News Archive

Cleave Biosciences has added $10 million in Series A financing from new investor New Enterprise Associates, bringing its Series A total to $54 million. In the fall of 2011, Cleave raised $44 million from US Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures, Clarus Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Astellas Venture Management and Osage University Partners. The company is focused on cancer drug discovery and development.

Cleave is discovering novel drugs that affect protein degradation pathways. Cancer cells frequently make an excess of proteins and hence become dependent on protein degradation for their survival. By attacking key targets in these pathways, cancer cells fail to balance this excess protein synthesis with protein degradation and can no longer survive.

Maryland U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski plans to participate in a signing ceremony at the National Institute of Standards and Technology for new private sector partners that will collaborate with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence on Monday, April 15.

According to a statement from the senator’s office:

The new partners will pledge to contribute hardware and software components and share cybersecurity best practices and personnel with the center in an effort to address current cybersecurity threats. Senator Mikulski will be joined by Governor Martin O’Malley, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command and NSA Chief General Keith B. Alexander, and Under Secretary of Commerce for Science and Technology and NIST Director Patrick Gallagher …

When he was young, Daniel J. Abdun-Nabi wasn’t all that interested in subjects like biology. He gravitated toward political science and the law in college, and worked for the federal Securities and Exchange Commission soon after graduating.

“I went out of my office and saw the Capitol. It was awe-inspiring,” Abdun-Nabi, 58, who grew up near Boston, said of working in Washington, D.C.

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association with more than 400 biotechnology and technology members employing more than 200,000 in the region, today commended state policy makers for advancing key priorities for the tech community during this year’s legislative session. The 2013 session concluded on Tuesday.

“Maryland’s policy makers delivered on our biggest priorities: stronger incentives for R&D and biotechnology, new incentives for cybersecurity investments, and corporate tax code certainty for employers,” said Larry Letow, TCM’s chairman. “We have many strong advocates in Annapolis who understand that Maryland’s technology and biotechnology companies are catalysts for innovation, job growth and prosperity.”

Friday, May 24 • 12:00 – 2:00 pm • Marriott Bethesda North Conference Center

Join the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development to celebrate small businesses. Attend the inaugural Small Business Awards program.

The award luncheon will provide countless opportunities to show your appreciation for the estimated 33,000 small businesses of Montgomery County—businesses that contribute directly to the strength of the area’s economy. Eight awards will be presented to eight distinct companies.

The Global Virus Network plans to move its headquarters to the University of Maryland BioPark in Baltimore, officials announced Thursday.

Emerging pandemic viral threats and current viral killers are a worldwide problem. For this reason, the nonprofit  GVN brings together the top medical virologists from more than 30 institutions in 21 countries, to promote international collaborative research, education and advocacy.

David Mott at New Enterprise Associates has spearheaded the development of an orphan drug accelerator that plans to hunt down the best in vivo-stage assets in academia, biopharma and the nonprofits, assemble them in a portfolio of rare disease therapies and mold them into pipeline programs that can be spun out into a slate of new biotech companies.

NEA’s high-profile biotech partner Mott–who helmed MedImmune until AstraZeneca ($AZN) came along and scooped it up for $15.6 billion–partnered with Pfizer Ventures and gained the support of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in piecing together the initial $16 million in startup funds for the newly coined Cambridge, MA-based Cydan.

GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s biggest drugmaker, is placing a small but important bet on a new way of treating diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body.

The company said on Wednesday it would offer a $1 million prize to stimulate innovation in the field, as well as funding up to 40 researchers working in external laboratories.

One of the world’s top physicians, Dr. Eric Topol, has a prescription that could improve your family’s health and make medical care cheaper. The cardiologist claims that the key is the smartphone. Topol has become the foremost expert in the exploding field of wireless medicine. Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports.

The University of Maryland (UM) BioPark announced today that the Global Virus Network (GVN) is the Park’s newest tenant. The GVN is a non-profit organization comprised of the top medical virologist in more than 30 institutions spanning 21 nations – and growing. GVN’s mission is to combat emerging pandemic viral threats and current viral killers through international collaborative research, training the next generation of medical virologist, education and advocacy.   

Said Jim Hughes, President, Research Park Corporation, University of Maryland Baltimore, “It’s exciting for the UM BioPark to include the prestigious Global Virus Network as one of our tenants. We are also pleased to be able to offer GVN continued close proximity to its Scientific Director, Co-Founder, and world-renowned virus researcher Dr. Robert Gallo from the UM School of Medicine, whose Institute of Human Virology is located conveniently just down the street from the GVN’s new BioPark headquarters.”