News Archive

Bureaucracy is one of the dirty words in business. Nobody wants to publicly admit their company is bogged down with too many layers of management, or needs a dozen committees to sign off on every little decision. For a couple years now, I’ve been hearing entrepreneurs complain about suffocating bureaucracy in pharma.

These days, having a strategic investor or partner has become almost a matter of survival for healthcare startups. Corporate investing and partnering has really taken off over the last few years as pharma and medical device companies have opened their doors and wallets to find innovation outside of their four walls.

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Research Park Corporation – also known as bwtech@UMBC – hosted a ceremony today for the first graduating class of the Cyber Cync Program: AccelerEyes, Five Directions and Oculis Labs.

The event also marked the expansion of bwtech@UMBC’s Cyber Incubator program, a sign of the program’s success and the positive economic impact both initiatives are making on the region.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, September 30, 2013 – Gliknik Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, today announced that it has entered into an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Pfizer Inc. for GL-2045, Gliknik’s recombinant stradomer™, a drug candidate that is designed to replace and improve on pooled human intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). GL-2045 has shown promising results in a broad range of preclinical tests and is being developed as a potential treatment for a wide variety of autoimmune diseases, including those in which IVIG is clinically used.

A new investment fund structured by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will, for the first time, allow individual and institutional investors the opportunity to finance late-stage global health technologies that have the potential to save millions of lives in low-income countries.

With $94 million committed by a pioneering group of investors – including anchor support from Grand Challenges Canada (funded by the Government of Canada), the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (acting through KfW) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation – the Global Health Investment Fund (“GHIF” or the “Fund”) will help advance the most promising interventions to fight challenges in low-income countries such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and maternal and infant mortality. To help mitigate the risk of investing in the clinical development of new technologies, the Gates Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency have committed to partially offset potential losses in the Fund, which will seek a financial return for investors by targeting high-impact technologies with public health applications in both developed and emerging markets.

President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act into law on April 5, 2012.  BIO advocated strongly for this new law, which includes several important policies designed to stimulate capital formation for growing businesses, including those in the biotech industry.  Some of the new policies were self-effectuating, while others are awaiting rulemaking at the SEC.  Below is a summary of the relevant provisions in the new law, along with a status update on the implementation process for each.

Newt Fowler looked across Baltimore’s Renaissance Hotel ballroom and noted who was missing from the tables.

Sure, there are plenty of leaders in today’s innovation economy in Baltimore, Fowler told the crowd Thursday at the Greater Baltimore Committee’s Economic Outlook Conference.

“They’re just not in this room today,” he said.

What we’ve got in our corner: Everything from good schools to a really funky music scene.

What we need to do: Everything from reform our corporate tax structure to rearrange our offices.

What’s at stake: The economic drivers who will keep Baltimore, and Maryland, competitive with the rest of the country and the rest of the world.

Baltimore’s Sage Growth Partners sees opportunity where others see a headache.

Over the past few years Sage, a health care technology consulting firm, has seen business pick up as more health care providers look for help installing and managing the new electronic record systems. CEO Don McDaniel declined to disclose the company’s revenue but said Sage has seen 50 percent annual growth for the past five years. That’s a trend he expects to continue as the company makes a move to break into consulting for startup companies in the health IT sector.

Companies spent $294 billion on research and development performed in the United States during 2011, compared with $279 billion during 2010 (table 1). Funding from the companies’ own sources was $222 billion during 2010 and $239 billion during 2011; funding from other sources was $57 billion in 2010 and $55 billion in 2011 (table 2). Data for this InfoBrief are from the Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS), which was developed and cosponsored by the National Science Foundation and Census Bureau.