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On May 20, 2013, the White House Lab-To-Market Inter-Agency Summit was held in Washington, D.C. The Summit was organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The purpose of the meeting was extraordinary: asking national experts outside of the federal agency system to recommend ways to increase the return-on-investment for the $140 billion annual taxpayer expenditure on federally-funded research and development.

A University of Maryland medical student named Veena S. Katikineni is part of a pair of students that won a competition put on my Scientists Without Borders, in which they designed an innovative solution to deal with mental health issues.

Veena Katikineni (courtesy of her Twitter account, @VeenaSK125) Katikineni – along with Alejandra Leyton, a Bolivian-born health economist and master’s student at Tulane University, where she is studying public health – will split the $10,000 prize bestowed upon them. Their innovation is called “Mhealth for Mental Health,” which is an idea to use SMS text messaging services to provide fast, reliable, and relatively affordable information about mental health afflictions to communities around the world.

Fourteen of 40 companies at the William Hanna Center for Innovation at Shady Grove already have moved to new space, and county employees are working with the rest to find new homes, county economic development head Steven A. Silverman said Wednesday. The new sites include the Germantown Innovation Center and the Montgomery campus of Johns Hopkins University in Rockville, as well as private space, he said. The county is in the process of replacing its oldest business incubator with a national cybersecurity center aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology of Gaithersburg. That plan has been met with opposition from not just tenants, but several Montgomery state legislators and former County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, who is running against County Executive Isiah Leggett in the Democratic primary in June.

As we heard at our big MoCo Forecast event this morning in Bethesda, growing jobs there will require wooing those you already have. (If you have leftover Valentine’s chocolate, put it to work.)

BioHealth Innovation CEO Rich Bendis (far left, as well as on the big screen as an ace ballplayer) says variety should be a big part of job growth: “A balanced portfolio of new, existing, and large anchors.” Going international should also be a focus; Rich feels the county should lock down foreign tech companies who might otherwise look to Boston, Silicon Valley, Philly, or the NC Research Triangle. Rich was joined on our first panel by Ike, Technology Council of Maryland CEO Phil Schiff, and Foulger-Pratt VP Brigg Bunker.

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, February 18, 2014 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) and China Fortune Land Development Co., Ltd. (CFLD) announced today that they have signed an agreement to jointly manage a newly created Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) position to be located at the BHI headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. This first-of-its-kind position will lead in the scouting of technologies and partnership opportunities in life science hubs in the U.S. and China. 

“We’re very pleased to advance our partnership with BHI,” said Mr. Hu Zhen Yu, Vice President for CFLD, a company specializing in investment and operation of industrial areas in China, including science parks. “Our organizations first had a chance to connect in person when BHI’s CEO Rich Bendis traveled with a delegation from Montgomery County, Maryland, to China. Now, we look forward to filling this new EIR position, which will help to identify talented businesses and commercial prospects for our collaborative efforts.”

The new EIR will evaluate life science technologies in both China and the U.S. markets; provide a strategic plan for start-up companies; advise on opportunities for new ventures; and lead the commercial strategy for mature assets. This would be BHI’s 5th EIR since the program’s inception two years ago.

Originally published in the Baltimore Business Journal

By Brian Darmody

Where’s the nation’s second largest concentration of academic, federal and private sector research spending? California? Massachusetts? According to the National Science Foundation, it’s Maryland, equating to billions of dollars in research investment in the Maryland economy. First place New Mexico has a relatively small rural population and presence of two major federal nuclear research labs.

But Maryland has something New Mexico doesn’t — proximity to Washington, D.C.

Washington is home to the nation’s government, but also the National Academies, technology trade associations, international corporations, embassies, media, regulatory agencies, foundations, and science agencies.

DATE March 13, 2014 • TIME 8:00am – 4:30pm • LOCATION Nelson Mullins 101 Constitution Ave NW, Ste. 900 Washington, DC

The HealthTechNet Investor Day matches entrepreneurs and investors in a series of 30-minute meetings. There are no speakers and no panels, just individual meetings between entrepreneurs and investors. To register, fill out the the form below by Friday, February 14.

Companies and investors must register below. If you have questions, please email Jessica Straus at unconference@ec.co. 

 Startup Package for Client Companies

BHI works with a supporting network of renowned professional service providers that share the same vision for growing Maryland’s biohealth sector. These professionals work in partnership with BHI to support client companies achieve their goals. They understand the nature and needs of startup companies, and offer preferred rates for client companies. We are proud to work these esteemed organizations in serving the Central Maryland biohealth ecosystem.

If you would like to become a part of BHI’s network of startup package providers to work with unique companies and projects as evaluated and accelerated through our Venture Commercialization model, please send information no longer than 2 pages stating your qualifications against a category of support and include your preferred pricing in offering these services.