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On December 27, 2012, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) published a final rule to amend regulations governing eligibility for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs and to implement provisions of the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011. The Reauthorization was included in the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which reauthorized the SBIR Program for six years and now allows small firms that are majority-owned by venture capital operating companies (VCOCs), hedge funds, or private equity firms to compete for SBIR grants.

This advisory briefly summarizes the most important changes to the SBIR eligibility rules and discusses how investments in or acquisitions of SBIR-funded companies may be affected.

Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has joined the board of T. Rowe Price Group as an independent director, the Baltimore-based investment firm announced Thursday.

Hrabowski has led the university since 1992, and was recognized last year by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. According to Price, Hrabowski sits on a number of civic boards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Urban Institute, the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the France-Merrick Foundation. He also serves as a director for McCormick & Co. Inc. and the Baltimore Equitable Society.

“Disease is too complex to just think your way through it,” says Raimond Winslow, director of The Institute for Computational Medicine at Johns Hopkins. “We can no longer work with what I call purely mental models of how biological systems function in either health or disease.”

Thankfully, we have technology to lend a hand.

The burgeoning and highly complex field of computational medicine is showing promise for the treatment of illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer and more, as technology and troves of data are harnessed to investigate the underpinnings and map the progression of diseases.

Emergent Biosolutions Inc. said it has secured exclusive right to manufacture and sell VaxInnate Corp.’s pandemic influenza vaccine candidate in the United States.

Under a license agreement with VaxInnate, Emergent Biosolutions acquired exclusive U.S. commercial rights to next generation pandemic influenza vaccine candidate.

This license enables Emergent to fulfill the requirement to secure a pandemic influenza vaccine candidate under its contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the company noted.

Maryland policymakers have taken encouraging steps the past two years to strengthen the state’s technology and life sciences economy.

Two years ago, they expanded access to capital for early-, mid- and late-stage growth companies through the InvestMaryland program.

Last year, they accelerated the transfer of novel technologies from universities into the hands of private companies through the Maryland Innovation Initi

Every day, inside our body, there is a war going on. Microscopic invaders of one kind or another try to make a meal of us, and our immune system fights back, seeking out the invaders and destroying them. One of our body’s most important foot-soldiers in this war is the T cell, a type of white blood cell with receptors that can recognize foreign substances. Like all white blood cells, T cells originate in the bone marrow, but then they migrate to an organ called the thymus (hence the “T” in “T cell”), where they evolve into specialized immune system warriors. Mature T cells, which leave the thymus and circulate around the body, come in different types. One type, the cytotoxic T cell, specializes in attacking and killing cells of the body that are infected by viruses, bacteria, or cancer.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYS: EBS) announced today that it has signed a license agreement with VaxInnate Corporation under which Emergent acquired the exclusive right to manufacture and sell VaxInnate’s pandemic influenza vaccine candidate in the United States. The product candidate, a recombinant vaccine, has the potential to be produced quickly, at high yields and in a cost-effective manner. This license enables Emergent to fulfill the requirement to secure a pandemic influenza vaccine candidate under its contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which established Emergent as a Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (Center) in June 2012. VaxInnate will continue to develop its pandemic influenza vaccine candidate under its current BARDA contract and Emergent will manufacture the pandemic influenza vaccine candidate using flexible manufacturing technology.

The U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) published a final rule on Thursday that will implement changes to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, such as eligibility criteria that now includes companies that are majority-owned by multiple domestic VCs. The rule is implementing the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act, which was signed into law this year and extended the SBIR program through Sept. 30, 2017. The changes take effect on Jan. 28, 2013 (see BioCentury, Oct. 17, 2011).

Investment in research & development in the U.S. life science industry will turn a corner in 2013 after three years of reduced spending, if a new market analysis is correct.

In their 2013 R&D Funding Forecast (PDF), research and development organization Battelle and R&D Magazine propose that U.S. life science companies will bump up their total R&D spending from $181.6 billion in 2012 to $189.3 billion in 2013. Better access to healthcare information, via data analysis, will accelerate and enhance pharmaceutical R&D and adoption of connected health technologies, they say.

In an unexpected move that could have significant implications for Maryland, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski will be named the first female chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

The Baltimore native and Maryland Democrat, who had been the most senior member of the U.S. Senate without a committee gavel, was suddenly in line to head the influential spending panel following behind-the-scenes maneuvering for chairmanships that played out after the death Monday of its former chairman, Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.

The Democratic caucus is expected to formally approve her chairmanship Thursday.