BioHealth Innovation Weekly for March 12, 2024

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March 12, 2024

BHI Celebrates Women Life Science Leaders serving the BioHealth Industry

On International Women's Day, we celebrate and recognize the remarkable women of BHI for their invaluable contributions to advancing healthcare innovation and shaping the future of biohealth.

ARPA-H Takes on Rare Diseases

There are more than 10,000 known rare diseases and only a few hundred have safe, effective treatments. ARPA-H’s latest project aims to change that and deliver hope and improved outcomes to millions of Americans.

Introducing MATRIX. Short for ML/AI-Aided Therapeutic Repurposing in eXtended uses, MATRIX intends to build a machine learning platform to rapidly pinpoint and validate existing medications to treat diseases that have no therapies.

• The platform will be open-sourced and include an interactive heatmap displaying predicted efficacy scores for approved drugs against other diseases.

TEDCO Invests in Sonogen Medical

Life science company working to develop ultrasonic bone fracture healing technology

COLUMBIA, Md. (March 11, 2024) – TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced a recent $200,000 Seed Funds investment in Sonogen Medical, a medical device company based in Maryland.

“Roughly eight percent of the seven million bone breaks annually in the United States fail to heal on their own. At Sonogen Medical, we are combining decades of experience to create a device that supports faster more efficient healing processes for patients,” said Jason Winder, CEO of Sonogen Medical. “Thanks to TEDCO’s investment we can continue our research and development efforts, propelling us towards an efficient, cost-effective solution.”

Women's Health Innovation Summit USA - Hear from ARPA-H, White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research and WHAM

Hear from ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn, PhD and White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research Director Carolyn Mazure, PhD on the new $100M ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health Program and the White House plans, plus insights from WHAM Founder Carolee Lee and AMWA President Elizabeth Garner, MD. If you are an innovator, founder, funder, researcher or care about driving meaningful change in advancing the health of women, this event is for you!

BiomX Announces Entry into Merger Agreement with Adaptive Phage Therapeutics and Concurrent $50 Million Financing

Acquisition will create phage therapy company with an advanced pipeline with two Phase 2 assets, BX004 for the treatment of chronic pulmonary infections in cystic fibrosis (“CF”) patients and BX211 for the treatment of diabetic foot osteomyelitis (“DFO”)

Concurrently with entering into the definitive merger agreement, BiomX entered into a definitive agreement for a private placement financing of $50 million that will be used to advance two lead product candidates through Phase 2 clinical readouts in 2025

VCU’s new Startup Accelerator will propel university research that has market potential

Program to ‘fast-track’ emerging companies reflects how innovation and entrepreneurship are growing as VCU sets funding records.

After years of supporting startups that license inventions created by university researchers, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation has launched its first formal Startup Accelerator program.

“Our accelerator will fast-track our VCU-borne companies, giving them more personalized coaching and advisory services from our lineup of entrepreneur experts-in-residence,” said P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for research and innovation. “Innovation is taking place at a rapid pace at VCU, and this program will further raise our national visibility and continue to position Central Virginia as a key American technological hub.”

Council on Strategic Risks: The National Security Rationale for Stockpiling Key Pharmaceutical Ingredients

By Vic Suarez - The COVID-19 global pandemic has underscored the critical need for resilient and secure supply chains, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. As the United States grapples with near-all-time high drug shortages1 and the vulnerability of its supply chain, it has become a national security imperative to address the overreliance on imports for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) to the United States. Today, China is the sole source for about 20% of the API of our most vital medicines.2 More dangerously, China’s overwhelming global dominance of the key starting materials (KSM) required to produce these essential medicines cannot be readily substituted due to the current levels of market concentration: approximately 45% of KSM, a vital subcategory of API, are solely sourced from China, according to the API Innovation Center.3 To be sure, this level of import dependence on any single nation poses a serious risk to the nation’s general preparedness and resilience, and could become devastating in a crisis.