BHI Weekly News Archives

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a Montgomery County innovation intermediary is seeking an energetic and motivated life science professional for the role of an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) focused in the Medical Device space.

The EIR program was setup at BioHealth Innovation to:

• Retain and bring entrepreneurial talent to the Maryland Ecosystem
• Build sustainable life science startups that will add value within the healthcare system and also build upon the existing infrastructure
• Connect resources including Institutions, technology assets, people and money within Maryland as well as attract it to Maryland

The EIR will work with BHI leadership to ensure that the activities and outcomes are aligned with BHIs strategic focus.

Position Summary

GenVec is seeking a highly motivated professional who is able to make strong contributions in supporting all business and corporate development activities. The successful candidate will work directly with the Chief Executive Officer and will interact extensively with the scientific, legal, and financial personnel of the company to review and evaluate the scientific and commercial aspects of potential transactions. The Business Development Analyst will be responsible for supporting a portfolio of business development projects which address in-licensing, out-licensing, and acquisition opportunities for GenVec.

Qiagen NV (NASDAQ: QGEN ) solutions are used every day by healthcare providers to analyze patient DNA and RNA in order to guide treatment and by researchers pursuing next generation medicine. The opportunity for Qiagen to help the industry deliver the right drug to the right patient at the right dose at the right time is big, but a significant drop-off in revenue from a legacy product meant that potential didn’t translate into significant sales growth last year.

Germantown-based Intrexon Corp. a synthetic biology company, plans to raise up to $150 million though a secondary offering of common stock, the company said late Tuesday.

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, is probably best known for its work in discovering and developing therapeutics based on antibodies -protein molecules produced by the body as a primary immune response. However, for a number of reasons, including the large size of the molecule, antibodies may not always offer the most appropriate solution for treating some diseases. In those cases there may be alternative, innovative approaches which can be explored in parallel with our usual work with antibodies.

Johns Hopkins University will give $15 million to promising researchers over the next three years.

Two new grants, totaling $15 million over three years, are intended for early-career researchers, who are increasingly being passed up for federal research grants. The grants will also support researchers who collaborate with others outside their school. Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels is concerned about a potential dearth in new researchers entering the field, and in early January told the Baltimore Business Journal he planned to earmark more university funds to support their work.

DreamIt Health Baltimore announced its second cohort on Monday.

The startups that make up the accelerator’s class of 2015 include a telehealth platfrom, an app to improve patient handoffs and a photo-sharing service for healthcare professionals. Five of the six companies are from outside Baltimore, with one hailing from Spain. Officials also noted that two of the companies are female-founded.

Improving patient handoffs, autotransfusion, Epic alumni and a couple of women-led startups figure into DreamIt Health Baltimore‘s second class of early stage healthcare companies. They will also be the first to occupy its permanent office at a new shared working space.

In a phone interview with DreamIt Ventures Managing Director Jason Hardebeck, he noted that the accelerator has added new partners — University of Maryland in Baltimore, including its medical school, and The Abell Foundation.

Biotechnology companies in the Washington region attracted less money from investors in 2014 than any other year since 1999, recent data show, even as the sector saw a significant increase in venture capital dollars in other parts of the country.

Local industry observers aren’t sounding alarms just yet. They say one down year, no matter how down it may be, doesn’t necessarily mean the region has fallen out of favor with life sciences investors.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015, 08:00am – 10:30am

Who Has Capital and Who is the Right Fit for You?

Join the Tech Council of Maryland for a unique and informative discussion on life science investment strategy. On Wednesday, December 10, 2015 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, TCM will convene an investment super panel comprised of experts and representatives from across the investment spectrum.

Whether you are looking for the next round of financing, going into clinical trials, gearing up for the JP Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference, of just looking to sharpen your fundraising skills, this program is designed to teach you how to get the inside edge. The discussion, led by Dennis Ford, CEO of Life Science Nation is designed to offer attendees an exclusive view into the minds and operations of successful life science investors and to provide new and valuable tools to help you operationalize your knowledge for success.

Tuesday, Feb 10, 2015 From 4:00-6:00 PM

Please join us for a Business Roundtable Discussion moderated by Bernanrd T. Ferrari, MD, JD, Prfoessor and Dean – Carey School of Business, at our new FastForward East Innovation Hub!

DATE: February 11, 2015 3:30 – 5:00 PM

LOCATION: Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, 111 Rockville Pike, Suite 800, Rockville, MD 20850

We’re kicking off 2015 with a new (permanent) location and a wide variety of new programs for innovators and entrepreneurs in Montgomery County. Have you heard of the Thingstitute? Do you know about the Venture Mentoring Program? Guess what – there’s also a new life sciences accelerator! All of this (and much more!) including Montgomery County’s new emphasis on identifying funding sources for your business. You won’t want to miss this program.

Benjamin H. Wu has been named the new Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, Governor Larry Hogan and DBED Secretary Mike Gill announced today.

A former DBED employee, Wu is among the first Cabinet deputies to be named to the Hogan administration. He will act as Chief Operating Officer, responsible for overseeing the Department’s charge of attracting companies to the State, as well as working with in-state companies to help them expand and add jobs, while connecting them to partners and resources.

February 10th at 2pm ET

Every Phase II NIH SBIR/STTR application requires a commercialization plan, which essentially describes how the company plans bring its innovative technology to market. In this Hangout, we will discuss the key elements of a successful commercialization plan.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel today released a widely anticipated proposal for speeding the development of new medical treatments. The massive, 393-page document, dubbed the 21st Century Cures Act, has been under development by Fred Upton (R–MI) and Diana DeGette (D–CO) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee since last April. It grew out of a series of hearings and roundtables last year on ways to spur biomedical research innovation and streamline clinical trials and the drug approval process. The result is a long list of ideas summarized in this document.

President Obama’s settled the score on this one: It’s precision medicine. Not personalized medicine.

The life sciences community has been throwing around both terms, but there’s actually a keen distinction between the two.

Roche has become the latest pharmaceutical company to join the connected health party at Qualcomm Life — in this case to do remote patient monitoring. The goal of the strategic collaboration is to generate big data insights on patients’ condition to reduce complications from chronic conditions, according to a company statement.

LSN researchers recently decided to take a deep dive into interviews we have held with venture philanthropy groups from around the world to see what the future likely has in store. After analyzing data gathered over the past three years from more than 150 investors, we uncovered a few notable trends.

Every startup wants to change the world, but DC-based incubator and seed fund 1776 fosters the type of early stage companies that just might have a chance.

The incubator is focused specifically on startups for the public good and you won’t find any benign photo sharing apps in 1776’s portfolio.

The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer is proud to announce the winners of its 2015 Awards. Now in its 32nd year, the awards have recognized the outstanding efforts of scientists, technology transfer professionals, and their partners in academia and industry. Many technological breakthroughs that have become an essential part of our everyday lives have been winners of the FLC awards.

This year, nearly 100 nominations were submitted from eight federal agencies, which made the decision to select 23 winners a difficult one. But those selected represent technology transfer at its highest level.

Twenty-five U.S. institutions have been selected by the NSF-funded National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) to join the Pathways to Innovation Program.

The Pathways to Innovation Program is designed to help institutions fully incorporate innovation and entrepreneurship into undergraduate engineering education. The program is run by Epicenter, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell (formerly NCIIA).

In what it’s calling a ‘historic’ announcement, the Department of Health and Human Services has set new goals to speed the U.S. healthcare system toward value-based care.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced Monday that the agency wants to tie 30 percent of fee-for-service Medicare payments to quality or value through alternative payment models, such as accountable care organizations or bundled payments, by the end of 2016. It also aims to have 50 percent of payments affiliated with these models by the end of 2018.

In early January Brenton “Brent” Saunders, the chief executive of upstart pharmaceutical giant Actavis , reclined in a medical chair on a stage in an Orlando hotel ballroom as a plastic surgeon pierced his face 30 times, delivering needles full of Botox to the crooks of his eyes and nose and injecting Juvederm Voluma, a dermal filler, into his cheeks. A cameraman documented every prick and projected it on a huge screen behind him. These are bestselling products for Allergan AGN -0.51%, which Actavis is buying for $67 billion, the biggest health care deal in six years. The audience, 1,000 Allergan sales reps, went wild.

Montgomery County launches into the future as it establishes the Thingstitute, an innovative living laboratory for Internet of Things (IoT) technology. By providing an unparalleled test bed for start-ups, established companies, and research institutions, the lab will feature co-working space and equipment for fabricating and testing devices.

Located in Rockville’s historic Red Brick Courthouse, the Thingstitute will host an opening reception on Tuesday, January 27, 2015 from 5:30-7:00 pm.

MedImmune has formed a partnership with the National Cancer Institute to develop cancer therapies that use the immune system or attack tumor cells to fight the disease.

BioIT Solutions, a provider of enterprise systems built on the 1Platform4™ product suite, today announced that CIO Review has chosen BioIT Solutions as one of its 20 Most Promising Biotechnology Solution providers.

BioIT Solutions was selected for its expertise in providing data management solutions for biotech research, drug development, and diagnostics. The annual list of companies is selected by a panel of experts and members of CIO Review’s editorial board to recognize and promote technology entrepreneurship.

Germantown-based Intrexon Corp. a synthetic biology company, plans to raise up to $150 million though a secondary offering of common stock, the company said late Tuesday.

Intrexon (NYSE: XON) was trading at around $29 a share Wednesday.

CEOCFO: Mr. Fannon, what is the basic concept at BioIT Solutions?

Mr. Fannon: BioIT Solutions was formed to address needs for advanced computational, workflow and data management systems for biological research, drug development and diagnostics. Biology has become an information science. As scientists decoded the genome and discovered genes that encode proteins, results were stored in databases that form the basis for new approaches to biological discovery. There is a lot of emphasis on digital biology these days — work that used to require painstaking lab experiments can now be done, very efficiently, using databases and computational tools. The significant and rapid convergence of biology and information science is creating excellent opportunities for effective solutions for research, diagnostics, and personalized medicine.

Following AstraZeneca’s December announcement that it is taking steps to reintroduce the EGFR-targeted non-small cell lung cancer drug Iressa (gefitinib) in the US, Qiagen said last week that it would develop a tissue-based molecular diagnostic test to accompany the drug’s launch.

PharmAthene Inc. now knows how much money it stands to get in its long-running lawsuit with Siga Technologies Inc.: A judge Thursday said Siga must pay PharmAthene $195 million and $30,663 per day in interest if Siga loses its appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court.

The case dates to 2006, when Annapolis-based PharmAthene sued New York-based Siga after the companies’ planned merger fell apart. PharmAthene claimed it was entitled to some of the profits from Tecovirimat, Siga’s smallpox antiviral.

Nick Culbertson was a Green Beret. Robert Lord worked at a hedge fund in Connecticut. Then after a career change, both found themselves in medical school at Johns Hopkins University. But while there, the pair met and discovered a much greater need.

Tuesday, Feb 10, 2015 From 4:00-6:00 PM

Please join us for a Business Roundtable Discussion moderated by Bernanrd T. Ferrari, MD, JD, Prfoessor and Dean – Carey School of Business, at our new FastForward East Innovation Hub!

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the largest owner and developer of real estate for the life-sciences industry in the nation wants to raise up to $20 million to build digital health startups in San Francisco, SFGate reports. Last year, the real estate developer announced that it would start three new accelerators nationwide to focused on agriculture, biotech and digital health. The biotech space is already up and running in New York City and has attracted giant pharma companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lily & Co with $51 million in funding. The agriculture space is scheduled to open later this year in North Carolina.

Advocates for programs spending state dollars on stem cell research or investment in technology companies were nervous about what Gov. Larry Hogan’s budget would hold for them, given warnings of “strong medicine” to cure fiscal woes.

But after Hogan’s spending plan was unveiled Friday, they were relieved to find that the Republican’s business-friendly message spared several economic development programs that were popular under Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley.

The first batch of GlaxoSmithKline’s experimental Ebola vaccine has been dispatched to West Africa and is expected to arrive in Liberia later on Friday, the British drugmaker said.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the worst in history, appears to be waning but cautioned against complacency. The epidemic has seen 21,724 cases reported in nine countries since it started in Guinea a year ago. Some 8,641 people have died.

U.S. venture capital investment hit $48.3 billion in 2014, its highest level since 2000, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Investments jumped 61 percent over the previous year in terms of dollars. Deals were up as well, but by a more modest 4 percent to 4,356 deals in 2014, indicating the growth of deal size and the presence of a number of “megadeals.” NVCA also noted that investments were dispersed throughout the country, with 160 U.S. metros receiving some venture capital.

BioCity, the incubation specialist with locations in the East Midlands, North West and Scotland has announced a new investment fund, created following a significant contribution by AstraZeneca.

The £5 million fund, to be managed by BioCity will make equity investments, typically between £50,000 and £250,000, in life science companies based at Alderley Park, Cheshire. BioCity Chairman, Dr Louis Nisbet explains: “We are very pleased that AstraZeneca has chosen BioCity to manage these funds, not only to support the growth of a new generation of life science businesses at Alderley Park but also to make sound investment decisions that aim to replenish and grow this evergreen fund over time.”

CDVCA is organizing its 20th anniversary Annual Conference in Washington, DC on March 18-20, 2015 in Washington, DC. CDVCA’s Annual Conference is the premier training and networking event for anyone interested in developmental venture capital, including social VC fund managers, emerging fund managers, investors, economic development professionals, foundations representatives, policy makers, government officials and aspiring students.

Venture capital investment soared in 2014, hitting a high that hasn’t been seen since 2000. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, $52.12 billion was invested in private companies last year by venture and private equity firms, as well as corporations, hedge funds and mutual funds, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has 3 targeted funding opportunities with deadlines in February. It’s also not too early to start preparing for the April 5 Omnibus solicitation deadline. Check your registrations (SAM must be renewed annually!) and reach out to discuss your project. For questions about the NHLBI SBIR/STTR programs, contact Small Business Coordinator Jennifer Shieh, PhD at NHLBI_SBIR@mail.nih.gov Human Cellular Models for Predicting Individual Responses to CFTR-Directed Therapeutics— Due February 9 For the development and validation of novel in vitro human cell-based tools for predicting the responses of individual patients to cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR)-directed therapeutics for cystic fibrosis lung disease. SBIR: RFA-HL-15-027 STTR: RFA-HL-15-026 For questions about these funding opportunities, contact:Robert Smith, PhD, robert.smith4@nih.govProgram Director, Division of Lung Diseases Development of a Microfluidic Platform for Blood Testing in Neonatal & Pediatric Patients— Due February 10 (Phase II only) For the development of microfluidic devices to analyze blood for factors related to the thrombotic, transfusion, and/or hemostatic status of pediatric/neonatal patients. SBIR—Phase II only: RFA-HL-14-026This application must be based on an awarded SBIR or STTR-funded Phase I project. For questions about this funding opportunity, contact:Ronald Warren, PhD, rwarren@nhlbi.nih.gov Program Director, Division of Blood Diseases and Resources Stem Cell-Derived Blood Products for Therapeutic Use: Technology Improvement— Due February 20 For tools and technologies that enable further advances in the manufacturing process to produce safe and functional blood and platelet products at reduced costs. SBIR: RFA-HL-15-030 STTR: RFA-HL-15-029 Slides from the January 8 webinar are available—please send a request to NHLBI_SBIR@mail.nih.gov.

For questions about these funding opportunities, contact:Shimian Zou, PhD, shimian.zou@nih.gov Program Director, Division of Blood Diseases and Resources John Thomas, PhD, thomasj@nhlbi.nih.gov Program Director, Division of Blood Diseases and Resources

Startup Maryland (www.startupmd.org) today announced appointment of serial entrepreneur Shahab Kaviani as Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EiR).

A recognized leader of startup communities globally, Kaviani brings over a decade of first-hand entrepreneurial expertise and leadership experience most-recently as co-founder and CEO of Rockville, MD based CoFoundersLab (now Onevest). Previously, Kaviani served on the executive management team growing another Maryland company, HyperOffice, into a cloud-collaboration software leader.

The most significant announcement that Apple made in 2014 wasn’t a larger-sized iPhone. It was that Apple is entering the health-care industry. With HealthKit, it is building an iTunes-like platform for health; Apple Watch is its first medical device. Apple is, however, two steps behind Google, IBM, and hundreds of startups. They realized much earlier that medicine is becoming an information technology and that the trillion-dollar health-care market is ripe for disruption.

View the ’15 Biggest Innovations in Health Tech’ infographic from Innovation in Practice.

UNC-Chapel Hill has created a $5 million fund to help startups commercialize technology developed at the university.

The new Carolina Research Venture Fund, an initiative of the university’s board of trustees, aims to address the dearth of seed funding available to startups. A long-standing maxim in the startup world is that the first infusion of cash is the toughest to raise.

With the surge in digital health tech, entrepreneurs who dream of developing the next killer healthcare app have plenty of reason to be optimistic. 2014 was a record-breaking year with over $4.1B in venture funding for digital health companies, more than the previous three years combined, according to Mercom Capital Group. The future of healthcare technology includes wearables that monitor vitals, apps that facilitate outpatient care, CRM systems that allow physicians to forge better relationships with patients, and more.

Please join us in wishing her well as she embarks on retirement and new adventures.

When:

January 20, 2015 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. (Remarks at 5:15 p.m.) La Tasca – Baltimore – 201 East Pratt St. (Parking validated at 100 Pratt St.- $5) Cash bar; light horse d’euvres

and/or

January 28, 2015 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Remarks at 4:15 p.m.; BioBuzz networking ’til 7:30 p.m.) Growlers – Gaithersburg – 227 West Diamond St. Cash bar; light horse d’euvres

Novartis India has agreed to transfer its over-the-counter division (OTC Division) to GlaxoSmithKline Consumer (GSK CPL), a consumer healthcare joint venture (JV) between Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis and GSK, for about INR1.097bn ($17.6m)

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Maryland, has received $4 million in funding from the Mann Fund to develop a next-generation retinal prosthesis system. The Mann Fund was created by philanthropist Alfred E. Mann 15 years ago to support the development of biomedical technologies.

A Exciting Opportunity for Investor Meetings and Showcases

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 21, 2015

We invite you to submit your high-growth and innovative companies to individually meet with and showcase to an exclusive Global 1000 Transaction Network of Corporate Investors, Venture Capitalists, and Angel Investors at the Combined University Startups and Global 1000 Meet | Partner | Deal Conference in Washington, DC, on March 11 and 12, 2015.

Swiss drugmaker Roche said on Wednesday it had entered into an agreement with QIAGEN that includes a provision of non-exclusive licenses to recently granted Roche patents, pertaining to the detection of mutations in the EGFR pathway.

It didn’t take R. Michael Gill very long to come up with some priorities after Gov.-elect Larry Hogan named him the next Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development secretary last week.

Gill wants to keep McCormick & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MKC) in state. He wants to bring the FBI headquarters to Maryland. And he wants to emphasize customer service in dealing with businesses.

Lockheed Martin Corp. is normally known for big things – tanks, planes, ships, those kinds of projects.

But a new partnership the defense giant has formed with a San Diego company has Lockheed looking at something very, very small.

The ETC (Emerging Technology Centers) www.etcbaltimore.com, Baltimore City’s award-winning technology innovation centers, announced today that the following six companies have been accepted into the AccelerateBaltimore™ 2015 program:

Show me the money, I’m not seeing it here.

According to NVCA, U.S. VC firms raised $29.8B in 2014, making it the best fundraising year since 2007 (’13 was $17.7B). Overall this is good news, but there has not been local traction. Here is the data from NVCA on the D.C. located funds that raised capital in ’14:

U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) today met with Governor-Elect Larry Hogan at Harry Brown’s Restaurant in Annapolis. Senator Mikulski and Governor-Elect Hogan discussed working together to support jobs and opportunity for Maryland families.

Roche said today it will acquire Trophos for up to €470 million (about $543 million), in a deal that will expand the pharma giant’s portfolio in neuromuscular disease with high medical need, anchored by the Phase II/III-completed spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) compound olesoxime (TRO19622).

AOL founder Steve Case predicted last January that the region east of the Mississippi River would raise more venture capital than Silicon Valley in 2014.

And the winner is … Silicon Valley. By a friggin’ landslide.

All that venture capital money so famously “sitting on the sideline” finally made it into company coffers in 2014.

Mark McCaffrey, a partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, called 2014 an “exciting year” for venture capital investing, where two deals exceeded $1 billion and 40 “megadeals” exceeded $100 million.

Venture capital funding hit its highest annual mark since 2001 as venture investors participated in $47.3 billion across 3,617 deals. Even versus 2013, the past year was huge as venture capital skyrocketed 62% YoY due to multiple $500M+ mega-rounds while deal growth was more modest, climbing 8%. Of note, two quarters each – Q2’14 and Q4’14 – notched over $13B in funding.

All of us here at Startup Maryland are very excited to invite you to Collaborate, an innovation conference we’re participating in January 23rd & 24th in Washington DC.

“Startup Maryland is delighted to be in the Resource Expo showcasing our initiatives around Celebration, Connections, Coaching and Capital.,” stated Michael Binko, founder and president of Startup Maryland. “We’ll be highlighting the results of the third-annual Pitch Across Maryland, our upcoming Raise Your Game bootcamp for entrepreneurs and our plans to engage side-line angel investors across the region,” added Binko.

January 30th, 2015 8:00 AM-10:00 AM

Learn from Eitan Yudilevich, Ph.D. Director of U.S. – Israel Binational R & D Foundation (BIRD) about grants available to collaborate new high tech product development with Israeli companies. Grants up to $1 million are available to engage innovative companies from The Start Up Nation to kick start your company’s product development to a new level.While there is no fee, RSVPs are required.

New Jersey’s first private medical school in 50 years is planned for part of the 110-acre Hoffmann-La Roche property. Roche plans to vacate the land in 2015 after an 80-year history in Clifton and Nutley.

A trio of scientists have started working with researchers at GlaxoSmitKline on a potential cure for cancer. In fact, they believe they’ve found the diseases’ “Achilles heel.”

Last month, GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) selected a Wistar/Penn project for its 2014 Discovery Fast Track Challenge program, which was created to accelerate the development of new medicines.

FierceBiotech on Wednesday delivered the first big verdict on the “mood” of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference – based largely on its executive breakfast held this week in San Francisco. The verdict: Real confidence well above and beyond the typical happy face you’d get, regardless, at JP Morgan.

In the summer of 2013, Pamela Shavaun Scott started having “24/7 severe headaches” — so severe that she couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t before December that she heard for sure that it was a brain tumor.

Harvard University has long played an outsized role in spurring the growth of the Boston area’s life sciences industry, but the school’s contributions have largely unfolded behind the scenes.

Unlike the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge’s Kendall Square — the beating heart of biotech — Harvard has been known less for spinning off startups than for licensing cutting-edge research and grooming the industry’s business leaders.

The cash just keeps flowing in health IT, as does M&A activity.

According to Mercom Capital Group, venture capital in the health IT space reached $4.7 billion in 2014, up from $2.2 billion the year prior. Rock Health recently put the figure at $4 billion, although it’s count does not include deals under $2 million.

The United States shouldn’t worry just yet about losing the number one spot as far as disease-related research in the world goes – that’s pretty solid – but that doesn’t mean the country is steadily moving forward the way it could or should.

‘Tis the season for dieting and purchasing gym memberships you may or may not use.

There are plenty of tactics out there for how to drop excess weight fast, and generally speaking, most of them probably won’t be the quick fix resolutionaries are hoping for (yes, that’s a made up word).

In 2012, we authored a report titled The Evolving Business Case for Social Media in Healthcare – a publication covering the range of social media influences on the industry. These influences were essentially cloud-based approaches to sharing information between consumers, individual care professionals and healthcare organizations.

The Colonial Room of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco was filled beyond capacity Monday afternoon, and the offices of digital-health seed fund Rock Health were buzzing with hundreds of partygoers just a couple of hours later.

In a laboratory first, Duke researchers have grown human skeletal muscle that contracts and responds just like native tissue to external stimuli such as electrical pulses, biochemical signals and pharmaceuticals.

Vtesse, Inc., a rare disease company focused on developing drugs for Niemann-Pick Disease Type C (NPC) and other severe diseases with great unmet need, announced today that it has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Vtesse is the first spin-off company for Cydan Development, Inc., an orphan-drug accelerator that shares with Vtesse the same syndicate of leading life sciences investors that are committed to funding additional rare disease companies. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the Vtesse financing with participation from Pfizer Venture Investments, Lundbeckfond Ventures, Bay City Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments.

R. Mike Gill, chairman of Columbia investment banking firm Evergreen Advisors, will become the next secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

The appointment ends months of speculation about who Gov.-elect Larry Hogan, a Republican, would name to the role after winning the gubernatorial election in November.

AstraZeneca today announced that MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, has entered into a licensing agreement with Omnis Pharmaceuticals (Omnis), a privately-held biotechnology company focused on the development of oncolytic viruses. This agreement will allow MedImmune to combine key agents from its investigational immunotherapy portfolio with Omnis’ lead investigational oncolytic virus programme, a genetically engineered strain of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). The programme is currently being studied in a Phase I clinical trial as a monotherapy for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma and other cancers that have metastasised to the liver.

Sample and assay technologies provider Qiagen NV recently announced the launch of its latest diagnostic TB test– QuantiFERON-TB Gold-Plus (QFT-Plus), subsequent to the product’s receipt of CE Mark in Europe.

QFT-Plus is the fourth generation of the most accurate test used in the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) infection. It involves Qiagen’s proprietary QuantiFERON technology which can uniquely identify presymptomatic infections that standard diagnostic technologies fail to detect.

BD Medical, a part of Becton, Dickinson and Company, announced receiving FDA clearance for its Intelliport Medication Management System. The product monitors manual IV bolus injections, automatically records how much of which medication a patient receives and warns of allergies by interfacing with the hospital’s electronic medical records.

J. Craig Venter was one of the first scientists in 2001 to map the human genome. Now this trailblazer in genome sequencing research has his sights set on creating the world’s largest database of human genomes. And he’s calling in Baltimore startup Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. to help.

Qiagen announced on Sunday that it has acquired the enzyme solutions unit of Enzymatics, a supplier of enzymes used in next-generation sequencing and other genetic analysis technologies in life sciences research and clinical applications, for an undisclosed amount.

Roche, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, is spending $1.03 billion to buy a 56.3% stake in Cambridge, Mass.-based Foundation Medicine, a company that uses genetics to help select drugs for cancer patients. Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, will also market Foundation’s diagnostic tests outside the U.S., help educate doctors as to the value of the tests in the U.S., and provide another $150 million to support additional research on Foundation’s products.

Balitmore’s PathSensors Inc. has received $500,000 from a Chinese investor to expand the bioscience company’s footprint in China.

The private investor, Michael Song, is president of Shanghai Qi Fa Electronics Co. Ltd. in China. The money will allow PathSensors to grow sales of its surface and airborne detection systems in China. Funding will also go toward market expansion in the U.S.

Rockville-based contract research firm Optimal Research announced it will begin clinical trials this month for the Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) Ebola vaccine, considered one of the frontrunners in the race to address the Ebola crisis.

Optimal Research Chief Operating Officer E.B. McLindon said Friday the company is seeking individuals to participate in a Phase I Clinical trial for the vaccine. The company plans to administer the vaccine to 92 healthy volunteers in January and February to determine its safety.

US-based biotechnology firm Tetragenetics will enter into collaboration with AstraZeneca’s global biologics research and development arm MedImmune, on multi-target ion channel drug discovery program.

The need to improve and increase research into dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases is widely recognised. In 2012, Prime Minister David Cameron launched his “Challenge on Dementia” and since then a number of initiatives have been announced which mean that the UK is a world-leader in this area. MedImmune, the biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, has built a team of neuroscientists focusing on neurodegenerative research and is deeply involved and committed to its work to discover and develop novel treatments for dementia.

The EAGB put together a year-end report on the regional economy for the second year, this time highlighting local universities and the innovation economy. Also in this report, the EAGB lists its most memorable achievements from the previous year. Take a look!

The University of Maryland will be applying for status as a qualified institution to give tax breaks to businesses — particularly startups — located around some of College Park’s higher-profile locales, such as the planned hotel-conference center and research park.

The “next generation of science” is at risk unless major changes are made to increase opportunities for young researchers, Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels wrote in a scientific journal article published Tuesday.

Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York — Maryland has a lot of competition for entrepreneurs’ attention. Experts say a tax credit specifically for angel investors could sweeten the deal for entrepreneurs and investors who decide to do business in Maryland.

Establishing an angel investor tax credit will be a top priority for the Greater Baltimore Committee during the state’s upcoming legislative session. GBC sees the tax credit as a way to boost the state’s economy by supporting growing startups that will create jobs and bring new business to Maryland. Investors and adivsors of Baltimore-area startups say the tax credit would not only help startups grow in Maryland, but keep them — and their investors — from laying roots elsewhere.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the real estate firm that helped transform Mission Bay into a thriving life-science hub, now wants to raise up to $20 million to build digital-health companies from scratch in San Francisco.

Alexandria, the nation’s largest owner and developer of real estate for the life-science industry, said in August that it would start three new accelerators nationwide to support startups in biotech, agriculture and digital health. The biotech space is up and running in New York City with $51 million in financing, and the agriculture space is expected to open within the next six months in North Carolina.

The Beyond the Pill movement took an interesting turn this week when Qualcomm announced plans to open an investment business with Novartis, according to a company statement. Qualcomm will launch the investment company through its Qualcomm Ventures business. The news splash at the start of the JP Morgan Healthcare conference came about a week after the two companies said at the International CES in Las Vegas that they would collaborate on digital health as part of Novartis’ Trials of the Future program.

The Tech Council of Maryland plans to outline its legislative priorities Monday as state lawmakers head to Annapolis next week, but lobbyists will have to contend with a new governor and constrained budget as they push their agenda.

Wednesday January 28, 2015 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM EST

Join the BioBuzz networking group at our next free event. Along with 100’s of the region’s bioscience workers, you too could be making new connections, getting jobs and helping to build a stronger, more connected industry through the BioBuzz community!

Facebook generates about $8 a year in revenue from each of its users. But what if you offered a company not just your photos and updates, but your entire genome?

Then you could be worth as much as $20,000.

Hundreds of research papers are published every day worldwide. But which articles are most discussed and in which circles? To find out, Altmetric in London traced how often papers were noted in 14 digital channels, ranging from the serious (5,000 research blogs and Mendeley, an academic citation network) to the trendy (Twitter, Facebook) and everything in between (including 1,000 news outlets). Altmetric poured data for 2014 into an algorithm that created scores; the top 200 articles are mapped here.

A new $75 million investment fund has been created by Connecticut-based HealthInvest Equity Partners, according to a filing with the SEC.

The investment firm, formed in 2013, focuses on a wide range of areas within healthcare, from woman’s health companies to urgent care providers to medical imaging.

Blend Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company discovering new classes of medicines to treat cancer, announced today that it has secured $21 million in new funding. The new financing includes additional equity investment from a new investor and all of Blend’s existing venture investors in an expansion of the Series B round, as well as debt financing from an institutional investment firm.

According to a recent article in The National Law Review, universities controlling and supporting the commercialization of their own research is not a new trend in the academic world. Recently, for example, the University of California created UC Ventures, “an independent fund to pursue investments in UC research-fueled enterprises” in September 2014, stated the school in a press release.

Bioentrepreneurship is the process of creating customer defined value by creating, developing, deploying and harvesting biomedical and/or sick care or health and wellness innovation. The definition includes three key elements: process, value creation and innovation.

The hollow Cola tree growing in a remote area of southeastern Guinea was once home to thousands of bats routinely hunted and killed by the neighborhood children. It was also a popular spot to play. A year ago, one child in particular lived within fifty meters of the tree: a two-year-old boy who died in December 2013 and later was identified as the first person in west Africa known to have developed Ebola. The tree was one of the few that loomed over his home village of Meliandou, a hamlet of 31 houses. The question that now haunts researchers: were the tree’s occupants behind how that small boy contracted the virus in the first place?

I am clearly on a digital health kick, blog-wise, as I look back on my last few posts. Having spent time at both CES and the JP Morgan Healthcare conference, where digital health was a hot topic, it seems that the subsector is definitely having its day in the sun. I was particularly honored to be named among the 2013 “Top 50 in Digital Health” by a group comprised of Rock Health, Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank, and Fenwick & West. There are some pretty smart people on the list with me and it is very gratifying to be in such great company (nice article about the list by Wade Roush at Xconomy can be read HERE).

On the other hand, I was feeling a little inadequate being on the list without my own digital health start-up to show for it. I mean, hey, there I am among the actual innovators who dreamed up such cool companies as MC10, Evolent, Pokitdok, Athena Health, and a host of others with only my investment checkbook and blog to show for it. Given that it is the year of the wearables, as anyone who went to CES could readily attest, and that the entrepreneurs in that sector were well represented in the Top 50 list (FitBit’s James Park, Misfit Wearables’ Sonny Vu, etc), I have decided to throw my own hat (wrist?) in the ring on this sector.

These top venture capitalists don’t wait for biotech startups to come to them. They create companies themselves.

The path to greatness in biotechnology runs through a vale of tears. Mark Levin wants to remember that.

Medimmune, the global biologics research and development arm of Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN), has entered into a collaboration to establish a joint lab in Cambridge, UK, with Cancer Research Technology, the commercial arm of Cancer Research UK.

The new laboratory will be the first partnership of its kind of both organizations, and will focus on the discovery and development of biologic cancer treatments over an initial five-year period.

BHI Appoints Shady Grove Adventist Hospital President John A. Sackett to Board of Directors

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, April 21, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) announced today the appointment of Shady Grove Adventist Hospital President John A. Sackett to its Board of Directors. Mr. Sackett is filling a vacancy on the BHI board left by William G. “Bill” Robertson, who recently announced that he was leaving his post as President and Chief Executive Officer of Adventist HealthCare for a position in Washington state.

“The addition of John to the BHI Board of Directors affords us with another strong healthcare leader who provides a perspective from the health system side of the business,” said Rich Bendis, President & CEO, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. “His decades of experience as a healthcare administrator will be an asset to BHI as we work with startups who are seeking to commercialize biohealth products and gain acceptance within the healthcare system.“

In April of 2013, Mr. Sackett became President of Shady Grove Adventist Hospital. He began his career at Boulder Memorial Hospital in 1982. He served as Vice President for General Services from March 1984 until being named President of Avista Adventist Hospital, formerly Boulder Memorial Hospital, in June of 1989. In 1996, when Avista Adventist Hospital became a member of Centura Health, he was named Senior Vice President for Mission and Ministry, in addition to his responsibilities as Administrator for Avista. He most recently served Centura as the Chief Executive Officer for Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, Colorado.

A high sugar diet greatly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease regardless of body weight, according to a new study by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study, which is the biggest one of its kind to date and has included more than 10,000 people followed for up to 14.6 years, concludes that people who drink, for example, one soft drink per day increase their risk of cardiovascular disease by one-third.

Download the presentation here

Please join Rich Bendis on Thursday, February 6th, 2014 for the 7th Annual Health IT Day in Annapolis. Learn more about Health Information Technology (HIT) and how it affects you as a consumer today and in the future. Get the chance to meet with district legislators and senators to let them know what needs to be done to further push HIT in Maryland and keep us on the cutting edge of this rapidly evolving field.

“Our goal is absolutely to democratize knowledge,” says Denny Luan. “Modern science has such a rush for fast results – publish or perish, output over process. We’d like to show the greater public that science does not have to be locked up behind monasterial walls. We’d like to change the way science is shared – in an engaging, deliberately beautiful way. Real-time, open-access and with great design.”

Luan is co-founder of what, until this morning, was known as “Microryza” – the site has been renamed “Experiment” as part of a revamped branding strategy – a potentially revolutionary crowdfunding platform that is looking to do for science what Kickstarter has done for the entertainment industry.

ROCK SPRING VENTURES,A LEADING EARLY-STAGE LIFE SCIENCE VENTURE CAPITAL FUND, IS NOW EPIDAREX CAPITAL Our new name is inspired by Epidaurus, the home of ancient Greece’s first hospital and the temple of the Greek God of Medicine. It reflects our focus on innovation in the healthcare sector and our commitment to investing in young life science and health technology companies. Visit www.epidarex.com.

STAY TUNED FOR A NUMBER OF EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENTS THROUGHOUT THE COMING YEAR…

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, January 6, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) and MIMETAS announced today that Todd Chappell, MBA, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for BHI, has been named General Manager, U.S. Affairs for MIMETAS. A Netherlands-based company, MIMETAS is establishing its offices within BHI’s headquarters in Rockville. MIMETAS and BHI created a U.S. subsidiary of MIMETAS to access the clinical, regulatory and scientific resources available in Central Maryland and to access the U.S. marketplace, the largest life sciences market in the world.

“We’re very pleased to add Todd to the MIMETAS team,” said Jos Joore, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer of MIMETAS. “Todd couples a vast experience in business creation with a profound understanding of biology and disease mechanisms. Most importantly, Todd shares our sense of urgency around enabling better medical treatment by using more predictive cell culture models.”

Previously, Mr. Chappell was the Vice President of Operations for Shape Pharmaceuticals, a portfolio company of HealthCare Ventures, LLC, where he oversaw all day-to-day operations involved in the development of a novel HDAC inhibitor for Cutaneous-T-Cell-Lymphoma. Prior to that, he was at CombinatoRx Inc. for eight years and served as Director of New Products. Mr. Chappell will be combining his role at MIMETAS with his existing EIR position at BHI.

MIT professor Yael V. Hochberg revealed the most effective startup accelerators in the country Tuesday at SxSW in Austin. DreamIt Health showed up in slot #15 and was the only health focused accelerator on the list.

Hochberg is a professor of Finance at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She and professor Susan Cohen of the University of Richmond and the Batten Institute at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, used original research and data from CrunchBase to rank the 15 accelerators.

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca,…

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– Representatives from Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals Inc., Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., and Deloitte Consulting LLP Take New Board Seats – 

– Charles Morton Becomes New Venable LLP Representative on Board while Mike Baader Stays on as Board Member (Now as Greenspring Associates Representative) –

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, August 11, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) announced today the appointment of four new members to its Board of Directors. Dave Lemus, Chief Executive Officer, Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Joel S. Marcus, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Founder, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (Alexandria Venture Investments); and Beth Meagher, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, have joined the BHI Board of Directors, effective August 7, 2014, based upon their organizations’ newly committed support of BHI. Charles “Chuck” Morton now represents Venable LLP on the Board, as another new Board member, while Mike Baader, formerly with Venable, will continue to hold a seat on the Board, but now as a representative of Greenspring Associates. Cynthia L. Collins, CEO, Clarient, who had served on the BHI Board since early 2013, is stepping down from her Board position after relocating to the West Coast

“The expansion of and continued diversity within the BHI Board, based upon new key industry and service provider representatives who are all deeply involved in life sciences, is a testament to the positive impact BHI has made on the Central Maryland biohealth community to date,” said Richard Bendis, BHI President & CEO. 

“We look forward to the contributions from the new Board members representing these organizations. We’re also pleased to welcome a new Venable representative to the Board and that Mike Baader will continue to add value to the organization now that he is on the Greenspring Associates team,” said Douglas Liu, Chair, BHI Board of Directors, and Senior Vice President of Global Operations for Qiagen. “And, on behalf of the BHI staff and Board, I would also like to offer gratitude to Cynthia Collins for her service and contributions to the BHI Board over the last year and half.”

Each year, Speakers Platform recognizes five speakers within ten popular topic areas. Excellence in speaking is based on: expertise, professionalism, client testimonials, presentation skills and original contribution to the field. The only substantive requirement is that the candidates’ standard keynote presentation fee be under $30,000USD. Once the nominees are chosen, online voters determine the final Top5 honorees. Women secured more honoree slots this year than any year in the past – almost sweeping some categories such as “Communication / Diversity”. Job well done!

Over 12,000 votes were received at Speaking.com for the initial 165 nominees- from business leaders, educators, association members and others from around the world. Many voters praised the nominees for having a profoundly positive impact on their lives; a living testament to the far reach and valuable work of all the nominees. Please join us in congratulating your 2014 honorees!

Richard Bendis was listed in the top 5 in the Innovation / Creativity category. Thanks to all those who voted and helped spread the word! —Ed.

As we go into the last few weeks of the year, my office is busy working up the final numbers on application data for this year. Although the complete set of application data, tables, and graphs will not be available until later in January, I thought I would provide an early snapshot on success rates for 2013 competing research project grant (RPG) applications and awards.

We received 49,581 competing RPG applications at NIH in fiscal year 2013, slightly declining compared to last year (51,313 applications in FY2012).

The disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named the top five global health threats they expect to tackle in 2014:

1. The emergence and spread of new microbes

While it’s rare, CDC scientists do come across new diseases each year. In 2013, the new Heartland virus carried by ticks was confirmed in northwest Missouri. Federal health investigators collected samples in the state after two farmers from St. Joseph were sickened by the virus that carried a novel genetic profile.

After vanquishing humans on Jeopardy!, IBM says its Watson computer is ready to help save human lives. The company on Thursday announced it has created a new business unit specifically to advance Watson and deliver its artificially intelligent wisdom to research organizations, medical institutions and businesses so that they can process “big data” for detailed answers to complex questions. They won’t actually own a Watson computer—instead its services will rendered via a network connection (the “cloud computing” model).

IBM doesn’t launch new business units every day—or even every decade—chief executive Ginni Rometty noted during the Watson Group announcement. Indeed, the company is making a calculated bet—to the tune of more than $1 billion—on cognitive computing and the role it will play in making big data useful.

Gov. Martin O’Malley on Wednesday unwrapped his eighth and final budget, a $39 billion plan that increases spending on tax credits for cyber security, biotechnology and research and development while holding the line on taxes.

For fiscal 2015, O’Malley has proposed hiking the biotech and life sciences tax credit by 20 percent, to $12 million. He wants to increase the cyber tax credit by 33 percent, to $4 million and raise the credit for research and development by 12.5 percent, to $9 million.

– BHI offers program that guides biohealth startups in securing federal funding –  

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, June 10, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) announced today that two local biohealth companies to which it has provided strategic assistance, N5 Sensors, Inc. and BioDatomics, have secured Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. N5 Sensors, a BHI client, received two awards: one from the Enivronmental Protection Agency (EPA) and one from the National Science Foundation (NSF). BioDatomics, which participated in a federal funding assistance program offered by BHI, secured an SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)1.  The U.S. federal government’s SBIR program encourages domestic small businesses to engage in federal research and development that has the potential for commercialization. The SBIR program empowers these companies to develop their trade and provides a path to profitability.  

“BHI is dedicated to supporting start-up biohealth companies in Central Maryland in their submission of competitive SBIR applications,” said Ethan Byler, Director, Innovation Programs, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. “We congratulate N5 Sensors and BioDatomics on receiving SBIR grants from the EPA, NSF and the NIH, respectively.”

N5 Sensors of Rockville, which is developing a new generation of chemical sensors that can detect harmful chemicals mixed in air in very small quantities, recently announced that the EPA has issued a SBIR Phase I grant to the company for its low-power, small form-factor benzene sensors for exposure monitoring using mobile devices. The $100,000 grant will support N5’s work developing sensors that can detect small amounts of benzene in the air. A University of Maryland, College Park spin-off, N5 Sensors, Inc. has engaged BHI to support its commercial strategy. N5 has also recently been awarded a Phase I SBIR from the NSF to develop chip-scale carbon monoxide and ammonia sensors.

Thomas Kucharski (IEDC) – Ethan Byler (BHI) – William C. Sproull (IEDC)

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) was selected as an International Economic Development Council (IEDC) Excellence in Economic Development Silver Award recipient. BHI is receiving the award in the Public-Private Partnerships category for its work to assemblethe partnership that sponsored DreamIt Health IT Baltimore accelerator program. The award, which recognizes outstanding and innovative development projects that have significantly enhanced the economic revitalization of distressed communities, states, or regions, was formally presented to BHI on Monday, October 20, during the 2014 IEDC Annual Conference in Fort Worth, TX.

“BHI is honored to be acknowledged with this award for our work with DreamIt Health in support of the DreamIt Health Baltimore program in 2014,” said Richard Bendis, BHI President & CEO. “This reinforces the dedication to entrepreneurship and innovation in the biohealth arena that we are constantly striving for in Central Maryland.”

Maryland’s efforts to build out the local cybersecurity economy seem to be working. Cybersecurity startup Luminal recently announced a move to Maryland from West Virginia, and will be rewarded by a $600,000 investment from InvestMaryland, the state’s venture fund. With this investment, Luminal closed a total of $3.82 million in a Series A round of funding including Core Capital Partners and New Enterprise Associates.

As CivSource has reported Maryland has launched several initiatives aimed at growing the local cybersecurity economy, including tax incentives, investments and a research partnership leveraging local universities and the military. Maryland is building on its proximity to a number of critical defense assets and the federal government to attract new cybersecurity entrants. The state of Virginia is also working on a similar effort.

Originally published in the Baltimore Business Journal

By Brian Darmody

Where’s the nation’s second largest concentration of academic, federal and private sector research spending? California? Massachusetts? According to the National Science Foundation, it’s Maryland, equating to billions of dollars in research investment in the Maryland economy. First place New Mexico has a relatively small rural population and presence of two major federal nuclear research labs.

But Maryland has something New Mexico doesn’t — proximity to Washington, D.C.

Washington is home to the nation’s government, but also the National Academies, technology trade associations, international corporations, embassies, media, regulatory agencies, foundations, and science agencies.

Happy New Year! This week’s Top of the List is from our first-ever List of “Largest incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces in Maryland,” ranked by current number of members or tenants.

Here they are, counting back from No. 5:

One way pharma giant Johnson and Johnson stays ahead of the competition is via its network of Innovation Centers where researchers are working on new approaches to cardiovascular issues, infectious diseases, neuroscience, and more.

The centers are located in San Francisco, Boston, London, and Shanghai – and this week the company announced that Israel was joining the family, in the form of an incubator J&J will be opening in Rehovot, near the Weizmann Institute. Working together with several other partners, the company said, the new incubator “is the latest in a series of recently announced collaborations to fuel entrepreneurship in the world’s scientific hot spots.”

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, September 30, 2014 – 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 venture capitalist, Tania Fernandez, Ph.D., has joined the BHI team as a strategic advisor. Dr. Fernandez will be a member of the management team for a new BioHealth Gap Fund, which will provide up to $50 million in seed and early-stage equity investments to therapeutics, medical device, diagnostics, and health IT companies in Maryland. Additional BioHealth Gap Fund management team members include Richard Bendis, Ram Aiyar, Todd Chappell, and Ken Malone, who each bring domain knowledge and industry access to the fund.

Just what is a “National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence,” anyway?

I’ve heard this question muttered repeatedly, in one form or another, in the course of covering the ongoing bio vs. cyber dispute over the future of the William Hanna Center for Innovation at Shady Grove.

– Effort designed to help revolutionize access to genomic interpretation services in hospitals, molecular diagnostics companies and academic medical centers throughout the U.S. –

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, MARCH 25, 2014 – Strand Genomics Inc. (Strand) and BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) today announced a strategic partnership designed to expand the Strand Centers for Genomics & Personalized Medicine into the U.S. This effort is intended to help revolutionize access to genomic interpretation services in cardiovascular disease, oncology, rare diseases, and many other indications. Strand Genomics is a wholly owned subsidiary of Strand Life Sciences, a Bangalore, India-based bioinformatics, clinical genomics, and diagnostics company.

Strand operates clinical genomics and diagnostics laboratories in India that perform end-to-end clinical genomics services, such as testing and diagnostics, to healthcare systems in that country. Strand now provides diagnostic tests based on next-generation sequencing to more than 50 major hospitals in India. Strand is expanding globally and is actively seeking partnerships with hospitals, molecular diagnostic companies and academic medical centers looking to offer genomics-based diagnostics tests. In December 2013, Strand had announced its collaboration with El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, CA. BHI, a Maryland-based innovation intermediary, will be integral in supporting the market penetration of Strand’s services into the U.S. healthcare system by connecting Strand with key market channels, thus providing access to genomic services to more patients and healthcare providers.

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) announced today that Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) and BHI have entered into an agreement to advance healthcare technologies coming from academic institutions, federal laboratories and startups based in Central Maryland. Under the terms of the agreement, BHI will identify health technologies that Roche will evaluate for potential research, development and commercialization opportunities. Priority areas of interest will include oncology, neuroscience, ophthalmology, rare diseases, immunological and infectious diseases. Financial terms for the agreement were not disclosed.

The agreement was initiated through Roche pRED Academic Relations and Collaboration (ARC) group, which is led globally by Juan Carlos Lopez. “Sourcing of technologies from academia, federal labs and early-stage startups can be a challenging and lengthy process,” said Lopez. “As we seek to expand our capabilities to source and screen technologies aligned with our strategic interests, BHI is an ideal partner to support identification of external opportunities in a broad, systematic fashion.”

Montgomery County Executive, Ike Leggett, has named Sally Sternbach Acting Director for the Department of Economic Development effective January 3, 2015.

Health Canada has accepted US-based Sucampo Pharmaceuticals’ New Drug Submission (NDS) for Amitiza (lubiprostone), 24mcg capsules, to treat chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) in adults and opioid-induced constipation (OIC) in adults with chronic non-cancer pain.

The pharmaceutical giant Roche has paid an undisclosed price to acquire Bina Technologies, a bioinformatics company. The move sees Roche expand further into the life sciences sector.

On Thursday, January 15, 2015 from 4-6:30 pm there will be an open house for the spring courses in the “Advanced Studies in Technology Transfer” program at the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (FAES) Graduate School at NIH in the new Classroom & Bookstore complex in NIH Building 10 / B1 level. For the semester beginning on January 26, 2015 there will be 14 courses offered with details available in the new 2014-15 course catalog ( www.faes.org ). The Advanced Studies in Technology Transfer is an open enrollment program with class credits transferable into various university MBA & MS degree programs. The technology transfer classes will be held at the offices of the NIH Office of Technology Transfer in Rockville as well as the NIH main campus in Bethesda.

United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ: UTHR) announced today the signing of an agreement with DEKA Research & Development Corp. for the development of a potential technology breakthrough in the subcutaneous delivery of Remodulin® (treprostinil) Injection to patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) via a pre-filled semi-disposable pump system.

SHUTTLE Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company, today announced it has been awarded a fast-track Phase I/II contract #HHSN261201400013C by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The $ 1.62 million contract will fund the initial development of IPdR (5-iodo-2-pyrimidinone-2-deoxyribose), a prodrug of the radiation sensitizer IUdR (5-iodo-2-deoxyuridine). The contract is to determine the scientific merit, feasibility and potential for commercialization of oral IPdR for use as a radiation sensitizer for the treatment of rectal cancers. The NIH contract provides funds to cover a portion of the costs for initiating a Phase I trial in GI cancers and development of companion diagnostics for analyzing clinical specimens from Phase I patients.

Roche Holding AG said US health regulators have approved its Ebola test for emergency use in response to the world’s worst outbreak of the disease in West Africa.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Roche’s LightMix Ebola Zaire rRT-PCR Test for use on patients with signs and symptoms of Ebola Zaire virus infection, the Swiss drugmaker said in a statement.

Two-thirds of a wide variety of cancer kinds are largely rooted in undesirable genetic luck and not simply the benefits of traits passed down from parents or risk components like smoking or diet program, according to a new study. Random mutations in DNA are largely accountable for the majority of cancers in humans, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Outgoing D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray gave the city’s tech scene some love as one of his final acts, signing a somewhat controversial tax cut into law. The capital gains tax on returns from investments in certain tech companies was lowered to 3 percent.

Here are a few thoughts on the cut from techs I spoke with…

Anne Arundel County’s economic development chief took to LinkedIn in search of a new executive director of the Chesapeake Innovation Center — and he’s dangling a big carrot.

Robert L. Hannon, president and CEO of Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp., is spreading the word that he’s looking for an executive director for the agency’s technology incubator who has a background in small-business/technology development, technology commercialization, entrepreneurship and five years professional work experience. The position’s salary will range from $110,000 to $130,000, with an estimated benefits

The CMS Innovation Center paid $2.6 billion through September to hospitals, doctors and others through nearly two dozen programs that tested new ways to deliver healthcare and pay for it.

Here are my 10 crucial pieces of advice for students who aspire to a career in pharmaceutical labs:

1. You need a solid foundation in science. Master the basics, and learn how to apply that knowledge.

Biotechnology will have a strong year in 2015, but it can’t get any better than 2014, biotech investor G. Steven Burrill says in his annual year-end report.

“The unprecedented IPO (initial public offering) and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity this year will make 2014 one for the record books and unlikely to ever be surpassed,” Burrill said.

With 41 novel drug approvals under the regulators’ belts last year, 2014 represented an 18-year high for the Food and Drug Administration – including a record number of okayed meds for orphan diseases, the Associated Press says…

A new business incubator in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will cater to startup companies launched through universities.

The Institute of Marine & Environmental Technology in January is opening a 4,300-square-foot incubator in its offices at the Christopher Columbus Center in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Campus Technology is looking for innovative colleges and universities that have deployed unique technology solutions to campus challenges.

Nominations are now open for our tenth annual Campus Technology Innovators Awards, recognizing institutions, technology project leaders and vendor partners that have used technology in new ways to support teaching, learning, administration and operations. The deadline for entries is Feb. 17.

Finding funds for early stage companies has always been a great challenge. In past venture financing cycles, it’s been the gap between the first venture financing (Series A) and the growth capital or mezzanine financing that many emerging companies were unable to bridge. This gap, called the “valley of death,” was attributed to a number of factors, but that valley of death has shifted in important ways in the recent past.

U.S. drug approvals in 2014 hit their highest level in 18 years and recommendations in Europe also came at a rapid rate, driven by expensive new treatments for cancer and rare diseases.

U.S. News & World Report is pleased to announce the 2014 STEM Leadership Hall of Fame, honored during the U.S. News STEM Solutions conference. In choosing the honorees, U.S. News sought out leaders who, among other things, have achieved measurable results in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields; challenged established processes and conventional wisdom; inspired a shared vision; and motivated legions of aspiring STEM professionals.

Governmental agencies face a wide spectrum of challenges in creating mHealth apps, ranging from a changing development culture to potential litigious issues, revealed a new report published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Last spring Laura Murphy, then 28 years old, went to a doctor to find out if a harmless flap of skin she had always had on the back of her neck was caused by a genetic mutation. Once upon a time, maybe five years ago, physicians would have focused on just that one question. But today doctors tend to run tests that pick up mutations underlying a range of hereditary conditions. Murphy learned not only that a genetic defect was indeed responsible for the flap but also that she had another inherited genetic mutation.

Ah, the elevator pitch. A favorite tool of the networking masses. A rite of passage of sorts. You’ve heard the scenario: you step into an elevator and go up one floor. The elevator doors open and in walks the client of your dreams. They start some small talk and ask, “What do you do?” and you’ve got the rest of the elevator ride to respond. How do you answer that in 20 seconds in such a way that gets them interested? The answer is simple. You need an elevator pitch for your elevator pitch.

In 2014, wearable health tracking devices continued to get more creative, going far beyond simple fitness tracking. The K-Goal, a “Fitbit for your vagina,” promised to help women do kegel exercises correctly, while the Emotiv EEG headset offered the prospect of mental acuity, measured by a device that tracks the brain’s concentration.

The year in biotechnology began with a landmark event. A decade after the first human genome was decoded at a cost of about $3 billion, the sequencing-machine company Illumina, of San Diego, introduced a new model, the Hyseq X-10, that can do it for around $1,000 per genome.

Medical technology developer Medtronic, Inc. recently completed an application submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the pre-market approval of their SynchroMed II implantable drug infusion system, which includes a new catheter design. The system is intended to be used by pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients for the intravenous delivery of the drug Remodulin (treprostinil), which is being developed by the United Therapeutics Corporation.

Imagine, a quick pinprick on the sidelines of a football game that could tell athletes whether they’ve concussed. Arizona startup BioDirection is developing a point-of-care device that diagnoses minor brain injury quickly – in 60 to 90 seconds – with just a single drop of blood.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Learn How to Get Seed Funding Investment for Your Business from the Government! Improve your Federal Contractor procurement postion from the same program–Small Business Innovation Research Funds (SBIR). Featuring SBIR program managers from leading Federal agencies including DOD, NIH, NCI, NASA, DOE and NSF! Network with the SBIR program managers during an Expo and meet other business owners. Get tips on how to win awards and hear about changes in the agencies’ funding and procurement programs. If you are considering applying for an SBIR grant in 2015, or have already won and need to learn updates directly from SBIR program managers, this event is for you!

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a Montgomery County innovation intermediary which translates market-relevant research into commercial success by bringing together among other things management, funding, and markets, is seeking an experienced life science professional with entrepreneurial experience to serve as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR).

The EIR will lead in the evaluation of early-stage technologies and corporations with a priority focus on those associated with Funding Partners and those that best fit with the strategic direction as set by BHI’s CEO and Director of EIR Programs. The EIR will perform any reasonable task which will forward the goals of BHI. 

A new business incubator in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will cater to startup companies launched through universities.

The Institute of Marine & Environmental Technology in January is opening a 4,300-square-foot incubator in its offices at the Christopher Columbus Center in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Tao Yu, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, talks about his internship with Biohealth Innovation, through the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Biomedical Careers Initiative (BCI).

Biotechnology will have a strong year in 2015, but it can’t get any better than 2014, biotech investor G. Steven Burrill says in his annual year-end report.

“The unprecedented IPO (initial public offering) and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity this year will make 2014 one for the record books and unlikely to ever be surpassed,” Burrill said.

Marriott International Inc. is launching a restaurant incubator competition, hoping to tap the world’s growing cadre of food and beverage entrepreneurs to bring a new level of cool to its hotels.

The Bethesda hotel giant bills the competition, called Canvas, as a “global concept lab for food and beverage ideas.” The winners will get up to $50,000 each and six months to operate and prove their concepts.

In a world’s first, a double-amputee, with arms missing at shoulder level, received two prostheses, each of which he is able to control intuitively with his mind and manipulate different joints to control a total of 30 degrees of motion.

The system installed at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory relies on surgically connecting electrodes to existing nerves that used to lead to the different part of the arm and hand.

In 2014, wearable health tracking devices continued to get more creative, going far beyond simple fitness tracking. The K-Goal, a “Fitbit for your vagina,” promised to help women do kegel exercises correctly, while the Emotiv EEG headset offered the prospect of mental acuity, measured by a device that tracks the brain’s concentration.

The year in biotechnology began with a landmark event. A decade after the first human genome was decoded at a cost of about $3 billion, the sequencing-machine company Illumina, of San Diego, introduced a new model, the Hyseq X-10, that can do it for around $1,000 per genome.

Here are my 10 crucial pieces of advice for students who aspire to a career in pharmaceutical labs:

1. You need a solid foundation in science. Master the basics, and learn how to apply that knowledge.

Faced with diminishing returns on R&D investments, large pharmaceutical companies are searching for innovative ways to successfully identify, develop, and market products with financial viability. Yet small discovery companies and biotechs continue to outpace large pharma in the approval of NMEs (new molecular entities).

Rampaging animal spirits have given birth to a biotechnology unicorn. It’s apt that a stellar year for initial public offerings in the sector will be capped by its biggest float ever. Juno Therapeutics is a year old and revenue free, but its cancer fighting technology is hot. At nearly a $2 billion valuation, the company shows capitalism’s ability to catalyze investors’ hopes and resources.

Whether a startup makes or breaks depends on if you have the right people on the team. How can you know? During my start-up journey as an early employee of an online education startup, co-founder of a social enterprise, and sole founder of my health technology company, ClickMedix, I’ve been through and witnessed the birth, growth, decline, and eventual end of startups.

Medical technology developer Medtronic, Inc. recently completed an application submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the pre-market approval of their SynchroMed II implantable drug infusion system, which includes a new catheter design. The system is intended to be used by pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients for the intravenous delivery of the drug Remodulin (treprostinil), which is being developed by the United Therapeutics Corporation.

Amgen Inc. announced an agreement Monday to become a sponsor of LabCentral, a biotech incubator in Cambridge, Mass.

The Thousand Oaks pharmaceutical company can nominate up to two biotech startups a year for residence in LabCentral’s facilities. The lab has 28,000 square feet and can house 28 early stage companies. Other sponsors of the project include Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, MIT and Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

Evolva Holding SA (“Evolva”, SIX: EVE) today announced that Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (“Emergent”, NYSE: EBS) has acquired Evolva’s anti-bacterial programme, the EV-035 series. The lead compound in the EV-035 series is the broad-spectrum antibiotic GC-072, which is being developed with US government biodefense funding. For Evolva, this transaction is worth up to USD 70.5 million plus royalties.

United Therapeutics (Nasdaq: UTHR) announced two senior executive promotions as well as changes to Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D’s compensation program.

Much of the talk these days regarding HR technology revolves around big data, wearable devices and bring-your-own-device policies. Such current technological concerns could be mere child’s play compared to cyberconsciousness and how it could alter the workforce of the future. This obscure concept is brought to you courtesy of Martine Rothblatt, an unrelenting force in business.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Learn How to Get Seed Funding Investment for Your Business from the Government! Improve your Federal Contractor procurement postion from the same program–Small Business Innovation Research Funds (SBIR). Featuring SBIR program managers from leading Federal agencies including DOD, NIH, NCI, NASA, DOE and NSF! Network with the SBIR program managers during an Expo and meet other business owners. Get tips on how to win awards and hear about changes in the agencies’ funding and procurement programs. If you are considering applying for an SBIR grant in 2015, or have already won and need to learn updates directly from SBIR program managers, this event is for you!

From Steve Silverman, Directory, Montgomery County Department of Economic Development:

As 2014 draws to a close, I want to sincerely thank our 33,000-plus local businesses for all you do to support the local economy! Montgomery County benefits so much from our diverse, dedicated business community. I also applaud the many support organizations and entities that work with our Department, state and local governments to make sure you succeed.

Shareholders in British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) have approved a planned deal with Switzerland’s Novartis (NOVN.VX), which will see the two pharmaceutical groups trade more than $20 billion (12.7 billion pounds) of assets.

Advaxis, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADXS), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing cancer immunotherapies, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its Investigational New Drug (IND) application to conduct a Phase 1/2 clinical study of ADXS-HPV (ADXS11-001) alone or in combination with MedImmune’s investigational anti-PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, MEDI4736, for the treatment of advanced, recurrent or refractory human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervical cancer and HPV-associated head and neck cancer. The trial is expected to begin patient enrollment in early 2015.

The Swiss firm, which this week filed a melanoma combination drug for US approval, spent $10bn on research into new products, ahead of rivals such as Novartis, which spent $9.8bn and the $8.2bn spent by Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Let’s be clear: Martine Rothblatt is just plain more of a lawyer than anybody else in this town.

The 60-year-old grandmother and CEO of United Therapeutics, the Silver Spring-based biotech she founded to help save her younger daughter’s life, banked $38 million last year. It made her the nation’s highest-paid female executive. It also made her the nation’s highest-paid transgendered person, as she had sex reassignment surgery in 1994.

Healthcare workers treating Ebola victims are at a great danger of contracting the disease, as recent events in western Africa have shown. Currently available protective suits tend to require complicated procedures when putting on and taking off, are difficult to breathe in, and obscure the clinician’s face. A team at Johns Hopkins has developed, and just won a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to further perfect, a new protective suit for use when treating highly infectious patients.

Maryland is not waiting for the new year or a new governor to start taking applications for a program intended to boost business development around colleges and universities.

The state is now taking applications for its new Regional Institution Strategic Enterprise Zone program(called the “Rise Zone” program for short). It requires two application stages.

With new articles published in journals every week and scores of labs constantly at work, scientists at this university stay productive.

And a new ranking has found that university researchers live up to that standard — when it comes to science research, this university is one of the most prolific in the world.

University of Massachusetts President Robert Caret will take over as University System of Maryland’s fourth chancellor in July.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has awarded a five-year contract to the Johns Hopkins Evidence-based Practice Center (JHU EPC) to help the Center continue to promote evidence-informed decision-making in clinical practice and public health policy. JHU EPC was established in 1997 as a charter member of the EPC Program supported by AHRQ’s Effective Healthcare Program (EHC). Today there are a total of 13 EPC’s.

Much like the American Dream, entrepreneurship is a national ideal of the United States representing a belief that prosperity and success can be achieved through hard, tireless work. Developing a technological innovation that will change the world for the better is what it’s all about these days, especially for young people trying to make a name for themselves on college campuses. Students arrive on school grounds driven by two thoughts – fear of failure and desire for success – both of which naturally lead down the road to entrepreneurship.

Another one to file under the Science is Awesome category: Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory has engineered prosthetic arms that can be controlled with the mind.

The University of Maryland is recruiting Ken Ulman to transform College Park into a tech hub for incubators and startups, according to The Washington Post.

Ulman, a former Howard County executive who made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in November, will announce Monday he is forming a consulting firm called Margrave Strategies. Its first client will be the university’s fundraising arm, according to the report.

A coalition of geneticists and computer programmers calling itself the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health is developing protocols for exchanging DNA information across the Internet. The researchers hope their work could be as important to medical science as HTTP, the protocol created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, was to the Web.

The FDA offered up an early retrospective of the 2014 year of approvals Friday with a rundown the regulator feels pretty good about. “Our Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) has so far approved 35 novel drugs in 2014 compared to 27 in 2013,” FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg wrote on the agency’s FDA Voice blog.

The world of technology is growing at a rapid pace, nothing new, but next year could involve some major cashing in for some health tech industries. With the help of some leading analyst firms, Business Insider put together a list of the trends that are predicted to be really booming next year.

Ebola dominated the news in the second half of the year. Other important news was the debate on maintenance of certification, the first baby born after uterine transplant, and the change in HHS leadership.

Cathal Garvey used to work in cancer research. Now he is the scientific director of IndieBio, a biotech accelerator based in Cork, Ireland which is about to open a branch in San Francisco. Garvey originally studied genetics. “I got into genetics after seeing a documentary about it when it was quite young.” he says.”I had already decided that I was going to be a biologist at an even younger age. And then I thought ‘Oh my God, living things operate on a code.’”

Boards aren’t working. It’s been more than a decade since the first wave of post-Enron regulatory reforms and, despite a host of guidelines from independent watchdogs such as the International Corporate Governance Network, most boards aren’t delivering on their core mission: providing strong oversight and strategic support for management’s efforts to create long-term value.

Nearly every state added jobs in 2014, and 14 states experienced an employment increase of 2 percent or more, according to a Stateline analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.