Top pharma execs at the marquee companies don’t really retire. Some segue quite naturally into venture capital, where their contacts and heavyweight industry reputations can facilitate the growth of little biotech companies at a time the VC crowd is enjoying a prolonged and popular boom.

The 2018 FLC Awards is now open for nominations. One of the most coveted honors in the technology transfer field, the FLC awards have been presented to over 200 federal laboratories since their inception in 1984. Many of our winning technology transfer efforts have gone on to become products and devices that are indispensable in our daily lives.

A research team will be using the funds to design a bioreactor that can extend the lifespan of an organ outside the body.

DayZero: Cybersecurity Law and Policy It is no secret that Silicon Valley and Washington have dramatically different workplace cultures and attitudes toward risk and technology. In the valley, savvy entrepreneurs look to disrupt the status quo. Meanwhile in Washington, many of our elected representatives and government personnel are stuck decades in the digital past, forced to use equipment that would be better housed in a museum. This divide inhibits the country’s ability to respond effectively to long-standing problems such as vulnerable critical infrastructure and to adapt in light of new threats such as election interference operations and loss of advanced intelligence capabilities. Washington needs to boost its technical chops and find new ways to recruit private-sector talent.

If it wins the federal OK, the company hopes to debut the late-stage drug candidate on the market within the next two years.

Margaret Anderson, formerly executive director at Washington-based FasterCures, has joined Deloitte Consulting LLP as a managing director for federal health practice.

Deloitte said Monday Anderson will oversee the firm’s health outcome improvement efforts through the advancement of platforms and collaboration with stakeholders across federal health, life sciences and nonprofit sectors.

COMPANY:  Machfu

LOCATION:  Germantown Innovation Center

FOUNDED: 2015

OVERVIEW: Machfu simplifies the complex landscape of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) by easily connecting data at the edge to IoT databases in the cloud for business analytics. Machfu grew out of a simple idea: that developing and maintaining applications in the industrial IoT world should be as easy as it is in the desktop world or the smartphone world.

GOAL: The company’s short-term goals are to create as much awareness as possible among the industries that having a standardized edge platform will bring substantial value. The less developers have to worry about the underlying plumbing in developing applications, the faster innovation can occur.  The long-term goal is to reduce the enormous system integration inefficiencies that exist in bringing industrial sensors and controllers to participate in the Internet-of-Things.

PIPELINE: Machfu has secured its first major OEM customer win – S&C Electric Company based in Chicago. The win validates the need for the company’s technology and the value it will bring to the end customers which are the utility companies. Machfu is using this win as a template in our discussions with other major OEMs.

FUNDING:  Machfu has secured its first institutional round. The funding will help with staff expansion and growth plans.

Q&A WITH CEO PRAKASH CHAKRAVARTHI:

The backstory of Machfu is interesting partially because part of your team has been working together for over 15 years. How did you decide to launch this company together?

The team has been together for over 15 years. We founded Eka Systems in 2001 and were one of the pioneers in mesh networking for the advanced metering market that grew big after the ARRA funding from the federal government. After Eka was sold to Cooper Power in 2010, the core team wanted to stay together and we founded a consulting company called Captiva to architect and implement IOT solutions for Fortune 500 clients. Our team has deep expertise in embedded systems as well as the business needs of many industrial segments such as Utilities, Building Controls, Oil & Gas, Water and others. During the course of consulting we realized our true DNA was in products.

Another realization that dawned on us was that we were solving the same problems over and over again. This is due to the fragmented nature of the industrial markets that were leading to tremendous market inefficiencies in system integration. Due to our depth in the technology and business needs of this space, we created Machfu with the aim of democratizing the space.

You recently lined up SBIR and Ventures funding. What can you tell us about those?

The Department of Energy awarded us the SBIR grant to create a software development kit that would enable rapid creation of new and innovative applications in the smart grid market. The office of Electricity Reliability and Energy delivery has a mission to secure the US grid and transition the legacy technologies and work flows to modern ways using web services that will bring substantial value. The transition must happen gracefully as there are trillions of dollars in deployed assets. Machfu’s platform paradigm fits nicely with this vision.

What attracted you to the Germantown Innovation Center?

Most of us live in this area and it made sense to apply to the Germantown Innovation center. At that time Ruth Semple and John Korpela who were managing the incubator companies were very supportive of our effort and understood what we were trying to accomplish. They continued to encourage us as our business model and plans evolved. We should be graduating soon and the experience as early stage entrepreneurs in this facility—now under the management of BioHealth Innovation--has been wonderful.

How do you feel about the present startup environment for technology companies in Maryland?

Maryland is an excellent place for early stage entrepreneurs. If you combine all the incubators, mentorship and promotion opportunities available from organizations such as BioHealth Innovation and the Maryland Technology Council with the early stage funding available from TEDCO and other sources, it is certainly a premier location for a technology startup in the US. What is lacking is the next level beyond the early stage. The eco-system for post early stage companies is not yet as robust as Boston or the Bay Area.

Where do you see your technology having the biggest impact?

Machfu’s technology will have the biggest impact in industries that rely on legacy protocols for communication. These include industries such as the utilities, oil & gas, water infrastructure, industrial automation etc. These industries rely on protocols such as Modbus and DNP that were developed a few decades ago prior to the Internet or modern security needs but are still being deployed today. The economics of transitioning these device to modern ways is staggering and yet the value capture is much needed.

What were the main challenges you faced when starting Machfu?

Some challenges are similar to what all entrepreneurs face – which is being under capitalized with a vision and no product. There are specific challenges when dealing with the Industrial space. The sales cycles are long and there is a large inertia in changing or even thinking beyond established ways of doing things. In addition, the early stage capital market has a lesser understanding and familiarity with the Industrials.

What makes Machfu different from other companies in the same market space?

Machfu’s team has extensive experience in engineering and management leadership in wireless and embedded software technology. The team has been working together in the IoT space for the last 15 years and has the rare combination of IoT vertical markets and embedded systems experience.

What are some of the current inefficiencies in your industry?

What we have in the market today are 50+ IoT cloud platforms. However, there is a lack of a device platform with standard APIs and segmented tool chains. Historically the IoT market (previously referred to as M2M, sensor networking etc.) has been a silo’d and fragmented market where a potpourri of hardware and software platforms were used by industrial OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to address a particular business need. Very often one business unit within a company would implement a different hardware-software platform from another business unit within the same company. This device fragmentation is referred to as “million platforms with a hundred users each”. With a projected growth in revenues from $12B to $69B over the next decade for the industrial IoT, creating a standardized device platform will fulfill a substantial market need.

What are the near-term milestones for Machfu? When should we next expect to hear about the company?

The near term milestones are to secure a few more customer wins in the next couple of quarters.

What specific advice would you offer to a first-time entrepreneur?

I wish there was a universal secret sauce. Each adventure is unique. But I would broadly say “If you believe in it, stick with it, put together a team around yourself where the whole is much larger than the sum of the parts and find experienced mentors who believe in you.”

Learn more about Machfu at http://www.machfu.com/.  Learn more about BioHealth Innovation and the Germantown Innovation Center and other resources at www.BioHealthInnovation.org. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. are available to answer your Innovation Center related questions.

ConverGene is pleased to announce that it has entered into a collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (“MD Anderson”) to characterize ConverGene’s first-in-class dual inhibitor of BET bromodomains and dopamine receptor 2, in ovarian carcinoma.   Work will be done under the guidance of Dr. Sherry Wu in the laboratory of Dr. Anil Sood. The program will advance in 2 distinct phases. First the unique mechanism of action of the ConverGene lead compound will be assessed in vitro then clinically relevant activity will be determined utilizing in vivo model systems developed in the Sood lab.

A trade and diplomatic mission to South Korea led by officials from the Maryland Department of Commerce and the Maryland Secretary of State’s office concluded the evening of Friday, September 8, 2017, with a reception at the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea’s residence in Seoul.

The Pinkney Innovation Complex for Science and Technology is located on the Montgomery College Germantown Campus. We're also known as PIC MC. The College is ideally situated in Montgomery County, Maryland, within the Washington, DC metropolitan region.

The area is home to more than 350 bioscience companies and key federal institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research.

Surrounded by woodlands, the site provides immediate access to the I-270 technology corridor. The park is currently being developed to accommodate life sciences, cybersecurity, and other technology companies.

Shuttle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (USA) and POLA Pharma Inc. (Japan), today announced agreement to license the U.S. rights for doranidazole, a hypoxic cell radiation sensitizer, for clinical development in treating cancers in combination with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).  SBRT is used to deliver large doses of radiation in a few treatments with precise targeting of cancers. Current radiation dose limitations, due to sensitive normal tissues that may surround a tumor, support a role for radiation sensitizers to enhance the effectiveness of radiation. Clinical trials to determination safety and efficacy of the combination of doranidazole and SBRT are proposed for treating patients with pancreatic, lung and liver cancers.

In the conference room of a spacious loft office near 30th Street Station, Usman “Oz” Azam and Michael Christiano huddle for a meeting. They’re CEO and chief business officer, respectively, of Tmunity Therapeutics, a start-up launched to commercialize some breakthrough research out of the University of Pennsylvania — a method of reengineering a patient’s own immune system cells so they can destroy cancer tumors.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) today announced that it has been awarded a contract valued at approximately $63 million by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop an antidote spray device for the treatment of known or suspected acute cyanide poisoning. The single-use intranasal spray device will deliver a stabilized form of isoamyl nitrite (SIAN) and is intended for use by first responders and medical personnel following a cyanide incident.

The greatest economic development sweepstakes in the country is underway and Montgomery County officials are hoping the county can be a player.

Amazon is searching for a second headquarters site to house as many as 50,000 employees, at an expected cost of $5 billion to construct. The footprint for the new headquarters would be up to 8 million square feet by 2027 and an initial 500,000 square feet by 2019.

When Knox Singleton first took the helm at Inova Health System in 1984, Mobil Corp. was still building its campus — the first major corporate headquarters ever landed by Fairfax County — on the massive wooded lot just across the street from the health system's Fairfax hospital.

ConverGene has entered into a Sponsored Research Agreement with University of Maryland, Baltimore. Under this agreement University of Maryland School of Medicine Professor Curt I. Civin, M.D., who is associate dean for research and director of the Center For Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine, will investigate the in vivo anti-leukemic effects of ConverGene’s lead drug candidates, CG223 and CG250. Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) is a likely first disease target for these compounds.

The company just received a Series A investment from VSP Global, one of the country’s largest networks of vision doctors.

Cancer Prevention Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (CPP), a private biotech company developing novel therapeutics to prevent cancer and other diseases, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted “Fast-Track” status for its lead drug CPP-1X/sul for adults with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), which is currently in a Phase 3 clinical trial. FAP is a rare genetic disease that if left untreated progresses to colorectal cancer in nearly 100% of patients. Currently there is no effective treatment for FAP.

Flagship Pioneering (fka Flagship Ventures), a Cambridge, MA-based life sciences venture capital firm, is seeking to raise $500m for its latest fund.

Congressional lawmakers from both parties have rejected the Trump administration's proposals to cut spending for NIH, and have joined forces to increase spending on biomedical research.

Developers Taconic Investment Partners and Silverstein Properties are spending $20 million to renovate the 326,861-sf Movie Lab building in Midtown Manhattan for life science research usage.

After holding it in the District for years, the health system is packing up and taking its annual symposium across the country.

Emergent Biosolutions produces cures in Downtown Baltimore for cancer patients, troops and stockpiles in case of a chemical attack.

Fractal Technology, a startup founded at Johns Hopkins, was recently acquired by Annapolis Junction–based Sunayu, according to the cofounders.

Threats come in all sizes, some so small you can't see. The damage, however can be catastrophic.

Emergent BioSolutions creates remedies for diseases like cancer and ebola, chemical attacks like anthrax, as well as those against our troops, like mustard gas.

The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, College Park were ranked among the top tier in the U.S. News and World Report annual rankings of colleges and universities released Tuesday.

UK-based liquid biopsy firm Angle said today that it has inked a comarketing agreement with Qiagen for circulating tumor cell (CTC) technology.

What does it really cost to bring a drug to market?

The question is central to the debate over rising health care costs and appropriate drug pricing. President Trump campaigned on promises to lower the costs of drugs.

Pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences has just put up a cool $11.9 billion to acquire Kite Pharma, which has developed a genetic engineering approach for treating cancers.

Every year, as part of their strategic planning, executives’ minds turn to setting performance targets—and then achieving them. In so doing, those at medical-device companies should bear in mind the high hopes shareholders have for future growth. Can these hopes be met?

On Monday, the California gene-hunting company Human Longevity published a paper making the bold claim that it can identify individuals using their genomes to predict what their faces looks like.

Scientists at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) in San Diego, California have devised a way to optically image tumors with unprecedented clarity using quantum dots. These nano structures are tiny particles, only a few nanometers wide, that generate light of a specific wavelength when they’re themselves stimulated by a light beam. On their own quantum dots are quite bright, but their signal gets washed out by other nearby quantum dots. To clean the signal and be able to see tumors better, the SBP team used a so-called “etchant”.

The National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) is pleased to announce the 12 finalists selected to pitch their pediatric medical device innovation at our 5th Annual Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium on Sunday, September 24th in San Jose, CA.

Can genomics wizards make an informed guesstimate on what a person looks like, based on his or her DNA? J. Craig Venter sure thinks so, per a new PNAS paper. Yet his Human Longevity Institute study is facing Twitter blowback for that claim.

BioHealth Innovation CEO, Richard Bendis discusses with Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation for #MOCO365 how BioHealth Innovation helps accelerate the growth of life science and biohealth companies.