News

The venture capital industry is getting rightsized, with less capital raised and deployed, smaller funds, fewer active venture capital firms, and more regulation. The exit climate has picked up, but is still not at the level required. And valuations are overall more rational, with some exceptions at the later stages or in consumer-facing momentum companies.

However, with the confluence of not one but four big market drivers (discussed below), and the rise of a new technology cycle,  we think this is still a great time to be a venture capitalist or entrepreneur.

Governor Martin O’Malley announced today that the State, through the BioMaryland Center, has awarded nearly $1 million to five innovative life sciences companies through its Biotechnology Development Awards program. The companies, which received up to $200,000 each, will use the funding to advance the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, create a less-invasive treatment for tachycardia patients, enhance animal analgesics, control traumatic bleeds and develop high-quality gluten and allergen-free kosher food products.

“These companies are developing products that are changing the way we feed, fuel and heal our planet and have the potential to impact millions of patients around the world,” said Governor O’Malley. “These awards are critical to ensuring that the life-saving research being done here in Maryland has the opportunity to move to the commercial marketplace.”

Integrated BioTherapeutics (IBT) and Stanford University have been jointly awarded a $300,000 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. The goal of the grant is to develop a highly effective immunotherapeutic to prevent Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) reinfection in liver transplant patients based on antibodies that limit the ability of the virus to escape treatment via mutations.

Up to 170 million people worldwide are chronically infected with HCV, putting infected individuals at significant risk for cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer. Chronic infection is poorly controlled by current antiviral treatments though there is new optimism with two recent FDA-approved direct acting antivirals, telaprevir and boceprevir. These drugs, however, are not recommended in the transplant setting due to likely adverse drug-drug interactions.

Baltimore City’s Emerging Technology Centers (ETC) is pleased to announce that two of its client companies were recently honored at the 13th Annual 2013 Maryland Incubator Company of the Year (ICOY) Awards. Curiosityville was chosen “Best Education Technology Company” and ADASHI was chosen “Best New Incubator Company” by the judging panel of venture capitalists, government officials and business leaders.

“The Curiosityville team is thrilled to have been selected for this award,” said Susan Magsamen, CEO of Curiosityville. “Part of the credit must go to our affiliation with the ETC their assistance has helped allow us to focus on building the business.”

“Research for research’s sake” is not a refrain you’ll hear from Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering Dean Nicholas Jones.

Universities have been working on increasing the amount of their research being used for commercially available products and services, but in Maryland the process has been somewhat slow. While Hopkins is the most highly funded university by the National Institutes of Health, it lags behind its peers in terms of patents, new companies and other measures of commercialization.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Deputy Secretary Bill Corr announced today that the Department is seeking innovators and entrepreneurs to apply for the HHSentrepreneurs Program.  Launched last year, HHSentrepreneurs connects private sector innovators and entrepreneurs with teams of federal employees working on projects that address some of the biggest challenges in health, health care and human services.

The first individuals hired last October through HHSentrepreneurs are working on critical projects including the Affordable Care Act, health resilience technology, and the nation’s organ transplant system.

“By bringing the best in the public and private sectors together, HHSentrepreneurs is creating an environment in HHS that fosters innovative solutions to new and old challenges,” Deputy Secretary Corr said.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant applications from small business concerns (SBCs) that propose to implement investigator-initiated clinical trials related to the research mission of the NIAID. This program will utilize the cooperative agreement mechanism (U44) to enable support for hypothesis-driven, milestone-driven clinical trials. Although clinical trials not considered high-risk may be proposed, this program encourages high-risk clinical studies. High-risk does not imply human subject or patient risk, but rather defines a study that contains one or more of the following unique features: involves non-routine interventions, administration of an unlicensed product, or administration of a licensed product for an unapproved indication. Mechanistic studies are also encouraged and can be proposed under this program. However, not more than one clinical trial should be proposed within each grant application. The NIAID has a robust infrastructure for conducting clinical studies that includes independently managed resources provided through grants and contracts, as well as resources that are integrated within existing NIAID-supported clinical trial networks. Proposed clinical trials may use NIAIDs independent infrastructure for clinical studies, however, support will not be provided for studies that propose to use dedicated resources that are part of a NIAID-supported clinical trial network. A Commercialization Plan must be included that details plans for promoting further commercialization of the intervention/product/technology to be derived from or associated with the proposed clinical trial, including plans for promoting and establishing partnerships between the SBIR Phase II awardee and third-party investors and/or strategic partners.

A commercialization program to match up provider, payer and pharma technology needs with willing and able healthcare startups has announced its 10 finalists. Each will receive $100,000 tied to meeting certain performance milestones. They have three to six months to work with the healthcare group they’re matched with, depending on the complexity of the program.

PILOT Health Tech NYC, developed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Health 2.0, is holding its demo day today at Blueprint Health’s NYC digs. The program is also supported by StartUp Health.