which rejected a $13-per-share takeover offer from GlaxoSmithKline PLC as too low, has accepted a $14.25 per share offer from its lupus drug development partner. The handshake brings to a close a monthslong, sometimes tense struggle for control of the company.

Glaxo announced Monday that Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ: HGSI) had agreed to its offer to acquire the company in a $3.6 billion squirt transaction that values Human Genome at $3 billion net of cash and debt.

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MedImmune to close Santa Clara and Mountain View sites, but will keep Hayward open as it cuts 200 jobs – San Jose Mercury News

MedImmune will chop 200 jobs and close its Mountain View and Santa Clara locations, but will beef up its Hayward site, the provider of vaccines said.

The changes are part of a wrenching restructuring of the MedImmune infectious disease and vaccines research and development operations.

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Noble Partners with BioFactura to Offer Cell Line Development and Preclinical Protein Production Services

Noble Life Sciences, Inc., a preclinical drug development contract research organization (CRO), announced a partnership with BioFactura, Inc. (Rockville, MD), a developer and provider of proprietary technologies and services for production of biologicals.

The collaboration expands Noble’s CRO services to include the development and production of monoclonal antibody and other protein-based drugs. Through the partnership, Noble becomes the exclusive commercial contract services provider of BioFactura’s technologies and capabilities.

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New Enterprise Associates closes 14th fund at $2.6 billion, amid shift in leadership – Washington Business Journal

Chevy Chase-based New Enterprise Associates has closed on what appears to be the largest venture fund in history at $2.6 billion, the firm announced Wednesday.

NEA’s 14th fund gives the VC titan a fresh pool of capital to inject into tech companies along a wide array of stages, sectors and geographies, and comes two and a half years after the firm closed on a thirteenth fund that was only slightly less mammoth. NEA is among the most prolific startup funders in the D.C. region, both in biotech and information technology.

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QIAGEN Reports Second Quarter 2012 Results, Raises Full-Year Outlook and Announces Share Repurchase Program – MarketWatch

QIAGEN N.V. announced results of operations for the second quarter and first half of 2012, delivering a solid performance and making significant progress on strategic initiatives to drive innovation and growth. QIAGEN also raised the outlook for full-year net sales and adjusted EPS targets and announced a program to repurchase up to $100 million of its shares.

In the second quarter of 2012, net sales grew 9% (+14% at constant exchange rates, or CER) to $307.2 million from the same period in 2011, as all customer classes, particularly Molecular Diagnostics and Applied Testing, and all regions recorded growth. Adjusted operating income rose 10% to $86.4 million, as the adjusted operating income margin was steady at 28% of net sales. Adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) grew to $0.25 from $0.23 in the 2011 quarter.

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Baltimore biotechs seek staff

If you’ve recently asked yourself, or someone standing next to you, “Where are all the biotech jobs?” it’s a good thing you’re reading this now.

While surveying for our latest annual Top 25 List of biotechnology companies in the Baltimore area, I asked each company whether they’re hiring any time soon, and all of these below said yes:

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Undergrads Invent Cell Phone Screener to Combat Anemia in Developing World

Could a low-cost screening device connected to a cell phone save thousands of women and children from anemia-related deaths and disabilities?

That’s the goal of Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering undergraduates who’ve developed a noninvasive way to identify women with this dangerous blood disorder in developing nations. The device, HemoGlobe, is designed to convert the existing cell phones of health workers into a “prick-free” system for detecting and reporting anemia at the community level.

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Venture capital falls off its own fiscal cliff in Maryland

Venture capital investment in Maryland companies in the second quarter plummeted to its lowest level in almost 16 years, according to a new report.

In eight deals, investors pumped $25.5 million into state businesses during the quarter. It was the first time such investments have fallen below $30 million since the fourth quarter of 1996, when eight deals totaling $16 million were made, according to the new MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.

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Baltimore’s first accelerator class ready to graduate; one company heads to San Francisco

How time flies.

Just last year, many of us in the Baltimore technology community were talking about whether our city needed an accelerator program. The Emerging Technology Center, with the help of the Abell Foundation, stepped up and provided one.

The first class of four companies graduate tomorrow. And one of the graduates, NoBadGift.com, is moving out to San Francisco for three months to be a part of the NewMe accelerator program. Great news for that team of three entrepreneurs.

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How a "Serious Game" Could Transform Bioscience Education

Admit it. You enjoy working in science, but weren’t always captivated by how it was taught. You aren’t alone. Studies show that when students lose interest in science coursework the problem is often how science is taught – not science itself. Teachers lack the interesting curriculum and adequate support needed to provide engaging and intriguing coursework. The lack of interest among science students leaves them disinterested, bored, and unprepared to meet the challenges of a technology-driven future.

These findings have real-world consequences. Despite the heroic efforts of talented U.S. science teachers, many of our brightest young students migrate away from the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career paths that could power America’s 21st century competitiveness.

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BCCC wins $600,000 grant to prepare students for STEM careers – Baltimore Business Journal

Baltimore City Community College has won nearly $600,000 in federal funding to recruit and prepare minority students for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

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Scheer, JBG resurrect $100M real estate fund – Washington Business Journal

Scheer Partners Inc. and The JBG Cos. are reviving a $100 million real estate fund they established in 2008 to invest in life science properties.

Rockville-based Scheer, a broker for biotech and medical real estate, and the Chevy Chase developer had set up the Greater Washington Life Sciences Fund just as the recession kicked into gear. After buying one 53,000-square-foot property at 21 Firstfield Road in Gaithersburg, the partnership essentially went into hibernation.

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5 Best (and Worst) Places in the U.S. To Find a Tech Job

Technology job openings surged by 8.2% in June, according to job-search site SimplyHired, but some places remain better than others if you’re looking for a tech job. The site’s top and bottom five contain a few surprises.

SimplyHired bases its ranking on the number of tech job openings compared to the number of people who are working in the region. The numbers below are based on metropolitan areas as defined by the U.S. census bureau.

1. Baltimore, Maryland (46,150 people employed, 14,093 tech job openings): Hunter Sherman, the chief engineer at Sparks, Maryland-based BizBrag, Inc., said the company is struggling to find qualified people to fill its jobs. As a result, BizBrag is planning to move. “A big part of our issue is that we’re just north of the city, and a majority of the engineers are located to the south, closer to the D.C. area,” Sherman said. “This is one of the major reasons that we plan on moving our business into the city in the coming months.”

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The University of Maryland goes smoke-free – Washington DC College admissions

This week, the University System of Maryland (USM) announced that smoking would no longer be permitted on any of the 12 USM campuses, including the flagship University of Maryland at College Park.

The policy, which will take effect on June 30, 2013, prohibits smoking on campus grounds, outdoor structures, and in school vehicles. Each university president, however, will be able to designate a “very limited area” where smoking may occur without interfering with the health of others.

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Patent Docs: Grants for Funding University Technology Transfer Introduced in Congress

Companion bills were introduced in Congress on April 25th of this year with little fanfare (particularly in comparison to the Leahy-Smith American Invents Act) but they have the potential to provide significant funding for university-related start-up companies.  The bills, H.R. 4720 and S. 2369, are entitled the "America Innovates Act of 2012" and are sponsored by Reps. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Timothy Bishop (D-NY) in the House of Representatives and Sens. Frank Lautenberg, Jerrod Brown (D-OH), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in the Senate.  They have been referred to their respective committees (the House Sub-Committee on Technology and Innovation and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation), but to be frank it is unlikely that they will receive positive action in this election year.

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SBIR rules could open R&D funds to foreign-owned companies

Proposed rules for the Small Business Innovation Research program could allow foreign-owned companies to compete for these federal R&D awards, according to the Small Business Technology Council.

“This change has the potential of sending hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to businesses overseas,” SBTC Executive Director Jere Glover wrote in letters to Congress and President Barack Obama. “Products developed and manufactured by foreign firms with U.S. tax dollars are likely to benefit their own countries, to the detriment of American businesses.”

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Humana Sponsors Blueprint Health Accelerator Program

Humana Inc. continues its commitment to innovation, health and well-being by partnering with Blueprint Health and working together to spark change and make a meaningful impact on the health care community.

As the exclusive health insurance platinum sponsor of the summer 2012 Blueprint Health Accelerator, Humana will work closely with program participants and other health care entrepreneurs, investors, executives and innovators that serve as mentors to the community. Blueprint Health kicked off its summer session on July 16; the intensive program provides seed capital, office space, and most critically, access to a broad range of mentors with deep healthcare, start-up and technology experience.

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Johns Hopkins joins venture to offer free online courses – Baltimore Business Journal

Johns Hopkins University and 11 other universities are teaming up with a for-profit company founded by two Stanford University computer science professors to offer free Internet courses worldwide, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The schools joined four others already working with Coursera, a for-profit education technology company, which will offer over 100 online courses beginning this fall, the WSJ reported.

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Maryland receives 125 applications for $8M in biotech tax credits – Washington Business Journal

Maryland received more than 125 applications on Monday for $8 million available through the state’s popular biotechnology tax credit program.

The online registration for the fiscal year 2013 credits was rescheduled from July 2 due to mass power outages in the state.

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QIAGEN Achieves Personalized Healthcare Milestone with U.S. Approval of Companion Diagnostic for Colorectal Cancer – MarketWatch

U.S. launch of therascreen® KRAS RGQ PCR Kit offers enhanced approach to guide treatments for approximately 110,000 patients annually in U.S. with colorectal cancer.

First FDA approval of a QIAGEN companion diagnostic marks a milestone in its global expansion of rapidly growing Personalized Healthcare business.

Important cancer assay adds valuable content for an expanding QIAGEN automation platform QIAGEN N.V. today announced it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market the therascreen® KRAS RGQ PCR Kit (therascreen KRAS test) to provide guidance on the use of Erbitux® (cetuximab) as a treatment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

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Maryland Venture Fund names Thomas Dann as head – Washington Business Journal

Maryland has named a longtime venture capitalist to head its program for investing in startups and early-stage companies.

Thomas Dann, founder and managing director at CastleHaven Advisors LLC, a D.C. private-equity firm, was named managing director of the Maryland Venture Fund.

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University of Maryland Leadership Shows as State Named #1 in Entrepreneurship and Innovation :: University Communications Newsdesk, University of Maryland

A new U.S. Chamber of Commerce report names Maryland the #1 state in the nation for entrepreneurship and innovation. The annual report on 2012 Enterprising States, also ranked Maryland #1 in academic research and development and #3 in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs and in the concentration of high-tech business locations.

"We are very pleased to see the State of Maryland receive this distinction," said University of Maryland Vice President for Research and Chief Research Officer Dr. Patrick O’Shea. "This national recognition reflects the efforts of the Governor and General Assembly to promote innovation across the state, the tireless work of the state’s successful businesses and entrepreneurs, as well as the University of Maryland’s dedication to creating a culture of entrepreneurship among our faculty, students and alumni."

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Human Genome Science looks to expand biotech sales jobs with new anthrax treatment

As more drug manufacturers fight for a share of the market, those with biotech sales jobs understand that their companies’ success lies in its ability to develop innovative new products. Now, Maryland-based Human Genome Sciences has announced its breakthrough treatment for inhalational anthrax is one step closer to commercialization.

The company said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has acknowledged receipt of its resubmission of the Biologics License Application (BLA) for raxibacumab, a human monoclonal antibody that differs from other treatments because it targets anthrax toxins after they are released by bacteria into the blood and tissues of the body.

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Human Genome Sciences Announces Resubmission of Raxibacumab BLA to FDA

Human Genome Sciences, Inc. announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has acknowledged receipt of the resubmission of the Biologics License Application (BLA) for raxibacumab, a treatment for inhalational anthrax, and has established December 15, 2012 as the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) action date.

The FDA has deemed the resubmission a complete, class 2 response to its November 14, 2009 complete response letter, which requested further analyses of existing data as well as additional information.

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Maryland biotech investment program sees dip from last year

Fewer prospective investors applied for a share of Maryland’s $8 million in biotechnology investment tax credits Monday morning than a year ago, state officials reported.

Last year, the state received more than 180 applications from likely investors in qualifying Maryland biotechs within the first three minutes of the program’s annual online launch. On Monday, the state reported more than 125 registrations, which actually are made by the respective biotechs, between 9 a.m. and noon — more than the 115 applications received on the first day in 2010 but fewer than in 2011.

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New Johns Hopkins center to focus on broad use of health IT tools – FierceHealthIT

Johns Hopkins University is creating a new center to help public health agencies and accountable provider or payer groups better take advantage of health IT technologies.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Population Health IT, or CPHIT, is intended to broaden the focus of health IT systems including electronic health records and e-health beyond clinicians treating individual patients, says Jonathan Weiner, director of the new center. The idea is to "harness these health IT systems to create solutions for the many population health issues facing our nation," he says in a July 11 announcement.

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Johns Hopkins Community helps scientists – Wes Blakeslee – Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer – YouTube

What kind of community does Johns Hopkins offer for a scientist?

An excerpt of an interview in November of 2011, with Wes Blakeslee, Executive Director of Johns Hopkins Tech Transfer. In this segment, Wes talks about the unique environment that Johns Hopkins offers. Have lunch with a Nobel Prize winner. Be with the best of the best.

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Wesley Blakeslee from Johns Hopkins University Tech. Transfer, “The Business Concierge to Johns Hopkins University” Video Interview at BioMaryland Booth at BIO International 2012 | Stock News Now

The Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer Office (JHTT) is the University’s intellectual property administration center, serving Johns Hopkins researchers and inventors as a licensing, patent, and technology commercialization office and acting as an active liaison to parties interested in leveraging JHU research or materials for academic or corporate endeavors. SNNLive spoke with Wesley Blakeslee, Executive Director of Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer Office at the BioMaryland booth at the BIO International Convention 2012 in Boston, MA.

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M&T tops in small business lending in Baltimore area – Baltimore Business Journal

Looking for a small-business loan? Then you might want to check out a new report from the U.S. Small Business Administration about which lenders have been the most active in the Baltimore area in the past nine months.

SBA’s Baltimore regional office found that M&T Bank was the biggest lender under SBA’s flagship 7(a) loans program for the period from Oct. 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. That’s no surprise, since M&T, the second-largest bank in Greater Baltimore, has been the leading lender in the region for the past several years under the program. M&T wrote 157 loans totaling more than $17 million during the nine-month period under the 7(a) program, which guarantees loans for working capital, inventory and equipment.

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United snags Glaxo buildings as it completes expansion – FiercePharma Manufacturing

Even as it completes an expansion in North Carolina, United Therapeutics is picking up for future use three buildings and a large parcel of land left idle by GlaxoSmithKline.

"We haven’t finalized our plans for the properties acquired from GSK," Andrew Fisher, chief strategy officer and deputy general counsel, says in an email to FiercePharmaManufacturing.

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HHS Innovation Fellows Program

HHS has begun exploring ways to bring entrepreneurial spirit to provide fresh, innovative approaches to agencies. HHS already has the strong assets and the leadership to create and develop new products; The Innovation Fellows Program aims to bring external ideas and expertise into HHS’s own innovation process and rapidly create, develop, engage and accelerate innovation.

Startup organizations have demonstrated that rapid iteration between various versions or features of a product can yield successful results: HHS would like to boost innovation by working with external expertise to create a culture that encourages risk taking and dynamic new models of business.

Download Flyer

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Obama Signs FDA Bill | The Scientist

President Barack Obama signed the US Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (S. 3187) into law, reauthorizing user fees that the FDA charges pharmaceutical and device manufacturers as they gain approval for their products.

The law also establishes a new user fee program—raised as part of Obama’s newly-legitimized health care legislation—that will require companies making generic versions of protein-based drugs, or biologics, called biosimilars, to pay upon approval of their generic products. The newly signed law also makes several changes to FDA policy meant to speed the approval process for drugs and devices, enacts changes aimed to increase the safety of the drug supply chain, and incentivizes the development of new antibiotics.

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MedStartr Offers Crowdfunding for Health IT Firms, Including Itself | Xconomy

A couple years ago, when Alex Fair was tossing around ideas on how to raise money for his new healthcare marketplace, FairCareMD, he knew that putting the startup on the uber-popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter would be out of the question. Kickstarter has collected $250 million for 24,000 projects since it was founded three years ago, but virtually none of that has gone to health-related companies. “I said, ‘Hey, there’s an opportunity here,’” Fair says. “No one’s really doing health care crowdfunding.”

Enter MedStartr, Fair’s New York-based site that’s making its debut today. MedStartr allows entrepreneurs to find backers for healthcare technologies and services. The site, which Fair says ran a brief alpha test starting in April, is launching with six projects, including MedStartr itself. During that early project, which was designed to test the concept, Fair was surprised to find MedStartr was able to raise enough capital to run the company. “Of the 71 people we invited to view the alpha, six invested,” he says. It’s a sign, he believes, that “crowdfunding has hit the public consciousness.”

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Early stage fundraising by venture firms doubles, health IT companies likely to benefit

Venture capital fundraising for early stage funds doubled in the first half of the year to $3 billion compared with the same period last year, according to a report by Dow Jones.

Among the firms that have raised funds were Felicis Ventures, a well-respected early stage investment group with a new $70 million fund targeting bioinformatics, and other sectors.

Healthcare IT companies are likely to benefit from the increase as healthcare facilities shift to electronic medical records.

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Statement from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the signing of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act

Today, the President signed into law S. 3187, the “Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act.”  This legislation, which passed both the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, will help speed safe and effective medical products to patients and maintain our Nation’s role as a leader in biomedical innovation.

S. 3187 is the culmination of the work of the administration and Congress, in partnership with patients, the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, the clinical community, and other stakeholders, to provide the Food and Drug Administration with the tools needed to continue to bring drugs and devices to market safely and quickly and promote innovation in the biomedical industry, and to help secure the jobs supported by drug and device development.

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From Bench to Bunker – The Chronicle Review

In a small, anonymous office in the Trump Tower, 28 floors above Wall Street, a man sits in front of a computer screen sifting through satellite images of a foreign desert. The images depict a vast, sandy emptiness, marked every so often by dunes and hills. He is searching for man-made structures: houses, compounds, airfields, any sign of civilization that might be visible from the sky. The images flash at a rate of 20 per second, so fast that before he can truly perceive the details of each landscape, it is gone. He pushes no buttons, takes no notes. His performance is near perfect.

Or rather, his brain’s performance is near perfect. The man has a machine strapped to his head, an array of electrodes called an electroencephalogram, or EEG, which is recording his brain activity as each image skips by. It then sends the brain-activity data wirelessly to a large computer. The computer has learned what the man’s brain activity looks like when he sees one of the visual targets, and, based on that information, it quickly reshuffles the images. When the man sorts back through the hundreds of images—most without structures, but some with—almost all the ones with buildings in them pop to the front of the pack. His brain and the computer have done good work.

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“Maryland, Paris Medicen to Partner on Disease Research and Translational Medicine” Video Interview at BIO International Convention 2012 | Stock News Now

SNNLive had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Judith Britz, Executive Director of Maryland Biotechnology Center and Francois Chevillard, CEO of the Medicen Paris Region to announce the two organizations’ Memorandum of Understanding at the BIO International Convention 2012 in Boston, MA.

The Maryland Biotechnology Center is an organization within the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) that consolidates and coordinates a host of state, university and private sector initiatives to better showcase and support biotechnology innovation and entrepreneurship in Maryland. The Medicen Paris Region facilitates the transfer of innovation to industry, the market and patients in human healthcare sectors.

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Venture Debt: Under-Appreciated Tool for Building Biotechs – Forbes

Cash-burning R&D-stage biotechs have big appetites for cash, which is typically addressed with an equity-based diet.  It’s also supported through corporate partnerships and other less dilutive means such as grants and foundation funding.  But another important and often under-appreciated source of capital are the debt markets – taking a loan out to provide working capital for further R&D.

One might ask why and how a company that won’t have profits for a decade can raise any money through the issuance of debt, but it happens frequently, and the “venture lending” business is actually very robust.  Players like Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Oxford Finance, Hercules Technology Growth Capital, and Horizon Technology Finance (and many others) are all very active supporters of emerging life science companies.

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East Coast accelerator DreamIt Ventures moving into healthcare IT

Healthcare IT has become a new priority for East Coast accelerator DreamIt Ventures with the hire of a veteran angel investor group director.

Karen Griffith Gryga recently joined the accelerator’s Philadelphia office. Earlier this year it added a minority-led business component and started a program to work with startups based in Israel.

She has worked as executive director of Mid-Atlantic Angel Group, which has invested in life science and technology companies.

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Mass Life Sciences Center launches new accelerator – Mass High Tech Business News

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ quasi-public agency, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, has opened its 2012-2013 Accelerator Loan Program, the agency announced Monday.

MLSC launched the program in 2009 as a way to help startup businesses who need working capital or funding to pay for capital assets. A loan of up to $1 million per company is provided, an increase from the maximum amount of $750,000 offered in the past. The decision to increase the amount available was made during a June meeting of the board of directors, according to Angus McQuilken, vice president of communications at the MLSC. Companies still will only be able to borrow a dollar-for-dollar match, he said.

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BIO Report on University and Non-Profit Inventions

On June 21 the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which represents biotechnology companies, issued a report on the economic impact of patent licensing from universities and non-profit institutions (PDF), analyzing data from 1996 to 2010 gathered by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). The data show that patent licensing resulting from federally-funded research at universities and non-profits resulted in contributions to GDP somewhere between $86 billion and $388 billion in 2005 U.S. dollars, and between 900,000 to 3,000,000 person-years of employment in that period.

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Gates Foundation, pharma cos to spur TB care | Deccan Chronicle

Seven pharmaceutical companies and four research institutions, working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have launched a groundbreaking partnership, to expedite the discovery of new treatments for tuberculosis. The partnership, known as the TB Drug Accelerator (TBDA), will target the discovery of new TB drugs by collaborating on an early-stage research. The long-term goal of the TBDA is to create a drug regimen that cures patients in just one month. Existing drugs, which are all at least 50 years old, require six months to cure the disease — a lengthy process, during which at least 20 to 30 per cent of patients end up discontinuing the treatment before the completion of the course.

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Who’s Still Active Among the Early-Stage Biotech VCs? | Xconomy

Imagine for a moment you’re a hotshot biomedical scientist at a university. You have invented a technology in your lab that you think has potential to make a big difference for the world of medicine. Despite all the accolades you might be getting in Nature, you are savvy enough to know you still have a pretty raw concept. Your idea needs someone who can build a business around it, and invest a lot of time, money, and talent to prove it’s the real thing.

Who would you call?

There aren’t that many people who you can call anymore, and the number is shrinking. This question has been gnawing at me for a while, as I’ve sought to understand the historic contraction that’s occurring in the biotech venture capital business, and what effect it will have on the biotech industry’s ability to turn bright ideas into valuable new healthcare products.

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Md. launches a venture capital initiative | WashingtonExaminer.com

Maryland’s secretary for business and economic development rallied Lower Shore leaders behind a state venture capital initiative that seeks to invest millions of dollars into companies and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas.

The state is poised to award a total of $84 million raised through an online tax credit auction earlier this year, but Lower Shore companies that don’t apply cannot benefit from the infusion known as InvestMaryland, Christian S. Johansson, secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, told leaders gathered in Salisbury on Monday to unveil the new facility of the Tri-County Council for the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland.

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Annual Postdoc Conference & Career Fair – Postdoc Conference and Career Fair

July 12, 2012 – Bethesda North Marriott/Montgomery County Conference Center

A conference and career fair for current postdoctoral fellows working in Washington, D.C. area federal labs and universities, and for companies recruiting high-level S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) professionals.

This event exposes area postdoctoral fellows in the S.T.E.M. fields to the many career options (e.g., government, private sector, entrepreneurship) that are available to them.

The career fair portion connects local job-seeking postdocs with companies seeking that level of talent.

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HHS Innovation Fellows Program

HHS has begun exploring ways to bring entrepreneurial spirit to provide fresh, innovative approaches to agencies. HHS already has the strong assets and the leadership to create and develop new products; The Innovation Fellows Program aims to bring external ideas and expertise into HHS’s own innovation process and rapidly create, develop, engage and accelerate innovation.

Startup organizations have demonstrated that rapid iteration between various versions or features of a product can yield successful results: HHS would like to boost innovation by working with external expertise to create a culture that encourages risk taking and dynamic new models of business.

Download Flyer

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Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore Inks Business Partnership with BioHealth Innovation to Bring Health and Life Sciences Research to Market – MarketWatch

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore (EAGB) announced today that it has completed a formal agreement to serve as Greater Baltimore’s primary business partner with BioHealth Innovation (BHI), Maryland’s private-public collaborative that focuses on commercializing market-relevant bio health innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in central Maryland.

BHI is the first regionally focused innovation intermediary created to connect the university and hospital bio health research strengths of Baltimore with the bioscience industry and federal laboratory strengths of Montgomery County.

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Bendis brings entrepreneurial bent to Maryland’s bioscience sector

Innovation and creation are at the heart of the biotech industry and close to the heart of international business development consultant Richard A. Bendis.

Bendis, 65, has devoted almost 40 years to helping enterprises grow, in both the public and private sector.

Most recently, Bendis was named CEO of the new regional effort to foster commercialization of federal and university laboratory innovations and increase access to early-stage funding for biotechs. BioHealth Innovation of Rockville is a nonprofit private-public partnership that leverages the resources of several biotechs and research institutions, including the University System of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University, in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., region.

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THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY AND FRAUNHOFER HEINRICH HERTZ INSTITUTE SIGN MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

The Johns Hopkins University (JHU), America’s first research university, in Baltimore, Md., USA, and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), a mobile and information technology development leader based in Berlin, Germany, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly research the innovative medical applications of integrated optical sensors: small, highly sensitive devices with disease-recognition capabilities.

Under the terms of this agreement — signed on June 19 at the 2012 BIO International Convention in Boston, Mass., USA — the two entities will study how the technology developed by HHI can be used in the detection, diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers with clinical expertise in a variety of specialty areas, including oncology and infectious diseases, will collaborate with HHI’s scientists and engineers.

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UMB BioPark signs Biogen Diagnostics, Global Scientific as tenants – Baltimore Business Journal

Two new companies are moving in to the University of Maryland    BioPark, university officials said Tuesday.

Biogen Diagnostics Ltd., based in the United Kingdom, has opened a satellite office at the BioPark. Global Scientific Solutions for Health Inc., a new laboratory testing company that operates in southeast Asia and Africa, has set up its headquarters there.

The 12-acre west side BioPark houses life sciences companies that work with University of Maryland researchers. BioPark leaders said they want to attract international companies to broaden the reach of the university’s research and the BioPark’s development beyond the Baltimore region.

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Montgomery County biotech initiatives, companies shine at BIO 2012

As you may know, the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development (MCDED) led the County’s participation at the 2012 BIO International Convention held June 18-21 in Boston, MA.

Our team of business development professionals participated in dozens of business partnering forum meetings with national and international biotech companies during the course of the Convention.  On June 19,  MCDED held a press conference from the floor of the BIOMaryland Pavilion, kicked off by Human Genome Sciences CEO and Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Board Chairman Tom Watkins and Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett.  The press conference highlighted the success of the County’s biotech investment incentive program – the nation’s ONLY such local program which helped spur more than $6 million in investments to 10 County-based biotech companies in 2011 –  and the creation of the County-inspired, regional biotech intermediary BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI).  BHI is chaired by Scott Carmer, Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations, MedImmune and sponsored by Human Genome Sciences and several other local private-sector companies and academic institutions.  The press conference also featured a panel, moderated by MedImmune CEO Peter Greenleaf, of County-based, serial biotech entrepreneurs discussing why and how they started companies in Montgomery County.

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Maryland reaches for spotlight at Biotechnology Industry Organization convention

Maryland’s biotechs continued to leave their mark on the industry at this week’s global convention in Boston, with several executives claiming prominent board positions and a new report showing the state outpacing national growth in life science employment.

More than 15,000 executives and others were expected at this year’s Biotechnology Industry Organization International Convention, which started Monday and ended Thursday. More than 31 state companies sought the world’s attention at the Bio Maryland 2012 pavillion, which the state also had at last year’s convention in Washington, D.C.

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Maryland forms biotech partnership with Paris – Baltimore Business Journal

Maryland’s economic development office has formed a partnership with a Paris region to team on disease research and translational medicine.

The letter of intent for the partnership was signed Wednesday at the Bio 2012 International Convention in Boston by Christian Johansson, secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, and Paris Medicen Del. Gen. Francois Chevillard. The Paris Medicen region is considered a life sciences hub in France’s capital city.

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Emergent BioSolutions to develop HHS innovation center – Washington Business Journal

Rockville-based Emergent BioSolutions Inc.    has formed a public-private partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing.

The contract has an initial run of eight years worth $220 million with up to 17 additional one-year options. The partnership, with HHS’s Biomedial Advanced Research and Development Authority, will initially develop a new pandemic influenza vaccine and construct facilities to produce it.

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United Therapeutics Announces Additional $100 Million Share Repurchase Program

United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ: UTHR) today announced  that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $100 million of the company’s common stock.  This program will become effective on July 31, 2012, and will remain open for up to one year.  Purchases may be made in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions from time to time as determined by United Therapeutics’ management and in accordance with the requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company also announced that it had recently completed its previously-announced $300 million repurchase program by purchasing 2,045,192 shares of common stock for $88 million during the second quarter of 2012.

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QIAGEN Unveils Initiative to Create Next-Generation Sequencing Portfolio for use in Clinical Research and Molecular Diagnostics – MarketWatch

Aim to expand next-generation sequencing beyond current focus on life sciences research.

QIAGEN plans to offer sample-to-result workflows that integrate its sample preparation and assay products with a next-generation benchtop sequencer and new bioinformatics

Initiative combines broad range of QIAGEN products with acquisition of sequencing specialist Intelligent Bio-Systems, Inc. and a new strategic collaboration with SAP AG QIAGEN N.V. QGEN today unveiled an advanced initiative to enter the field of next-generation sequencing (NGS) that aims to establish these technologies as routine processes used in new areas such as clinical research and molecular diagnostics.

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MEDIMMUNE MANUFACTURING FACILITY RECOGNIZED AS 2011 FACILITY OF THE YEAR IN PHARMACEUTICAL ENGINEERING « MedImmune Social Media Press Room

MedImmune, the global biologics arm of AstraZeneca, today announced that the company’s expansion project at its Frederick, Md., Manufacturing Center (FMC) won the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering’s overall 2011 Facility of the Year Award.  This is the first time MedImmune has won this prestigious internationally renowned accolade.    

The annual Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA), sponsored by the ISPE, INTERPHEX and Pharmaceutical Processing magazine, recognizes state-of-the-art projects utilizing new, innovative technologies to improve the quality of products, reduce the cost of producing high-quality medicines, and demonstrate advances in project delivery.

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Human Genome Sciences sets acquisition deadline – Pharmaceutical Technology

US biotechnology firm Human Genome Sciences (HGS) has set a deadline of 16 July 2012 for offers to acquire the company, but has failed to tempt GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) into the process.

HGS has undertaken the strategic alternative review to sound out potential buyers who now have until the deadline to submit definitive proposals to purchase all outstanding common shares in the company.

The company adopted the strategy immediately after GSK made its offer to acquire HGS, valuing the company at $2.6bn.

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Academics, entrepreneurs represent Md. at BIO MDBIZNews

Each year, the University of Maryland business development team looks forward to spending three days in early summer at arguably the most significant annual event for the life sciences industry: the BIO International Convention. Held this year in Boston, the convention brings together industry executives with corporate and academic scientists in an ideal forum for networking and marketing within the biotech industry.

The audience is ideal for the work of the university, the BioPark and the state. One of our primary objectives as attendees and exhibitors is to market the pipeline of UM bioscience technologies available for licensing. Over the course of the convention, one-on-one partnering sessions will allow our tech transfer team to conduct as many as 20 key meetings to market therapeutics; vaccines; drug targets in oncology, neurodegenerative disorders, autoimmune disorders, infectious disease; and devices. We’ll also engage with existing bioscience and pharma partners to promote and expand funding of research and clinical trial contracts with UM’s bioscience faculty and clinicians. Our final focus will be marketing the BioPark as an ideal location for bioscience companies and promoting the Park’s existing base of nearly two dozen bioscience companies. Several existing tenant companies, including Paragon Biosciences, SNBL, Vigilant Bioservices, Gliknik and Ablitech will join us at the show.

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JHU Center for Biotechnology Education Hosts Inaugural Bioentrepreneurship Education Conference

The Johns Hopkins Center for Biotechnology Education (CBE) welcomed more than 20 academicians onto campus last weekend for the 1st Annual International Bioentrepreneurship Education Conference (BEC). During the one-day event, bioentrepreneurship education leaders from as far away as South Africa, South Wales, Sweden and Denmark – as well as a number of stateside leaders – met to share information and assess where bioentrepreneurship education currently stands.

One of the biggest takeaways: Similar to entrepreneurs, academic leaders are concerned about funding resources. In the case of academia, the concern was identifying resources that can help support these exciting, and in many cases, new programs.

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University of Baltimore gets $1M gift from Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons – Baltimore Business Journal

University of Baltimore is getting a new digital communication program, courtesy of a $1 million donation from Go Daddy founder and UB alum Bob Parsons.

The gift will establish a new professorship in digital communication and support on-campus and online lectures by Parsons.

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Startup Maryland to host biz plan competition MDBIZNews

The entrepreneur support and advocacy group founded this spring will crisscross the state on a two-and-a-half-week bus tour in September. The trip starts Sept. 11 with a trek to Ocean City and is scheduled to wrap up Sept. 28 in Howard County after canvassing the rest of the state.

At stops along the way, Startup Maryland will roll out the first round of its business pitch competition. Organizers said they are still working out how much prize money will be distributed and how it will be divvied up.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine Awarded $19.9M Innovation Grant from CMS for its J-CHiP Program

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Health System (together known as Johns Hopkins Medicine, or JHM), has been awarded a $19.9 million grant by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), over a three-year period, to improve the quality and efficiency of health care delivered to JHM patients.

The grant is part of CMS’s $1 billion Healthcare Innovation Challenge, a competitive initiative that seeks to identify and support innovative opportunities to improve care delivery and achieve its three-part aim of “improving the individual experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita costs of care for populations.”

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New video game from MdBio targets biotech’s next-generation work force

Trying to meet the future work force where it is, some Maryland biotech executives are backing a unique strategy to help market an educational video game to students.

A version of one game, developed by Hunt Valley gaming company BreakAway Ltd., is being previewed at the annual Biotechnology Industry Organization International Convention this week in Boston. The MdBio Foundation, an affiliate of the Tech Council of Maryland, will offer the game to science teachers free of charge beginning next year, with help from financial partners.

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MedStartr Thinks Crowdfunding Will Work For Med-Tech – Venture Capital Dispatch – WSJ

Crowdfunding—the new, hip way to raise money for early-stage technologies and interesting projects—has found a happy home in the world of high-tech, where many people are eager to experiment with new models and new approaches.

But can the same model work for the much stodgier health-care industry?

The founders of MedStartr, a crowdfunding platform for medical technologies, say that it will. On the 4th of July, the site will go live, with dozens of health-related technologies and services looking for benefactors.

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Pharma Seeks a Drug Discovery Fix  – Technology Review

The drug discovery business is going through tough times. Drug candidates aren’t moving through the pharmaceutical industry’s pipelines fast enough. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs struggle to get the funding they need to bring their new ideas to fruition. These issues are driving new alliances and partnerships between academic researchers, venture capitalists, and big pharma, but whether the new models will solve the problem was a question on the minds of many of the 15,000 attendees at this week’s BIO International Convention in Boston.

The themes are familiar: venture capitalists are limiting their investments in biotech, in part because it’s hard for fledgling life-science companies to go public, and although big pharma is desperate for innovative ideas and depends heavily on small biotechs for new drug candidates, these larger companies don’t want to take on risky, early-stage projects. The new alliances, some of which involve direct collaborations between pharmaceutical companies and academics, are a response to what one panelist called this "crisis."

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Where digital deals are done: A list of digital health investments by state

At least 68 “big” deals — investments of at least $2 million — have been done in digital health so far in 2012, according to a new report by the healthcare accelerator Rock Health. Nineteen states were in on the action.

Not so surprising, California lead the way in both the number of deals done and the overall investment. And traditional healthcare investing strongholds like Massachusetts were among those that did the most deals. But there were lesser known regions involved as well that invested significant dollars and did a notable number of deals, namely Texas, Illinois, Georgia and Connecticut.

Here’s a list of every region that did digital health deals so far this year.

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These are the 5 biggest digital health investments in 2012 (so far)

At least 68 digital health companies have raised $2 million or more so far this year for a total of $675 million in digital health investments, according to a new report by healthcare accelerator Rock Health.

Look closer, though. Five companies accounted for nearly 40 percent of those total dollars.

It’s clear that patient shopping tools and home health technologies are where the big bets are going. Here’s the breakdown of the Big 5 deals.

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Submitting an SBIR/STTR to NIH? Find the Right “House” | BBC’s Blog

If you are planning to submit an SBIR/STTR proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before the August 5 deadline, one of your first considerations should be which of its many Institutes/Centers (IC) will be a fit for your project.

The NIH is an umbrella organization with 27 Institutes/Centers within its purview. Even though you submit a single SBIR/STTR application to NIH, your application is typically “housed” in one of the ICs after funding decisions are made. The program managers at each of the ICs are able to provide some feedback on the fit between your SBIR/STTR project and the IC. So here are two BBC tips to get you started.

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Industry Experts Recruited to Grow Bioscience Companies in St. Louis

Four new Entrepreneurs In Residence (EIRs) have joined the BioGenerator, a nonprofit subsidiary of BioSTL, to create, lead, and support new bioscience companies St. Louis. The EIRs will work with existing start-up companies across the region to further their growth and with researchers and entrepreneurs to launch new enterprises.

In just the last two years, BioGenerator’s new programs for pre-seed funding (Spark Fund and i6 Project) and shared laboratory facilities (Accelerator Labs), along with its historical seed funding program, have supported the creation of 17 new bioscience companies in St. Louis, validating the rich supply of bioscience innovation locally. These new EIRs will help to advance the growth of existing companies and assist in the creation of additional regional startups.

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Biotech Tesaro sets terms for $81 million US IPO – NASDAQ.com

Tesaro, a biotech focused on the treatment of chemotherapy-induced symptoms, announced terms for its IPO on Tuesday. The Waltham, MA-based company plans to raise $81 million by offering 6.0 million shares at a price range of $12 to $15. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Tesaro would command a market value of $360 million.

The company’s lead product candidate, rolapitant, is in Phase 3 trials, the results of which are expected in the 2H13. No revenue has been generated to date. Venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, InterWest Partners and Kleiner Perkins will hold 39%, 10% and 7% post-IPO stakes, respectively. Certain undisclosed insiders have expressed an interest in purchasing approximately $25 million of stock in connection with the offering.

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BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Names Richard Bendis President & Chief Executive Officer

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today that its Board of Directors has named former Interim CEO Richard Bendis as the organization’s first President & Chief Executive Officer.

Scott Carmer, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Chairman of the Board and Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations at MedImmune, said, "The Board unanimously supported the appointment of Rich Bendis as BHI’s President and CEO. As the interim CEO, Rich has been instrumental in establishing BHI, securing significant private and public sector support and funding, and developing and executing on long- and short-term strategic goals. Rich possesses unique knowledge and experience that will allow him to continue BHI’s tremendous momentum to accelerate biohealth commercialization opportunities for Central Maryland."

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MedImmune CEO Peter Greenleaf, Human Genome Sciences CEO Tom Watkins, Montgomery County, Maryland Executive Isiah Leggett Come Together

The Montgomery County Department of Economic Development will host a press event highlighting the nation’s first local biotech investment incentive program, initiated by Montgomery County government, the role local biotech entrepreneurs, many from County-based federal labs like NIH and FDA, play in the success of the sector and a new, regional, industry-sector led intermediary created to bolster technology transfer into commercial success during the BIO International Convention in Boston.

WHEN: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 from 3:00-4:30pm EDT.

WHERE: The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, MA – Maryland Pavilion

WHAT: Press event featuring: MedImmune CEO Peter Greenleaf discussing the growth and success of that company in Montgomery County and that company’s leading role in supporting the newly formed BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) – an industry-lead biotech intermediary; Human Genome Sciences CEO Tom Watkins discussing the growth and success of that company in Montgomery County and the supportive local government and innovative initiatives and policies that support the sector; Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett discussing the success of the County’s local biotech investment incentive program and BHI Board Chair Scott Carmer, Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations for MedImmune and BHI CEO Rich Bendis discussing the early initiatives and successes of that new regional entity in bolstering the success of the region’s biotech sector.

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Human Genome sets deadline for buyout offers – CBS News

Biotech drugmaker Human Genome Sciences Inc. is giving all bidders until July 16 to submit their final buyout offers and appealed to GlaxoSmithKline PLC to participate even though its prior bid was rejected.

The Rockville, Md.-based company said Friday that it is committed to exploring its strategic options.

Human Genome rejected the British pharmaceutical giant’s $13 per share offer last month, saying it was inadequate. At that time the company also adopted a "poison pill" shareholder rights plan in order to ward off any unsolicited takeover bids.

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Maryland entrepreneurs urge culture change – MDBIZNews

A panel of entrepreneurs told the Maryland Economic Development Commission on Tuesday that Maryland needs to commercialize more discoveries made in academic and government labs and improve the entrepreneurial culture if the state hopes to compete with traditional hubs of innovation.

“You ain’t gonna replicate Silicon Valley and Boston in many places around the world. What Maryland has is unrivaled research assets that, basically, most states cannot compete with,” said Rich Bendis, interim CEO of BioHealth Innovation Inc. “The difference is, we’re talking about culture. It’s the entrepreneurial culture that’s different in those other cities.”

Bendis said Maryland’s stature is improving in the eyes of entrepreneurs and those tasked with supporting startups.

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U. of Maryland to Count Patents and Commercialization in Tenure Reviews – Administration – The Chronicle of Higher Education

The University System of Maryland is about to adopt a new policy to formally give credit in tenure and promotion decisions for faculty work that leads to patents and other intellectual property applied in technology transfer.

The new policy, slated for final Board of Regents approval on June 23, is part of the system’s broader push to promote the commercialization of academic research.

Maryland institutions receive a lot of research money but have been "very run of the mill" when it comes to transforming that research into useful products and services, said William E. (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the system, in an interview on Wednesday. "The culture of commercializing intellectual property just hasn’t existed in Maryland."

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MdBio Foundation to Launch National Gaming Initiative to Improve U.S. STEM Education – MarketWatch

In response to the declining state of science education in America, MdBio Foundation, Inc. today announced it will provide science teachers and students nationwide with an innovative and immersive educational video game platform free of charge beginning in 2013. The online platform, called MdBioSphere(TM), seeks to advance student comprehension in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and revitalize student interest in science-related careers through the use of innovative gaming technology. The serious game is being developed by Hunt Valley, Md.-based BreakAway, Ltd., and will be previewed at the BIO International Convention (June 18-21, 2012, Booth 0753 in the Maryland Pavilion) in Boston.

"The Foundation believes that creating a globally-competitive U.S. workforce begins in the classroom," said J.J. Finkelstein, chairman of the MdBio Foundation. "The MdBioSphere platform, which will be the first serious game platform to be mapped to the new U.S. science education standards, can be a breakthrough application that helps inspire the next generation of scientists that America needs if we are to compete in the 21st century. The MdBioSphere platform merges the captivating elements of online gaming with educationally-driven STEM curricula to deliver an exciting classroom experience that enriches both students and teachers."

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InvestMaryland preps to dole out $56M to venture capital firms – Washington Business Journal

Maryland officials are preparing to dole out the first investments of the $84 million InvestMaryland program this summer, but they must first whittle down a list of 37 venture capital firm applicants to about half a dozen.

The funding will essentially make the state a limited partner in five to eight VC firms, which will be tasked with routing the funds back into Maryland tech and biotech startups in a traditional VC role. A list of recommended firms is due to be released later this month.

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NCATS Funding Opportunities for Industry Partnerships to Develop Repurposed Drugs

NCATS at the NIH has released two RFAs on Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules (UH2/UH3).  Applications are due on December 17, 2012.  

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) seeks to develop a therapeutics discovery pilot program that will explore new therapeutic uses for proprietary drug candidates (Agents) across a broad range of human diseases. This innovative program will match Agents and associated data from pharmaceutical company partners with the best ideas for new therapeutic uses from the biomedical research community.

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Loh Launches UMD Innovation Outreach to Taiwan, Korea :: University Communications Newsdesk, University of Maryland

University of Maryland President Wallace Loh is extending his Asia strategy with an innovation tour of Taiwan and South Korea. In his third trip to the region, Loh is laying the groundwork for new research and educational partnerships through sessions with high-level government, industry and academic officials.

Follow Loh’s live blog from Asia: http://ter.ps/vt

"Science and education transcend borders," Loh says. "A premier innovation and entrepreneurship university needs to operate in a global context today if it is to serve the state and the nation. By building new research collaborations, bringing Asian companies to our international incubator, and fostering intercontinental student exchanges, we keep Maryland plugged into the economic and intellectual currents."

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HHS names Sivak new chief technology officer – Washington Business Journal

The Department of Health and Human Services has named Brian Sivak as the department’s next chief technology officer, according to Federal News Radio.

Sivak, currently chief innovation officer for Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and the former chief technology officer for the District of Columbia, will join HHS next month and also serve as tech entrepreneur-in-residence.

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University of Maryland continues cyber push with Northrop partnership – Washington Business Journal

Thanks in part to its proximity to the federal government, the University of Maryland has shaped itself into one of the few institutions that specialize in cybersecurity — contributing its own resources, while also relying on financial contributions and expertise from the Washington area’s biggest government contractors.

The university’s latest announcement came Monday from Falls Church-based Northrop Grumman Corp. , which will provide UMd. a $1.1 million grant to create the nation’s first cybersecurity honors program for undergraduates, dubbed the Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students. The program will kick off this fall, and Northrop will support it for an additional two years.

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Shady Grove Office Center lands Tech Council of Maryland headquarters – Washington Business Journal

The Tech Council of Maryland has moved into its new headquarters in the Shady Grove Office Center, Citybizlist.com reports.

The new location, at 9210 Corporate Blvd. in Rockville, is a short distance from the Tech Council’s previous offices on Key West Avenue. The group has more than 400 biotechnology and technology members.

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PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals Closes $48.4M Series B -peHUB

PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing drugs to treat diabetes, metabolic disease and cardiovascular disease, has closed its Series B round with a total of $48.4 million, the company announced. The round closed after a third tranche.

PhaseBio is backed by New Enterprise Associates, Astellas Venture Management, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Hatteras Venture Partners and Fletcher Spaght Ventures.

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Lynn-Ann Gries: With Organized Angels on Their Side, Can Start-ups Really Start Up Anywhere in the Country?

Raise your hand if you realized the Midwest has become a hotbed of angel group activity — and a well-respected resource of nationally respected investment knowledge. This spring, Tony Shipley represented the Angel Capital Association, a professional alliance of angel groups in the United States and Canada, in front of a Congressional subcommittee discussing equity finance as a catalyst for small business growth. The software entrepreneur, who founded the Cincinnati-based angel network, Queen City Angels= in 2000, testified about the financial and intellectual capital angel investors provide, while making suggestions on how Congress can use legislation and public policy to bolster the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Shipley’s presence at this meeting illustrates the growing national attention given to Midwest angels, who are making the region a hub for innovation. According to the 2011 HALO Report, 79 percent of angel group investments occurred outside of traditional funding mecca California. Of these investments, the Great Lakes region received the biggest proportion of them — 15.9 percent, a percentage greater than the shares of innovation-rich regions such as New England and the Southeast.

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Maryland’s 18 Most Promising Incubator Companies – Citybizlist Baltimore

The 12th Annual Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards, supported by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), McGladrey, Inc. and Saul Ewing, is coming up.

The ceremony will recognize the achievement and potential among 18 current and graduate companies within Maryland’s incubator network. Chris Brandenburg from Millennial Media, who received the 2008 information technology Incubator Company of the Year award, will be the keynote speaker. The event will also feature technology demonstrations by the finalist companies.

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UMBC Incubator Gets New Cyber Security Firms

The incubator at University of Maryland, Baltimore County has gotten an influx of new tenants, the majority of whom are responding to the increased demand for cyber security. 

bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park currently hosts 86 incubator and early-stage tenants and 14 affiliated companies and organizations, according to Gregory Simmons, the park’s vice president for institutional advancement.

Of the tenants, nearly 20 have joined the park in the past 18 months alone. They include Fearless Solutions, Rogue Technology, AIS (Assured Information Security) Inc., all of which are in the cyber security field.  Simmons says that most of the new tenants are also in that field, often in the area of securing data and networks, in medical, defense and financial services, among others.

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Immunomic Therapeutics’ CEO, Dr. William G. Hearl, to Present at 2012 BIO International in June

Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc., ("ITI") a privately-held biotechnology company with laboratories in Rockville, MD, announced that it has been accepted to present at the Business Forum during the 2012 Bio International Convention. ITI’s CEO, Bill Hearl, will present progress in internal development of LAMP-vax™ vaccines as well as opportunities for co-development.

JRC-LAMP-vax vaccine incorporates Immunomic Therapeutics’ proprietary LAMP Technology™. LAMP (Lysosomal Associated Membrane Protein) is a normal and important component of the immune system that is present in the lysosome of all mammals. Incorporating LAMP Technology into vaccine design enables direct presentation of

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Immunomic Therapeutics Receives IND Authorization from FDA for Phase I Study of Japanese Red Cedar LAMP-vax Vaccine

Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc., ("ITI," Lancaster, PA) a privately-held biotechnology company with laboratories in Rockville, MD, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its review of the Investigational New Drug Application ("IND") filed for the allergy immunotherapy, JRC- LAMP-vax™.  On April 12th, the FDA notified ITI that there will be no clinical hold and that ITI may now proceed with its clinical trial in June for JRC-LAMP-vax in Atlanta with subjects sensitive to Japanese Red Cedar pollen.

JRC-LAMP-Vax is a plasmid-based DNA vaccine that will be studied for the treatment of patients with rhino-conjunctivitis (runny nose) symptoms caused by allergic reaction to Japanese red cedar pollen. Almost 45% of the Japanese people are allergic to Japanese red cedar pollen. In North America, there is allergic rhinitis to mountain cedar pollen, which is 80% cross-reactive with Japanese red cedar pollen allergen.  ITI intends to partner with a Japanese pharmaceutical company for studies in Japan and will seek FDA approval of the vaccine in the US.

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Morning Read: VC sees opportunities in areas where Pharma is pulling back

Counter-intuitive as it may be, investing in areas that pharma is abandoning could yield great returns for investors. Just look at anti-bacterials in the ’90s and 2000s, says VC Bruce Booth in a Forbes column. So where should investors be looking today? Neuroscience, heart failure and obesity.

The shortage of cancer drugs that’s plagued hospitals for almost two years now has eased, although not completely, according to cancer doctors.

A recent study by Johns Hopkins researchers brings a reality check to the potential (and the limits) of genome sequencing in predicting disease.

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To Neuroscience Drug Discovery and Preclinical Development Researchers:

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Government Unveils First Map Of All The Germs In The Human Body – Forbes

Today, in two of the world’s top medical journals, scientists are publishing the results of a $173 million government-funded project to sequence the vast bulk of bacteria, fungi, and viruses in and on the human body.

The results might at first seem anticlimactic. There’s no news about which germs cause or prevent disease, or even a clear message about how they make people different from one another. What we know is there are a lot of them. We have ten times as many microbial cells in our body as human ones, and though they are tiny, that still means that a 200-pound man is carrying two to six pounds of microbes, mostly bacteria. And there are tantalizing hints that they might play a role in all sorts of diseases. Patients who are at risk for difficult-to-treat hospital infections might have a particular kind of bacteria in their digestive systems; those who are obese might have another; children who can’t get enough nutrition might have a third.

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Opinion: What’s Wrong with COI? | The Scientist

Advances in medical and surgical care are hard-won. They require rigorous, carefully interpreted laboratory research. Equally important is the painstaking clinical work to translate basic discoveries into useful diagnostics, drugs, and devices.  Despite the odds, the achievements made in the past half century are unmistakable: a 50 percent reduction in cardiovascular mortality despite an epidemic of obesity; a dramatically decreased cancer mortality rate; and the conversion of AIDS from a death sentence to survival with good life quality.

The key to such success has been the growing number and complexity of collaborations between academics, physicians, regulatory agencies, and—not least—industry. Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, a mania has taken hold that discounts the social value of collaboration and has mounted an inquisition against it, encapsulated by the epithet “financial conflict of interest (fCOI).” Critics’ unwarranted allegations that such conflicts cause bias have limited the sources of intellect that can contribute to a given project.

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CMS ANNOUNCES PRIVATE-SECTOR COMMITMENTS TO IMPROVE PRIMARY CARE FOR PATIENTS, SAVE MONEY FOR MEDICARE

In a strong show of support for more effective, more affordable, higher quality health care, 45 commercial, federal and State insurers in seven markets today pledged to work with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to give more Americans access to quality health care at lower cost.

Under the Comprehensive Primary Care initiative, CMS will pay primary care practices a care management fee, initially set at an average of $20 per beneficiary per month, to support enhanced, coordinated services.  Simultaneously, participating commercial, State, and other federal insurance plans are also offering an enhanced payment to primary care practices that provide high-quality primary care.  

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NCI: SBIR & STTR – Resource Center – Innovative Partnerships for Commercializing Health IT

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently announced a new Program Announcement, aimed at accelerating the development and commercialization of consumer health information technology products that translate the behavioral and communication science evidence base for the prevention and control of cancer and other chronic diseases. The NCI and the National Library of Medicine (a co-funding partner) are interested in supporting the development and dissemination of evidence-based health information technology (health IT) products that have the potential to:

• Prevent or reduce the risk of cancer 
• Facilitate patient-provider communication and/or 
• Improve disease outcomes in consumer and clinical settings

A non-exclusive list of product examples relevant to the FOA are provided below.

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HHS harnesses the power of health data to improve health

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the Institute of Medicine (IoM) and other members of the Health Data Consortium, are co-hosting the third annual “Datapalooza” focusing on innovative applications and services that harness the power of open data from HHS and other sources to help improve health and health care.

The Health Data Initiative Forum III is featuring more than 100 new or updated solutions, up from 45 solutions last year, that help serve the needs of consumers, health care providers, employers, public health leaders, and policy makers.

“The innovators present today are a great example of how data and technology can be used in powerful ways to help consumers and providers improve health,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “We’re not just creating new technology, but we’re empowering Americans to make better decisions about health and health care by putting information at their fingertips.”

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Judge sides with HGS on poison pill

The latest chapter in Human Genome Sciences’ battle to fend off a hostile takeover bid by British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline played out in a Rockville courtroom Thursday morning.

A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge shot down an HGS shareholder’s request for a temporary restraining order to invalidate the “poison pill” the Rockville biotech enacted last month to make it a less attractive acquisition target.

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Johns Hopkins’ High Tech Hospital: Interview with President Ronald R. Peterson

Johns Hopkins has had many milestones since it first opened its hospital in Baltimore in 1889. It pioneered the acceptance of women to medical school and the use of rubber gloves in surgery, discovered restriction enzymes and the brain’s natural opiates, birthed multiple medical specialties including neurosurgery and pediatrics, and developed life-saving procedures such as renal dialysis, CPR, and the “blue baby” operation that paved the way for modern heart surgery. May marked another major milestone for the nation’s best hospital for 21 years in a row: the opening of its brand new high-tech clinic.

We had the opportunity to sit down with The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System’s President, Ronald R. Peterson, to discuss their new clinical building. Peterson has an impressive and storied background at Johns Hopkins, which is why he’s ideally positioned to talk about the milestone.

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Montgomery County Innovation Network

If you are an emerging advanced technology, life sciences or professional services company or a foreign business looking for a soft landing in the U.S. market, the Business Innovation Network of Montgomery County, Maryland has the perfect place for you.  The Innovation Network business incubators are located throughout Montgomery County adjacent to Washington, D.C.  with its talented workforce and strategic access to the federal and commercial marketplace, all in a sophisticated, diverse community. The Network was founded by the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development in 1999 with the opening of the Shady Grove Innovation Center and specializes in helping young companies realize their potential.  Since its inception the Business Innovation Network has worked with over 250 teams of entrepreneurs and graduated about 100 companies. Over the last 10 years the Network has grown to five business incubation centers that offer the critical combination of highly flexible, modern office and lab space and business support services. 

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MedImmune creates new Cambridge hothouse

MedImmune in Cambridge UK is reaching out to academics and biotech companies in a bid to improve the industry’s poor neuroscience track record.

Together with AstraZeneca in Boston, Massachusetts, MedImmune – the global biologics unit of AstraZeneca – is setting up a collaborative unit at its Granta Park HQ with the aim of producing drugs to treat neurodegenerative conditions, long term pain and neuropsychiatric conditions.

Iain Chessell, vice-president R & D Neuroscience said: “There have been no new approvals of completely novel mechanisms for treating pain for at least a decade – if not more – and current treatment only works in a third to half of patients.

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Why we need a Federal Lab Innovation Authority: Unlocking Our Federal Lab Resources for Economic Growth

Below is an editorial suggesting the nation could become more economically competitive by helping remove barriers to connect our federal lab technology, human and physical resources to the private sector. Without question, Maryland has the most to gain from this national initiative. We are home to the nation’s largest concentration of federal laboratories and many federal lab researchers live in Maryland. To its credit, the state has launched new programs to support commercialization and partnering among the state’s considerable academic research and development assets. Since federal labs are creatures of federal legislation, these efforts need to extend to federal labs, augmented with federal policy reforms. Now is the time for the state to lead the Maryland Congressional delegation, working with other state congressional delegations, to work on a bi-partisan basis to enact pathways for better connecting the human, physical and technology assets of our federal labs with their regions.

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InvestMaryland Forum

Thursday, June 14, 2012 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (ET)
Rockville, MD

A free and open forum to:

• Discuss InvestMaryland implementation progress and investment strategy
• Detail state venture funding resources to seed and early-stage companies
• Address questions from the business community

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Rockville Economic Development Inc. appoints executive director

Laurie Boyer, president of the Maryland Economic Development Association, is the new executive director of Rockville Economic Development Inc.

Boyer has more than 15 years of government and economic development experience, according to a statement from REDI.

She served more than five years as director of the Frederick County Office of Economic Development and earned her certified economic developer designation from the International Economic Development Council in 2006.

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BioPulse – New cancer center breaks ground

The State of Maryland’s Pulse on the Bio Industry.

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Fulfilling the promise of bioscience: report from Milken Institute outlines steps for overcoming barriers to innovation in medical research

It’s been almost a decade since the Human Genome Project was completed, yet despite the best efforts of thousands of scientists around the world, hopes for cures for a wide range of diseases remain unfulfilled.

Last fall, a remarkable group of leaders came together to find new ways of overcoming the barriers that have prevented more progress in medical research. A report from the Milken Institute, released today, Accelerating Innovation in the Bioscience Revolution, recaps the discussions from that gathering – the 2011 Milken Institute Lake Tahoe Retreat.

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The Johns Hopkins University Names New Carey Business School Dean

Bernard T. “Bernie” Ferrari, an accomplished corporate strategist and management consultant to Fortune 50 companies, has been named the next dean of The Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School.

Ferrari, whose appointment is effective July 1, is the second dean to lead the Carey Business School since it was established in 2007. He succeeds Yash P. Gupta who stepped down last June.

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iTEC Webinar Series – Research Commercialization and SBIR Center

Private Sector Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program in partnership with the NIH/OTT Monday, June 11, 12:00 pm to 12:30pm ET

Presenters: Richard Bendis Founding President and CEO Innovation America and Mark L. Rohrbaugh, Ph.D., J.D. Director Office of Technology Transfer National Institutes of Health Department of Health and Human Services

BioHealth Innovation, Inc.’s (BHI) Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program is designed to be an active partner with research institutions to source, fund, and grow high-potential, early-stage products through project-focused companies. The entrepreneurs in the program support the formation of new companies based upon innovative discoveries in the areas of drugs, vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices from the intramural research programs at the NIH and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as from universities and businesses. The EIR will find, evaluate, and support the development of new start-up companies based upon technology license agreements from technology transfer offices or equivalent units within the research institutions.

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Demand for Biotech Tax Breaks | The Scientist

United States Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has introduced legislation that will revive the Therapeutic Discovery Project Tax Credit, which funneled $1 billion in tax breaks and grants to biotech companies across America in 2010. The program impacted about 3,000 small US companies that year. “Biotech labs employ dedicated scientists and researchers, whose discoveries could lead to a ground-breaking cures for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or HIV/AIDS,” Menendez said in a statement released last week. “Manufacturing these breakthrough therapies is already creating thousands of high-paying jobs, and extending this critical tax credit will not only create more good jobs here in America, but keep us at the forefront of life-saving innovation.”

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Academic and Tech Transfer Community to be Spotlighted at the 2012 BIO International Convention

Universities have historically been on the front lines of translating innovative research into novel medicines and technologies useful to patients. With that in mind, the 2012 BIO International Convention will look to highlight the role of academia in the advancement of the biotechnology field through the BIO Academic Park and the Translational Research Forum. Hosted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), this year’s global event for biotechnology will take place June 18-21, 2012 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, MA.

"The BIO Academic Park will give Convention attendees the opportunity to connect and start conversations that could lead to partnerships, and most importantly, establish a tighter link between academic, industry representatives and investors," said Dr. Abigail Barrow, Founding Director of the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center and Program Co-Chair of the 2012 BIO International Convention.

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Why doctors won’t stop PSA testing anytime soon

Johns Hopkins researchers say it’s going to be a hard sell to get physicians to stop screening healthy men routinely for prostate cancer with PSA testing, despite recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) that the cancer screening does more harm than good.

Patient expectations, malpractice fears cited The researchers surveyed physicians, 74.4% of whom said patients expect PSA testing.

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The “Valley of Death” Looms for 8 Kids with a Rare Disease | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

The pharmaceutical industry rightly calls the stage in drug development between basic research and clinical trials the “Valley of Death.” This is when a potential treatment that’s worked in mice, monkeys, and the like catapults to a phase 1 clinical trial to assess safety. It’s rare.

Francis Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health, calls this period “where projects go to die.” The reason: $.

Matthew Herper writes in Forbes that the cost of developing a new drug is $4-11 billion, not the $1 billion that Pharma often claims. Yet even that $1 billion is unimaginable, especially when you put a face on a rare disease and witness what the family goes through to leap to phase 1.

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Lilly invests in $150 million Canada life sciences fund

Eli Lilly is participating in a new investment fund which will focus primarily on early-stage drug development opportunities in Canada as a whole and Quebec in particular.

The fund, which will be operated by investment investment group TVM Capital, will have an initial size of $150 million. As well as Lilly, other backers include Teralys Capital (which is putting in $65 million), BDC Venture Capital, Fondaction and Advantus Capital Management.

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Accelerator Looks to Expand, With an Eye on the Big Apple | Xconomy

Accelerator, the venture-backed biotech startup machine, has made its name over the past decade as a hotspot for financing life sciences companies in Seattle with big dreams and potential. Now it’s considering expanding its model for starting biotech companies in other life science clusters around the world, including New York.

Plans are still in the exploratory stage, but the idea is that Accelerator would remain headquartered in Seattle and build a network of satellite labs in four or five other locations around the world, says Carl Weissman, the co-founder and CEO of Accelerator. Accelerator’s existing venture backers, and some potential new investors, have expressed interest in a more far-reaching version of Accelerator, Weissman says.

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Rock Health reveals six startups for its Boston class | mobihealthnews

San Francisco-based digital health incubator Rock Health revealed the six startups that will take part in its “pop up” incubator in Boston this summer. The Boston program is a bit different from those that took place at Rock Health headquarters in California: Those were five-month long spring and fall programs and the Boston program’s duration will be just under three months. The startups will present at a demo day on August 24, 2012. Harvard Medical School will play host to Rock Health’s third class and the institution’s community of clinicians and industry experts will work with the startups to refine their strategy.

Here’s how Rock Health describes the six startups (we had only heard of one previously) in its first Boston class:

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Events: Boston by the Numbers

BIO International Convention organizers are hoping for the usual surge in attendance provided by the Boston biotech community at the event scheduled for June 18-21 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. While it may not reach the 22,000 level achieved at the last Boston BIO in 2007, it should surpass the 15,600 who came to last year’s event in Washington, D.C. Exhibitors will occupy more than 215,000 sq. ft of exhibit space.

Attendance for the event has been off its historic highs since the Atlanta event in 2009 which drew about 14,000. Organizers attribute the drop that year to the H1N1 influenza epidemic which surfaced a few weeks before the convention and to the economic downturn. Attendance has been slowly recovering since 2009.

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Want Better Odds? Get a Pharma Corporate VC to Invest – Forbes

Pharma corporate venture was back in the biotech news today with the release of Burrill & Company’s June 2012 report.  An interesting article by Vinay Singh evaluated the impact of Pharma corporate venture capital (CVC) investing, and the key takeaway is that CVC-backed companies have a higher rate of overall success than those without their involvement.

While a similar takeway has been published before by Windhover’s StartUp about a year ago, these data suggests a fairly robust effect from a large dataset.  The analysis includes 2907 therapeutics companies that raised venture capital dollars between 2000-2010 across 5100 rounds of financing.  Corporate VCs were investors about 10% of companies, and this pool of 286 companies had what appears to be a markedly higher hit rate: a ~60% higher rate of licensing deals, M&As and IPOs. 

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Physicians still use mobile for support, not so much with patients yet | mobihealthnews

Smartphone adoption among physicians has started to level but there’s been an “explosion” of adoption in tablets, Manhattan Research’s VP of Research Monique Levy said during a recent webinar. Levy said that Manhattan’s survey of physicians in the US found that 62 percent now have some kind of tablet device, almost twice as many as last year.

“I still cannot believe some of this data. I had to double and triple check it because it is just astounding,” Levy said. The majority of these tablet toting doctors are iPad owners, but even among that group Levy was surprised to find that even they are planning to buy an additional tablet device in the next few months.

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Who’s on Biotech’s Endangered Species List? Mid-Sized Drug Developers | Xconomy

Only a few companies have ever been successful enough to call themselves Big Biotechs. If boards and shareholders lack vision and guts, we’ll look back in few years and wonder why the Big Biotechs went extinct.

The group of Big Biotechs includes companies like Amgen, Gilead Sciences, Biogen Idec, and Celgene. They grew from scrappy venture-backed startups with a dream into big, independent, profitable, diversified enterprises. They have enduring ability to create new jobs and new medicines. They are like ballasts in a stormy industry.

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Cleveland Clinic to help Notre Dame commercialize medical innovations

Following on the heels of two hospitals, the University of Notre Dame has become the first university to strike a collaboration with Cleveland Clinic aimed at commercializing medical innovations from its faculty and researchers.

Through the collaboration, Cleveland Clinic Innovations will essentially do for Notre Dame what it does for the Clinic — help turn employee ideas into marketable products that generate financial returns for the organization.

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National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to Establish NHLBI Centers for Accelerated Innovations

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) intends to publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in the Spring 2012 NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts to establish Centers for Accelerated Innovations (CAI). The CAI will address the problems that hinder the critical early steps necessary to translate novel scientific advances and discoveries into commercially viable diagnostics, devices, therapeutics, and tools that improve patient care and advance public health.

The Need for Accelerated Innovation

Despite the remarkable success of NHLBI in enabling the development of interventions that have greatly reduced the health burdens due to cardiovascular, lung, blood and sleep disorders, much remains to be done. Cardiovascular and lung diseases still account for 3 of the 4 leading causes of death; 4 of the 10 leading causes of infant death; $392 billion in health care dollars, and 22% of the total economic costs of illness, injuries, and death.

Unfortunately, the pace of translating discoveries from NHLBI-supported research into medical products that can further reduce the public health burden of heart, lung, and blood (HLB) diseases appears to have slowed. Major pharmaceutical firms have announced their intention to abandon drug development efforts for cardiovascular diseases and venture capital and angel investors have shown a decreased interest in the healthcare and biotechnology sectors.

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Human Genome Sciences Board of Directors Unanimously Determines GlaxoSmithKline Unsolicited Tender Offer is Inadequate and Not in the Best Interests of Stockholders – MarketWatch

Human Genome Sciences, Inc.oday announced that its Board of Directors, after careful review and consideration with the assistance of the Company’s management and financial and legal advisors, has unanimously determined that the unsolicited tender offer from GlaxoSmithKline ("GSK") to acquire all outstanding common shares of HGS for $13.00 per share in cash (the "Offer") is inadequate, undervalues the Company and is not in the best interests of HGS and its stockholders.

Accordingly, the Board recommends that stockholders reject GSK’s tender offer and not tender any of their shares to GSK. The basis for the Board’s decision is set forth in the Schedule 14D-9 being filed by HGS today with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which will also be mailed shortly to stockholders.

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Human Genome Sciences adopts stockholder rights plan – Baltimore Business Journal

Human Genome Sciences Inc, which has rejected a hostile $13-per-share offer from GlaxoSmithKline, has adopted a short-term stockholder rights plan to fend off such unwanted attention.

Rockville-based Human Genome (NASDAQ: HGSI) said in a statement announcing the plan that it had declared a dividend of one share purchase right for each share of the company’s common stock held of record at the close of business on May 29.

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Emergent gets FDA approval for modified vaccine dosing – Washington Business Journal

Rockville-based Emergent BioSolutions Inc. , which makes the only vaccine licensed by the Food and Drug Administration to protect against anthrax infection, has received FDA approval for a new, shorter-dosing schedule.

The new, supplemental biologics license application, follows trials to determine if the company’s BioThrax vaccine would be effective with as few as three doses over six months.

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United Therapeutics to Own Even More of Downtown Silver Spring

United Therapeutics, which has has greatly expanded their downtown Silver Spring presence as of late, is reportedly set to purchase from the county the parcel located at the corner of Colesville Rd. and Spring Street. The parking garage that current occupies this space abuts an existing UT building, and has been closed for some time due to safety issues. (Surprisingly, it has its own Yelp page. Who uses their limited time on Earth to rate a public parking garage?)

I’m a big fan of the existing United Therapeutics buildings, what with their skybridge and giant external TV’s and all. I also like the touch of the ground lights representing individual elements from the periodic table. The planning and construction of the new building could take five years (or more, because construction delays tend to happen around here), so we won’t be seeing it anytime soon. Hopefully they will choose to incorporate some street-level retail into their design.

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Osiris becomes first company to market stem-cell therapy – Baltimore Business Journal

Osiris Therapeutics Inc. in Columbia has become the world’s first company to receive market approval for a manufactured stem cell product.

Health Canada, the country’s department responsible for overseeing pharmaceuticals, approved for commercial sale Osiris’ Prochymal, which uses stem cells from healthy donors to treat a fatal children’s disease.

“While today marks the first approval of a stem cell drug, now that the door has been opened, it will surely not be the last,” Osiris CEO C. Randal Mills said.

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Global Perspective on Regional Collaboration

On any given weekend, there are countless community events throughout the Greater Washington region, many in ethnically diverse immigrant communities.  A Korean church service, an Indian American business conference, a Chinese choral concert and an Iranian Nowruz celebration, whether held in Maryland or Virginia, all draw crowds from the Region’s many counties and cities on both sides of the Potomac River.  These “new communities,” as we are often called, frequently travel across county and state lines to be connected with our own communities to worship, to learn, and to have a good time.  These activities and events add much vitality to local living.

The Washington Metropolitan area is one of the most transient metropolises in the country, with transplants and migrants defining and redefining much of the local demographic landscape.  In fact, in Montgomery County, where I live and work, one in three residents are from other countries and three out of four are from other states. What attracted many of us from other states or countries to this region was economic and career opportunities and a good quality of life afforded by a metropolitan area.  Immigrants like me have no roots in this country and will pursue opportunities wherever they are.

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Two INNoVATE Students Take First Place in Maryland Business Plan Competition ‹ Hopkins Happenings

When Adam Steele worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), he and two other colleagues invented a technology that Steele believed had commercial potential. But Steele, a physicist, didn’t have a business background. He said he had no idea how to take the technology out of the lab and build a company around it. His colleagues recommend he apply for the JHU Carey Business School INNoVATE program. He did so, and was soon accepted into the program’s Class of 2011.

Now he and fellow INNoVATE student Brenton Knuffman, who is one of the technology’s inventors, are quickly becoming a success story for the program. The duo, who both currently work for the University of Maryland NanoCenter, recently won first-place – and $10,000 – in the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute’s 2012 Business Plan Competition in the Graduate Student, Faculty and Researchers Category.

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University of Maryland Hosts First UM Ventures Symposium on Entrepreneurship

The first symposium on "the notion of entrepreneurship" by the newly formed University of Maryland (UM) Ventures was a breakthrough event for technology collaboration between the Baltimore and College Park campuses, said Jay A. Perman, MD, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).

UM Ventures is a joint effort among the technology transfer offices at the two campuses and the entrepreneurial business services programs at College Park, and is a core initiative of the new collaboration called MPowering the State.

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Baltimore Fishbowl » Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School Announces Major Shift

The Carey Business School, an offshoot of Johns Hopkins, has tended to be the institution’s least glamorous sister. Founded in 2007 (but with origins dating back a century before that) thanks to a $50 million donation from William Polk Carey, the freestanding school is too new to have established itself as an MBA powerhouse; instead of banking on a storied history, the program has opted to make its name through innovative programs. And now they’re revamping that system yet again.

The reorganization, announced this week, will shift the school’s focus to business as it relates to health care and the life sciences. The move seems like a smart one, both because Hopkins is such a medical powerhouse and because more and more business is happening in the health care arena.  “Health care is approaching 20 percent of the national gross domestic product, and it’s a key factor in the costs of any economic model, whether in manufacturing or services,” said the school’s interim Dean Phillip Phan. “Understanding the complexities of the modern health care industry is a crucial skill for any business manager. For those who manage in the health care sector, Johns Hopkins is the place to learn.”

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Q1 2012 DC Venture Capital Risk Tolerance – Forward Thinking

If you raised seed capital from a DC VC last quarter you are part of an exclusive club.  Only 3 firms raised seed capital from DC firms last quarter from VCs headquartered in our region and 2 of those companies got money from Virginia’s CIT. CIT is a state-sponsored fund chartered to make early stage investments and doesn’t represent the standard risk profile of a traditional VC.

John Backus and the New Atlantic Venture team were the only greed-based, non-state-sponsored fund laying down startup seed-stage bets last quarter with two investments of $3.2M each in American Honors College and Quad Learning Inc.

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Johns Hopkins secures $15M NIH grant for AIDs research center

The National Institutes of Health announced Friday it has awarded Johns Hopkins University $15 million to help establish the school’s new Center for AIDS research.

The Center will tap researchers from Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, the school of medicine and school of nursing to address HIV in Baltimore. It will also be supported financially by Johns Hopkins Provost Lloyd Minor and the deans of the Bloomberg School, the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing.

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Federal Telemedicine News: Moving Research Forward

TATRC within the Army’s Medical Research and Materiel Command is taking steps to move research forward according to the article “TATRC: Translating Research into New Medical Products” published in the May 2012 issue of “Mercury”.

Ron Marchessault, Director of Technology Transfer and Commercialization for TATRC, is busy developing a comprehensive commercialization program for more than 1,800 research projects funded since 2000. So far, 2.3 percent have resulted in commercial products, generating $209 million in sales from a total federal investment of $74 million. TATRC manages these projects at universities, government laboratories, and high-tech start-up companies.

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We Can’t Wait: HHS announces first 26 Health Care Innovation awards

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the first batch of organizations for Health Care Innovation awards. Made possible by the health care law – the Affordable Care Act – the awards will support 26 innovative projects nationwide that will save money, deliver high quality medical care and enhance the health care workforce.  The preliminary awardees announced today expect to reduce health spending by $254 million over the next 3 years. 

“We can’t wait to support innovative projects that will save money and make our health care system stronger,” said Secretary Sebelius. “It’s yet another way we are supporting local communities now in their efforts to provide better care and lower cost.”

The new projects include collaborations of leading hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technology innovators, community-based organizations, and patients’ advocacy groups, among others, located in urban and rural areas that will begin work this year to address health care issues in local communities.  This initiative allows applicants to come up with their best ideas to test how we can quickly and efficiently improve the quality and affordability of health care.

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Supernus moves from IPO to FDA – Washington Business Journal

Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc. capped off its first week on the Nasdaq up nearly $1 from its initial public offering price. With its IPO in the bag, the Rockville biotech now turns to a bigger gamble: seeing two drugs through Food and Drug Administration approval and onto the commercial market.

The modestly successful May 1 offering marks the first time a Washington-area biotech has gone public since 2007 and leaves Supernus with a pile of cash to shovel into its lead product candidates — epilepsy drugs SPN-538 and SPN-804.

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State biotech firms hoping Congress will act – baltimoresun.com

A proposal to speed the approval of new prescription drugs has patient advocates and biotech firms — including many based in Maryland — hoping that Congress will deliver a rare dose of bipartisanship this year.

Lawmakers are proposing a 6 percent increase in the fees that pharmaceutical firms pay the Food and Drug Administration to offset the cost of approving new drugs. If the measure is not signed into law by the end of September, the FDA would lose the ability to charge any fees and be forced to lay off 2,000 workers, significantly slowing review times.

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Should the FDA Approve More Drugs after Phase II? A Response to Matthew Herper – Forbes

Last Friday, Forbes health care editor Matt Herper and I sat down to talk about my proposal, which I detailed in a paper for the Manhattan Institute, to encourage the FDA to approve more drugs after mid-stage phase II testing, using a process called “conditional approval.” (You can read my proposal, in three parts, here.) Matt put forth some very perceptive critiques of the idea, which I respond to in today’s dispatch.

As a refresher, my proposal builds on an existing FDA procedure called accelerated approval in which the FDA approves drugs that show great promise in phase II, with the caveat that the drug sponsor must still perform confirmatory phase III studies. If the phase III studies ultimately show that the drug doesn’t work as advertised, or has previously unknown safety issues, the FDA can revoke its approval. This is exactly what happened when the FDA revoked the approval of Avastin in breast cancer, after phase III tests did not reproduce the early signal of benefit that the drug had shown in phase II studies.

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Biotech Venture Funding Drops 43% in First Quarter | McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP – JDSupra

Last month, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), a trade association representing the U.S. venture capital industry, released the results of its MoneyTree Report on venture funding for the first quarter of 2012.  The report, which is prepared by NVCA and PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP using data from Thomson Reuters, indicates that venture capitalists invested $5.8 billion in 758 deals in the first quarter, which constituted a 19% decrease in dollars and a 15% decrease in deals as compared with the fourth quarter of 2011, when $7.1 billion was invested in 889 deals.

The report notes that the Life Sciences sector (biotechnology and medical device industries) and the Clean Technology sector saw marked decreases in both dollars and deals in the first quarter, with the drop in Life Sciences funding mostly due to decreased funding for the biotech industry.  While the biotechnology industry still managed to place second among the industries tracked by the NVCA in terms of dollars invested in the first quarter, with $780 million invested in 99 deals, this constituted a 43% drop in dollars and a 14% drop in deals over the fourth quarter.  The medical device industry picked up some of the slack for the Life Sciences sector, with $687 million invested in 72 deals, which constituted a 33% increase in dollars and a 6% drop in deals.  The number of deals in the Life Sciences sector dipped to its lowest point since the first quarter of 2009.  Overall, eleven of the seventeen sectors tracked by the NVCA saw decreases in dollars invested in the first quarter.

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The top 5 complications of FDA medical device trials

“You do a really good job with complex trials.”

We’re lucky to say that we’ve heard this from several clients over the years. But, while we’re glad for the recognition, it made us ask ourselves a key question. What is it that makes a trial complex?

For pharmaceuticals, trials can be relatively simple. A company makes the drug, the drug is administered to the trial patients and the effects are monitored. There are very few moving parts involved. Medical devices, which can be complex machines in and of themselves, will require training and retraining of all parties that are involved with implementation and monitoring of the device– there are numerous moving parts and numerous opportunities to fall out of FDA compliance.

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Ablitech Hires Director for Research Advisory Board

Ablitech, Inc., a biotechnology company developing delivery systems for gene silencing and cancer-fighting treatments, today announced that Dr. Daniel Bednarik has been named the Director of the Research Advisory Board.  

In his part-time role, Bednarik will assemble and manage a committee of scientists who will provide guidance to the corporation’s research efforts, enhance funding, and create partnering opportunities.  

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3 Start-Ups Join Loyola Business Accelerator – North Baltimore, MD Patch

The first three start-ups have been selected to participate in a new business accelerator program started by Loyola University Maryland.

CodePupil, PointClickSwitch.com and Vidstructor were selected by the university and its partner Wasabi Ventures to participate in the accelerator located in Govans, according to the Baltimore Business Journal.

In March Loyola announced it was creating the business accelerator to partner with local entrepreneurs to help create new businesses.

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RHT Consulting to Come Up with Steps to Spur Research at NIH

Right now there are probably thousands of late-stage cancer patients waiting for drugs that could prolong their lives. Where do they look? Research labs all across the country. In a process called technology transfer, drugs go from the lab to the market, with a few steps in between, and the push is on to speed up the process, without leaving any loose ends.

Recent technology transfers have resulted in treatments for fibromyalgia, a joint and muscle pain illness, called Lyrica; a form of fatal breast cancer, now leaving the disease undetectable, Herceptin, and new chemotherapy agents.

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Public Policy Institute releases new report on New York’s bioscience sector

The Public Policy Institute (PPI), the research arm of The Business Council of New York State, today released an in-depth study on the challenges in attracting and retaining private-sector jobs and companies in New York’s lucrative bioscience sector.

Based on interviews with 30 industry experts as well as existing research, Cultivating the Next Generation of Discoveries and Development in New York Bioscience explores the opportunities and barriers facing companies in various stages of development and offers three public policy recommendations to foster public-private partnerships and make New York more competitive with other states:

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2012 BIO International Convention to Highlight the FDA and Regulatory Environment

The U.S. regulatory environment strongly impacts innovation and the development of new drugs and biologics. With this in mind, the Achieving Regulatory Approval and Compliance educational track at the 2012 BIO International Convention will tackle the most pressing regulatory issues facing the industry, specifically the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA V), implementation of the new biosimilars pathway, and efforts to modernize and expedite drug development. Hosted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), this year’s global event for biotechnology will take place June 18-21, 2012 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, MA.

"Attendees can expect to hear from a distinguished group of speakers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as major biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies," said BIO CEO and President Jim Greenwood. "Sessions will address the steps involved in research and development of healthcare products and how to successfully bring these products to market, all while maintaining rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness, and compliance."

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Breaking the Genome Bottleneck – Technology Review

The genomic data generated from next-generation sequencing machines doesn’t amount to much more than alphabet soup if it’s not subjected to significant computational processing and statistical analysis. For the data to be useful, the trick is to turn those As, Ts, Gs, and Cs into a manageable description of disease risks and other genetic predispositions. That requires a lot of computational power and time—already a significant bottleneck for some genomic analysis companies.

Several companies are looking to the cloud as a way to help them analyze all the data. The idea is that researchers can send their data to a Web-hosted analysis service that will process raw data into a genetic profile. However, the data files generated by sequencing machines are so massive that the mundane issue of uploading large files to the cloud becomes its own issue. The strategy of a Redwood City, California-based startup called Bina Technologies is to divide and conquer: give customers an in-house data-crunching machine that will turn a mountain of raw sequence into easily shared genetic profiles. Those profiles can then be quickly uploaded to Bina Technologies’ cloud-hosted site for data management, sharing, and aggregation.

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Tech Transfer Speakers Series – May 9th

Tech Transfer Speaker’s Series FREE monthly program (2nd Wednesday of each month) offered through the Gateway to Innovation: Montgomery County Welcome Center for Federal and Academic Tech Transfer. For more information and additional calendar items, please visit www.techtransferconnection.com.

Engage with others in the tech transfer field by joining the Gateway to Innovation LinkedIn Group.  To register go to http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=3805575

Location: Shady Grove Innovation Center 9700 Great Seneca Highway Rockville, Maryland 20850

Time: May 9, 2012 3:30 – 5:00pm

Presenters: Richard A. Bendis, Interim CEO BioHealth Innovation, Inc. and Mark L. Rohrbaugh, Ph.D., J.D., Director National Institutes of Health, Office of Technology Transfer

Topic: What is a BioHealth Innovation Ecosystem and How is it Supposed to Work?

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BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Appoints Qiagen’s Douglas Liu to Board of Directors

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today the appointment of Douglas Liu, Senior Vice President of Global Operations at Qiagen, to its Board of Directors.

“Doug is an outstanding addition to our board,” said Scott Carmer, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. Chairman of the Board and Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations at MedImmune. “His in-depth experience in strategic planning, operations and R&D in immunodiagnostics, molecular diagnostics, and other healthcare market sectors will prove invaluable as BHI drives biohealth commercialization opportunities in Central Maryland.”

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QIAGEN Acquires AmniSure International to Add Unique Assay to Emerging Point of Need Portfolio – MarketWatch

QIAGEN expands Point of Need portfolio with unique AmniSureassay to detect rupture of fetal membranes (ROM) – checked in up to 30% of U.S. pregnancies

Novel FDA-cleared test is highly synergistic with QIAGEN’s clinical sales channels

QIAGEN N.V. QGEN -1.92% (frankfurt prime standard:QIA) today announced the acquisition of AmniSure International LLC, a privately owned Boston company that markets the AmniSure assay for determining whether a pregnant woman is suffering rupture of fetal membranes (ROM), a condition in which fluid leaks from the amniotic sac prematurely.

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Zyngenia, Inc. Recruits David Parkinson, M.D., as Board Member, Clinical Advisory Board Head, and Interim Chief Medical Officer

Zyngenia, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing Zybodies(TM), next-generation multi-specific antibody-based drugs in oncology and immunology, announced today that it has appointed David Parkinson, M.D. as a member of its Board of Directors and head of its Clinical Advisory Board. Dr. Parkinson will also serve as Interim Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

"Since our start in September 2009, we at Zyngenia have validated our technology platform and developed a suite of novel multi-specific biological drug candidates. We have also built an outstanding drug discovery and development team," said Zyngenia President and CEO Peter A. Kiener, D.Phil. "We have been working with David Parkinson as a member of our scientific advisory group for some time now and, as we head toward clinical testing of our Zybodies, are thrilled to be able to get such an accomplished drug developer, company builder and leader in oncology and immunology more directly involved with Zyngenia.

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Human Genome Sciences cuts losses – Washington Business Journal

Rockville-based Human Genome Sciences Inc., which last week rejected an unsolicited $2.6 billion acquisition offer by GlaxoSmithKline PLC, reported higher revenue and cut losses on sales of its new lupus drug.

Human Genome Sciences had first-quarter revenue of $47.1 million, compared with $26.6 million a year earlier. Benlysta sales accounted for $32.1 million in revenue. Sales of its anthrax treatment to the U.S. government stockpile contributed $6.1 million.

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Maryland 12th in Venture Capital Dollars in First Quarter

Venture capital dollars flowing to Maryland companies were down almost 30 percent last quarter compared to a year ago, and 16 percent less than the prior quarter, according to Money Tree stats.

Maryland ranked 12th overall in venture capital dollars in Q1 2012, behind Minnesota and Illinois with $71 million and $87 million respectively.

California took is customary place atop all states with a mountainous $3 billion in venture capital. Massachusetts followed with $628 million.

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Maryland Establishes New Tech Transfer Fund

The state and five universities are spending upwards of $5.8 million to help startups move from a concept to a company.  

Senate Bill 239/House Bill 442 establishes the Maryland Innovation Initiative Fund under the aegis of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, or TEDCO. The bill passed the Maryland House and Senate and awaits the signature of Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is expected to sign it. 

“Maryland has premiere research universities but it ranks low on technology transfer,” Brian Levine, vice president, government relations, Tech Council of Maryland, says of the fund, which is intended to remedy that situation.

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Supernus Pharmaceuticals readies D.C. region’s first biotech IPO since 2007 – Washington Business Journal

Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc. is slated to go public this week, more than a year after first filing paperwork to list its stock on the Nasdaq. The Rockville biotech is expected to start trading on Wednesday.

When we wrote about the planned public offering two days before Christmas 2010, we noted that Supernus would be the region’s first biotech IPO since 2007. That’s still true today.

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Nabi Biopharmaceuticals to merge with Australian company – Baltimore Business Journal

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, which began exploring strategic alternatives after failed late-stage clinical trials of its experimental smoking cessation vaccine, plans to merge with Australia’s Biota Holdings Limited.

If approved, the newly merged company will be named Biota Pharmaceuticals, and will be headquartered in the U.S., the companies said. Biota Pharmaceuticals will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Under terms of the deal, Rockville-based Nabi (NASDAQ: NABI) will acquire all outstanding shares in Biota in exchange for newly issued shares of Nabi common stock.

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Johns Hopkins tops the list for expenditures in research & development

High-profile research institutions, many of which are members of Association of American Universities, provide many benefits for undergraduates on the fast-track to professional or graduate school programs.  In part, this is because of the level of funding these schools receive from the federal government as well as from industry and nonprofit organizations.

And despite an anemic economy, it appears that big money continues to flow to big name national research universities.

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NIH’s Collins Lauds “Unprecedented” Partnership at NY Bio Confab | Xconomy

Yesterday at the New York Biotechnology Association’s 21st annual meeting, National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins was beamed in by videoconference to a keynote lunch at the Times Square Marriott Marquis. Collins, who was the featured speaker, apologized for his virtual appearance at the event, but he had a good excuse: Just two hours earlier he was at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., making an announcement about an ambitious new program being undertaken by the NIH and drug giants Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly. The NIH said it will collaborate with the companies to make existing compounds available to outside scientists who want to find new uses for them.

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Maryland Proton Treatment Center: Construction to start on Baltimore’s west side – Baltimore Business Journal

The University of Maryland School of Medicine    and Advanced Particle Therapy LLC of San Diego plan to start construction Tuesday on a new $200 million-plus proton treatment center on Baltimore’s west side.

The Maryland Proton Treatment Center will be located inside a new 110,000-square-foot building that is part of the University of Maryland BioPark.

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Entrepreneurship Ready to “Pop” in Maryland – Citybizlist Baltimore

Maryland has the foundation on which it can grow a robust environment of high-tech, innovative start-ups, but needs a stronger angel and venture capital network, more support for entrepreneurs and better programs to nurture young, creative minds, a group of business leaders said Tuesday.

"There’s no reason Maryland can’t be an entrepreneurial hotbed like Austin or Boston or Silicon Valley," said John M. Wasilisin, executive vice president of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). "We have our challenges, but our assets are off the charts, our education system and our quality of life, our access to federal facilities."

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Loyola University Maryland and Wasabi Ventures Name First Business Accelerator Participants – Citybizlist Baltimore

Loyola University Maryland and Wasabi Ventures, a California-based venture capital firm with a presence in Baltimore, named the first three companies participating in the business accelerator program the two organizations operate in the Govans community of North Baltimore. They are:

– CodePupil, an educational technology system that teaches software coding;

– PointClickSwitch.com, an energy choice platform that gives residential customers the ability to compare supplier offers, enroll, and save;

– and Vidstructor, a software company enabling interactive video training platforms for businesses.

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New Enterprise Associates Grabs Four Spots on Forbes Midas List of Top Tech Investors – cbl – Citybizlist Washington DC

Four New Enterprise Associates (NEA) venture capitalists were named to Forbes Midas List of Tech Investors, which aims to single out the top 100 venture capitalists that provide "the best returns for their investors, while helping create the most valuable and impactful technology and life science companies."

Scott Sandell from the firm’s Menlo Park office ranked highest at 14th. He was joined by Chevy Chase, Md. based Harry Weller (17), Peter Barris (23), both stalwarts on the Midas list, and "newcomer" James Barrett.

Weller’s and Barris’ biggest deal was in Groupon while Barret’s was in Pharmion.

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Bioeconomy Blueprint Embraces Public-Private Efforts, Avoids Grand Challenges

President Barack Obama’s administration rolled out its National Bioeconomy Blueprint last week, on April 26. It details measures by which Washington intends to apply biological innovations toward national challenges that include health, food, energy, and the environment.

At the top of the Blueprint’s five priorities is supporting “R&D investments that will provide the foundation for the future U.S. bioeconomy.” Also on the list: increasing the focus on translational and regulatory sciences, reforming regulations, updating training programs, and identifying and supporting opportunities for public-private partnerships.

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States would be wise to emulate New York health accelerator model – FierceMobileHealthcare

It was exciting to see the creation this week of the New York Digital Health Accelerator in New York. The New York State Department of Health, the New York City Investment Fund and the New York eHealth Collaborative all have partnered to provide funding, mentoring support, development expertise and more to health app startups in the state. 

The group is awarding $300,000 each to 12 startups that are producing apps for care coordination, patient engagement, analytics and messaging. The deadline to apply is June 1. What we’ll really be watching for, though, is to see if other states follow suit, and fund health startups in, say, Nebraska or Mississippi. Such localized startup/development support really could be a boon for hospitals trying to develop their own clinical apps. Most incubator programs thus far have been in New York or California, leaving hospitals in the rest of the country out of the running.

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University of Maryland BioPark Announces MedImmune’s Dr. Bahija Jallal as Newest Member of Board of Directors for UM Health Sciences Research Park

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, April 24, 2012 – The University of Maryland BioPark announced today thatBahija Jallal, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of Research and Development at MedImmune, has been appointed as the newest member of the UM Health Sciences Research Park Corporation (RPC) Board of Directors.

“The BioPark leadership team is thrilled to welcome Dr. Jallal – a seasoned life science research and development leader ¬– to the Research Park Corporation’s board of directors,” said RPC President James Hughes, who also serves as the Vice President and Chief Enterprise & Economic Development Officer for the University of Maryland. “Her experience within leading biopharmaceutical companies will bring additional industry perspective to our project. It’s a privilege to have Dr. Jallal on our board.”

Dr. Jallal is a member of both MedImmune’s executive team as well as the R&D leadership team of parent company AstraZeneca. She joined MedImmune as Vice President, Translational Sciences, in March 2006 and has since held positions of increasing responsibility. Dr. Jallal now oversees research, development, regulatory and clinical activities conducted by a team of more than 2,500 employees based at MedImmune’s Maryland, California, and Cambridge, UK sites. Dr. Jallal has guided the MedImmune R&D organization through unprecedented growth and expansion of its biologics pipeline from 40 drugs to more than 140. Dr. Jallal is passionate about leading and shaping MedImmune’s rich pipeline of drugs targeting cancer, infections, respiratory and inflammatory diseases, cardio-vascular and gastrointestinal disorders and pain to ultimately develop new medicines for patients.

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Healthcare execs to mentor digital startups in NY ‘accelerator’ program

In a move that combines an interest in improving health outcomes with a desire to create jobs and boost the state economy, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) and the New York State Department of Health (DOH) have partnered with the New York City Investment Fund to launch the New York Digital Health Accelerator (NYDHA). The program will subsidize health IT startups and link them with "senior advisors" from New York healthcare organizations to accelerate the development of useful new products.

Within the next few months, the program will choose 12 "early- and growth-stage companies" that are developing products in the areas of care coordination, patient engagement, data analytics and message alerts for healthcare providers. In addition to the mentoring, each selected company will receive up to $300,000 to help create solutions designed to improve quality of care for the state’s Medicaid recipients, according to a NYDHA announcement.

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AstraZeneca CEO to retire amidst double digit losses

David Brennan’s move to retire as AstraZeneca’s (NYSE:AZN) CEO in June did not come as a surprise to those who had been urging for a change at the top over the company’s drug development shortcomings. In an industry that walks a tightrope between innovation and regulation and the financial considerations that frame them, there are two critical characteristics that can undermine a CEO:being too bold or not bold enough. Brennan was a bit of both.

His leadership was bookended by two acquisitions — a $15.2 billion deal for MedImmune, a drug developer with a focus on influenza vaccines and the $1.26 billion purchase of biotechnology business Ardea Biosciences.

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NATIONAL BIOECONOMY BLUEPRINT

“The world is shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America.”
—President Obama, December 6, 2011

Economic activity that is fueled by research and innovation in the biological sciences, the “bioeconomy,” is a large and rapidly growing segment of the world economy that provides substantial public benefit. The bioeconomy has emerged as an Obama Administration priority because of its tremendous potential for growth as well as the many other societal benefits it offers. It can allow Americans to live longer, healthier lives, reduce our dependence on oil, address key environmental challenges, transform manu- facturing processes, and increase the productivity and scope of the agricultural sector while growing new jobs and industries.

Decades of life-sciences research and the development of increasingly powerful tools for obtaining and using biological data have brought us closer to the threshold of a previously unimaginable future: “ready to burn” liquid fuels produced directly from CO2, biodegradable plastics made not from oil but from renewable biomass, tailored food products to meet specialized dietary requirements, personalized medical treatments based on a patient’s own genomic information, and novel biosensors for real-time monitoring of the environment. Increasingly,scientists and engineers are looking to augment biological research with approaches from other scientific disciplines for solutions to our most demanding scientific and societal challenges and seeing exciting options that will profoundly affect our future.

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Nodality loses leader to NEA as medical diagnostics model morphs – San Francisco Business Times

Growing diagnostic test developer Nodality Inc. is losing its first CEO, but the venture capital world is gaining another experienced life sciences entrepreneur.

Dr. David Parkinson will join New Enterprise Associates as a venture partner. He initially will be interim chief medical officer of NEA-backed Zyngenia Inc., a young Gaithersburg, Md., company targeting cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Parkinson leaves Nodality — named “Most Promising Company” at the Personalized Medicine World Conference last year — as the 40-person South San Francisco company forges ahead with a hybrid strategy of selling its tests into clinics and striking deals with drug developers. In the face of changes in the medical diagnostics industry, it’s a model that just might be used by more companies.

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Foundation Seeks Help Identifying Innovators in Vaccine Delivery | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now accepting nominations for the second annual Gates Vaccine Innovation Award. The award aims to recognize, celebrate, and spur transformative ideas for achieving health impact through the delivery of vaccines. Nominations will be accepted through August 31, 2012.

“Vaccines work to give children a healthy start in life,” said Steve Landry, interim director of vaccine delivery at the Gates Foundation. “New ways of thinking about age old vaccine delivery problems are essential to ensure that all children have access to the vaccines they need.”

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Fine-tuning Nanotech to Target Cancer – Technology Review

The results of the human trials are startling. Even at a lower-than-usual dose, multiple lung metastases shrank or even disappeared after one patient received only two-hour-long intravenous infusions of an experimental cancer drug. Another patient saw her cervical tumor reduce by nearly 60 percent after six months of treatment. Though the drug trial—by Bind Biosciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts—of an experimental nanotechnology-based technique was designed simply to show whether the technology is safe, the encouraging results revive hopes that nanomedicine could realize its elusive promise.

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Drug research: All together now | The Economist

IT WAS once only drug firms that developed drugs. But this is changing. Take the case of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a Parkinson’s disease charity. On April 19th it announced that it would pay for a clinical trial of a drug developed by Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical giant, that might treat the mental symptoms of the disease.

The deal is the latest sign of a broader shift—one that is driven by desperation. Patents on blockbuster drugs are expiring. Research and development (R&D) have grown less productive, with billions of dollars yielding only a trickle of drugs.

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Genome entrepreneurs say their data will help you live longer | VentureBeat

The cost of sequencing the human genome continues to fall, reaching a low of $1,000 this year due to a new microchip and machine designed by genetics company Life Technologies Corp. And unleashed by those lower costs, a small cadre of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is exploring ways to harness this data to enable us to live longer and healthier lives.

Dr. Dietrich Stephan, a human geneticist, has spent the better part of a decade trying to achieve that goal. Until recently, it has been costly and time-consuming to map the 3 billion units of DNA, known as base-pairs, which make up the human genetic code. But now, he said, with the low cost of gene sequencing technologies, we are on the brink of banishing a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine.

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