News Archive

Ralph Berrier Jr. //June 1, 2025// – A $4.9 million grant from the commonwealth will allow leaders from the Roanoke and New River valleys to build upon efforts by Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and the Fralin Biomedical Institute at VTC to turn the region into a hub for biomedical research.

“As we build the biotech sector, this statewide grant will help us where we have gaps,” explains Erin Burcham, CEO of the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance (RBIA), a regional economic development organization.

The money is a slice of a $14.3 million pie from state economic development initiative GO Virginia to fund the multiregional Project VITAL (Virginia Innovations and Technology Advancements in Life Sciences), an endeavor to make Virginia a biotechnology leader.

FREDERICK, Md., May 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cartesian Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNAC) (“Cartesian” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering cell therapy for autoimmune diseases, today announced that the first participant has been enrolled in its Phase 3 AURORA trial of Descartes-08 in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG).

Descartes-08, Cartesian’s lead cell therapy candidate, is an autologous engineered chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T) product candidate targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA). Descartes-08 is designed to be administered without preconditioning chemotherapy in an outpatient setting and does not use integrating vectors.

Bethesda, Maryland – The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. (HJF) and MDC Studio, Inc (MDC) are proud to announce their groundbreaking collaboration through the HJF-MDC Venture Fund LLC.

This collaboration aims to revolutionize medical technology development and commercialization, benefiting military and civilian health care sectors.

The HJF-MDC Collaboration

This new initiative seeks to grow existing collaborations to accelerate the development and commercialization of dual-use medical technologies for military and civilian applications. As part of this initiative, MDC Studio has established a satellite office within HJF’s innovation facility in Bethesda, Maryland.

Introducing the HJF-MDC Venture Fund

HJF and MDC formed the HJF-MDC Venture Fund, as an independent entity that aims to invest in a diversified portfolio of early-stage companies commercializing military medical technologies with civilian applications. HJF is participating as a non-voting member of the Fund with a minority interest. The Fund’s focus areas include medical devices, wearables for health, and rehabilitation / assistive robotics. The Fund will be overseen by a Board of Managers, who will make investment decisions based on objective selection criteria, including alignment with military medical needs, benefits to civilian health, risks, and expected returns.

State and local leaders touted the promise of a proposed mixed-use development to be built over an existing North Bethesda Metro station as a way to grow Montgomery County’s burgeoning life sciences and tech industries.

The facility is still years away from breaking ground. But Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said the effort could transform the area into something similar to Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where technology firms are located close to MIT.

“I had been fascinated by the people I had been talking to about life sciences, and talking to me about Kendall Square in Boston, and talking about the urban campus, and talking about the value of collision spaces … rather than everything being done in office parks, where you never talk to the scientists in the next building,” Elrich said.

ROCKVILLE, Md., May 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — AbelZeta Pharma, Inc. (“AbelZeta” or the “Company”), a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovery and development of innovative and proprietary cell-based therapeutic products, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation to its investigational therapy, C-CAR168, for the treatment of refractory Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), including Lupus Nephritis (LN).

Baltimore, MD, May 27, 2025 —Rapafusyn Pharmaceuticals Inc., a leader in non-degrading molecular glues, announced today the joining of the Roche Accelerator, Roche’s innovation hub, which connects pioneering biotechs with Roche’s expertise.  Rapafusyn was selected to join the Roche Accelerator, based on Rapafusyn’s innovative RapaGlue™ platform and promising pipeline of potential first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutics.

VIENNA, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CEL-SCI Corporation (“CEL-SCI” or the “Company”) (NYSE American: CVM), a clinical stage cancer immunotherapy company, today announced the closing of its underwritten public offering of 2,000,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $2.50 per share. Total gross proceeds from the offering, before deducting the underwriting discount and other offering expenses, were $5,000,000. In addition, the Company has granted the underwriters a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 190,000 shares to cover over-allotments at the public offering price, less the underwriting discount.

University research has grabbed plenty of headlines over the past few months. Not for the breakthroughs that propel so much of American innovation. Not for the work that advances our health and well-being, that protects our safety, our security, our sustainability. Even so, the discoveries keep coming.

No, the new headlines about academic research deal in the grave threats it now faces: massive cuts in the way university R&D is funded, the revocation of grants that don’t align with federal priorities, the slow-walking of new grant approvals.

Defending science and scientific inquiry is vital right now, for all the reasons you might imagine—and for one you might not. When academic research is an integrated, meaningful part of the undergraduate experience, it develops students into more critical and creative thinkers, better communicators, collaborators, and problem solvers. Undergraduate research builds learners’ confidence and focuses their career plans. It predicts better grades and graduation rates, and reduces equity gaps, particularly in STEM. Students consistently say that research is among the most valuable components of their college career.

GERMANTOWN, Md., May 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Senseonics Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: SENS), a medical technology company focused on the development and manufacturing of long-term, implantable continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems for people with diabetes, today announced the closing of its previously announced underwritten public offering of a total of 115,000,000 shares of its common stock, which included the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase up to an additional 15,000,000 shares of common stock, at a public offering price of $0.50 per share.

The aggregate gross proceeds from the public offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses were $57.5 million. All of the shares in the offering were sold by Senseonics.