News Archive

Governor Martin O’Malley today via video kicked off the 2nd annual InvestMaryland Challenge, a national business competition that supports Maryland startups and strengthens a climate of innovation and entrepreneurship that has been ranked #1 in the country by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for two years in a row. The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), through the Maryland Venture Fund and the BioMaryland Center, will award $400,000 in top prizes spread across four categories — Life Sciences, IT, General Industry and a new Cybersecurity category — as well as secondary prizes and awards from partners and sponsors. DBED is continuing its partnership with Inc. magazine to promote the Challenge to a national audience of entrepreneurs and small business owners. The application period opens immediately and will close December 6 and applications are available here.

Startup Maryland (www.startupmaryland.org), an initiative driven By Entrepreneurs … For Entrepreneurs, today announced that UNDER ARMOUR® (NYSE: UA) has agreed to be the host venue for the 2013 Pitch Across Maryland™ Last Stop … Innovation Celebration.

The 2013 edition of the Pitch Across Maryland is the second annual state-wide tour and celebration of entrepreneurship and innovation communities.

“Referred to by FOX News affiliate WBOC-TV 16 as Opportunity on Wheels, the inaugural Pitch Across Maryland tour was an overwhelming success last year and this year’s offering is about to hit the road on September 9 with the first Stop on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, MD,” stated Julie Lenzer Kirk, Startup Maryland co-chair.

September 5, 2013 marks Emergent BioSolutions’ 15th year of operations. Emergent BioSolutions is a global specialty pharmaceutical company seeking to protect and enhance life by offering specialized products to healthcare providers and governments to address medical needs and emerging health threats. Celebrate 15 years of innovation and growth with them by learning about their beginnings and their commitment to their mission – to protect life.

Stanford University produces more alumni entrepreneurs than any other university, and now it’s created its first fund to invest directly in those early-stage companies emerging from the university community.

Stanford has established a three-year partnership with Stanford Hospital & Clinics and StartX, an accelerator for students, faculty, alumni and staff, under which the institutions will support the accelerator and create a fund called the Stanford-StartX Fund.

We are currently enjoying a much needed resurgence in the biotechnology industry. The industry has been the best performing sector in the stock market for the last two years and it appears it will be again this year. This performance has enabled companies to raise capital, either publicly or privately, in record amounts. We expect the industry to raise more than $4 billion this year. The performance of the stock of companies that have executed initial public offerings is quite impressive. The average stock prices of the 23 life science IPOs through July are up over 50 percent from their offering price (on average) with only four trading below their offer price.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy today signed new legislation creating a $200 million Bioscience Innovation Fund during a ceremonial event at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC). The fund will make investments over the next 10 years in the form of grants, equity investments, loans and loan guarantees to foster innovation in smaller companies.

“Over the last two and a half years, we’ve taken great steps forward in reinventing our economy,” said Governor Malloy. “With the addition of Jackson Laboratories and the investments we are making in our flagship university, we are positioning Connecticut to be a leader in the creation of 21st Century jobs. The Bioscience Innovation Fund will allow us to build on the tremendous progress that’s being made across our state. Little by little, we are turning around years of stagnation and growing jobs for our residents.”

NovoBioPharma, a global biopharmaceutical firm with locations in Cambridge, MA, Delaware, and Philadelphia, and UPstart at the University of Pennsylvania announced today that they entered into a synergistic collaboration in which NovoBioPharma provides critical guidance and strategic direction to select life science UPstart companies embarking on the commercialization of early stage opportunities.  UPstart provides support for Penn inventors interested in pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors through ventures formed in partnership with Penn. NovoBioPharma will assist companies within UPstart to develop scientific and financially sound development plans to take these entities from proof of concept and beyond. 

The education establishment is in a twit over the phenomenon called “summer slide.” “Summer slide” is the loss of knowledge/competence in the summer months, according to research done by the RAND Corporation and Johns Hopkins University. “Summer slide” disproportionately plagues poor kids of color, so the recent, alarmingly low scores recorded by urban students on the Common Core tests heightened sensitivity around this issue.

Rather than acknowledging the corrosive effects of poverty, or conceding that the testing and accountability era has been a failure and has driven lousy practices, the answer is to make the least privileged kids work longer and harder while their more affluent peers summer in the Hamptons or South of France.

The NFL, Under Armour and GE on Wednesday launched Head Health Challenge II, an open innovation challenge to award up to $10 million for new innovations and materials that can protect the brain from traumatic injury and for new tools for tracking head impacts in real time. The challenge is part of the Head Health Initiative, a collaboration to help speed diagnosis and improve treatment for mild traumatic brain injury.

Kevin Plank, Founder and CEO of Under Armour said: “As longstanding partners of the NFL and in collaboration with GE, we take great pride in our participation in the Head Health Challenge II. We are excited to harness the power of innovation and assemble the best minds in the world towards an effort to make the field of play safer across all sports and for all athletes.”