In a unique program called Preparing the Future (PTF), 334 students have completed classroom and hands-on training to equip them to address the HIV epidemic, according to Alexandra "Allie" Reitz, the programýs coordinator for the JACQUES Initiative (JI) of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The PTF at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is designed as a model for the nation and is supported by a grant from Gilead Sciencesý HIV FOCUS Program, for the JACQUES Initiative (JI). By participating, UMB students "gain invaluable communication skills through the PTF's interprofessional approach," says Reitz.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) plc and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), have agreed to a first of its kind collaboration that will support the development of several antibiotics to fight antibiotic resistance and bioterrorism.

This public-private agreement marks the first time that HHS has taken a “portfolio approach” to funding drug development with a private sector company. This unique collaboration provides flexibility to move funding around GSK’s antibacterial portfolio, rather than focusing on just one drug candidate and allow medicines to be studied for the potential treatment of both conventional and biothreat pathogens.

Our world needs entrepreneurs

Their ability to innovate, to inspire others, to power a business along the difficult journey from start-up to market leader is truly extraordinary. The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award celebrates these special people who have created many of the world’s most dynamic and successful companies. We invite you to join us in celebrating their success at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013 Maryland Awards Gala.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Baltimore Marriott Waterfront
700 Aliceanna Street | Baltimore, MD 21202
6:00 p.m. — Cocktail reception
7:00 p.m. — Dinner and awards ceremony
Black tie

Today is Demo Day for Techstars Boston.  I love Techstars Demo Days for many reasons, not the least of which is the amazing community that gathers to hear the brief, well-rehearsed pitches from the various start-ups who have spent months planning for this big event.

As accelerators like Techstars gain in popularity, many entrepreneurs wonder whether they should be applying and, if admitted, joining an accelerator and when they shouldn't.  I get this question a lot from my students, particularly as they're graduating and scrambling to figure out where they should start their company, how to raise capital and whether an accelerator is right for them.  Here are a few guidelines that I would think about if I were an entrepreneur making such a decisions.

There are lots of myths about venture capital and biotech in particular, as noted previously on this blog.  Many of these myths are deeply held beliefs about returns, what works and what doesn’t, and the state of the industry.  Told often enough, these beliefs are presumed to be true by many observers, including practitioners in the field, Limited Partners, and pundits.

Surprisingly, data exists to address lots of these points, and I’ve attempted here to summarize (and link to) a number of prior posts aimed at debunking these myths and sharing a few observations on them.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, will work with the U.S. government to develop antibiotics for resistant infections and bioterrorist threats in an agreement valued at as much as $200 million.

The company will collaborate with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which will provide $40 million for the initial 18-month agreement, London-based Glaxo said in a statement today. If the accord is renewed over five years, the department will provide as much as $200 million, the drugmaker said.

GlaxoSmithKline has created a contest for academic researchers that it hopes will accelerate the speed by which academic research can be turned into novel therapies.

The London pharmaceutical company, which has large operations in the Philadelphia region, on Tuesday launched a competition program it is calling Discovery Fast Track.

The Public Health Service Act indicates that the purpose of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is to advance translational sciences by coordinating and developing resources that leverage basic research in support of translational science; and by developing partnerships and working cooperatively to foster synergy in ways that do not create duplication, redundancy and competition with industry activities.

The Affordable Care Act, aka health care reform, aka Obamacare, is spurring a massive creation of new business opportunities.

So says Bryan Sivak, the chief technical officer and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Department of Health and Human Services, the cabinet-level agency that regulates the $2.8 trillion U.S. health care market. Sivak joined VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference today via a video conference (see photo above).

Just one of the areas that’s becoming fertile ground for entrepreneurial innovation: the health insurance exchanges mandated by the law.

Doug Doerfler, CEO of Gaithersburg-based MaxCyte Inc., was this month named the Tech Council of Maryland's new chairman. He steps into the position with a wealth of TCM experience under his belt, having spent three years as chairman of the trade group's biotech division. I caught up with Doerfler on his plans for TCM, the interplay between its IT and bio contingents and the search for a new full-time CEO.

More than half of all eligible providers nationwide have received federal incentive payments for demonstrating meaningful use of electronic health records, rates that have more than doubled since last year alone, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Wednesday.

Sebelius says HHS has met and exceeded its goal for 50 percent of doctor offices and 80 percent of eligible hospitals to have adopted EHRs by 2013's end.

The StartRight! Women's Business Plan Competition was founded in 2003 by Rockville Economic Development Inc. (REDI) to encourage and support women’s entrepreneurship. Currently in its tenth year, StartRight! awards prizes for winning business plans annually. The women who join our competition receive more than the opportunity to win a top prize of $5,000 – they also receive valuable coaching and feedback on their business plan!

There are 3 Prize Categories - Total of $15,000 in prizes with a top prize of $5,000! You select the category in which you wish you plan to be entered.

1. Technology 
2. General Business 
3. Life Science

If you have additional questions or need assistance, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call us at 301-315-8096.

Zina Moukheiber said the New York Digital Health Accelerator Is a Model to Emulate at the beginning of the program. With the proliferation of accelerators, I thought I’d share an insider’s perspective on what it was like to be in the program now that it is complete. I’ll also share some ideas on how can take it to the next level building off of their already-strong foundation.

Zina described the program as follows:

One of the toughest hurdles for health IT start-ups is getting in front of customers. Doctors are reluctant to pay, and sales cycles at hospitals can take months. Entrepreneurs often inspired by a negative personal experience, and moved to fix the problem, find later that their product doesn’t fit the hospital’s “workflow,” or offers no incentive for doctors to adopt it.

Biotech has never quite taken flight in Northern Virginia. Whether that's due to the lack of a big corporate anchor or blue-chip research university, the dearth of wet labs, the attraction of a stronger scene in Montgomery County or pure dumb happenstance is anyone's guess.

But on this side of the D.C. suburbs, the life sciences are not thriving. The story of Virginia biotech right now has much more to do with Charlottesville than it does with Fairfax.

Optimistic and confident in their abilities, a diverse and growing percentage of U.S. citizens engage in entrepreneurship, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).

U.S. entrepreneurship rates climbed to the highest level in more than a decade according to the 2012 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) U.S. Report issued today by Babson College and Baruch College. In 2012, the average Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity rate (TEA) increased to nearly 13 percent, an all-time high since GEM first began tracking entrepreneurship rates in 1999.

“Despite a sluggish economy, 2012 was marked by U.S. entrepreneurs reporting greater optimism and confidence in their abilities to start new businesses,” commented the GEM Report’s lead author, Donna J. Kelley, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College. “In fact, nearly 13 percent of the U.S. adult population was engaged in entrepreneurship with the vast majority starting businesses to pursue an opportunity rather than out of necessity. On the downside, Americans closing businesses were twice as likely as those in other innovation-driven economies to cite difficulties financing their ventures.”

The threshold for reporting on marketing stunts is a high one, and United Therapeutics Corp. has just cleared it.

Reaching us by mail today is the Silver Spring biotech's 2012 annual report, written as a spoof of a children's book and called "Good Year UTHR." UTHR, of course, is the ticker symbol for United Therapeutics, which has a history of doing this sort of thing.

Hall of Fame award underlines long history of commitment to Maryland technology community

The Tech Council of Maryland honored Lockheed Martin with the 2013 Hall of Fame Award at its 25th annual Tech Awards Celebration, held at the Bethesda North Marriot Hotel and Conference Center in Bethesda, Md.

The Tech Awards Celebration is the mid-Atlantic region’s largest and most prestigious awards ceremony that recognizes leaders and innovators in the technology and life science communities from Maryland and the surrounding regions.

The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission (Commission) has completed its review of the 171 applications received in response to its FY 2013 Requests for Applications (RFAs). The board of directors of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) approved the Commission's recommendation to fund 31 new proposals with the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund's (MSCRF) $10.4 million FY2013 budget. These projects, which include pre-clinical research and a clinical trial, will advance the field of regenerative medicine.

"These awards are critical to ensuring that the groundbreaking research being done has the opportunity to move to the commercial marketplace," said Governor Martin O'Malley. "I congratulate this year's grant recipients and look forward to the contributions they make to the improved health and wellbeing of our citizens."

Would it surprise you to learn that Fast Company magazine just ranked Maryland the third-most innovative state in the nation? Or that Maryland took the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's No. 1 spot for both innovation and entrepreneurship? It's a fact: In our state's dynamic mix of world-class universities and professional schools, institutes for advanced research, teaching hospitals, think tanks, hubs for start-up businesses and more, there exists this mysterious, economically essential activity known as innovation.

So if we are as innovative as Fast Company and the leaders of free enterprise say we are — and I believe it's true — we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions: How did it happen? And how can we keep it going?

Wednesday, June 12, 2013 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Bethesda Country Club

We often hear that capital formation is among the most difficult challenges faced by biotechnology companies. Please join us on June 12th for an MdBio breakfast program to hear from four seasoned local venture capital investors, all to discuss investment trends, strategies and opportunities in Maryland. The event will offer a great platform to hear and have dialogue about the broader dynamics in investment, what has changed and where the capital opportunities are.

Speakers:

• David Mott, General Partner, NEA
• Lars Hanan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, BroadOak
• Brian Carney, Principal, Herbert Venture Partners
• Kyp Sirinakis, Managing Partner, Rock Spring Ventures

Moderator:

• Tom Dann, Director, Maryland Venture Fund

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Maryland Department of Business of Economic Development announced Monday that they created a new program to help companies that have moved beyond the start-up phase to continue to grow.

Advance Maryland is designed to assist these companies with developing markets, fine-tuning their business models and boosting growth with the help of a research specialist. Similar models have been adopted in other states, the groups said.

Fifty years ago this month, I chanced to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I was a mild-mannered kid with a speech impediment and a love of math. That day, I was focused on solving math problems, not issues of justice and equal rights. But King broke through to me when he said this: If the children of Birmingham march, Americans will see that what they are asking for is a better education. They will see that even the very young know the difference between right and wrong.

I chose to march, and found myself among hundreds of children jailed for five terrifying days. Mind you, I was not a brave child. But even at 12 years old, I believed and hoped that my participation could make a difference.

Chevy Chase-based New Enterprise Associates stands to reap a fortune from Tableau Software Inc.'s newly public stock, which is up about 60 percent in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday.

NEA is the single biggest venture backer of the Seattle-based data analytics company (NYSE: DATA). The firm sold 1 million shares of Tableau stock in the offering, and is holding on to another 18.5 million shares, or about 37 percent of the company. With Friday's pop, that stake is valued at more than $900 million.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 05:00pm - 06:30pm

Please join us for an exclusive MedTech networking event hosted by QIAGEN. Learn more about AdvaMed 2013: The MedTech Conference and discover your local MedTech community.

Please RSVP by June 3 to Lauren Goldstein at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 202.434.7213

Location QIAGEN’s Germantown Facility

A District advisory committee OK'd bids from Johns Hopkins Medicine and MedStar Health to build costly proton therapy centers on Thursday, leaving both just one step from final approval to proceed on the high-tech cancer treatment programs.

It wasn't, however, a clean victory for either. The committee rejected a key part of Hopkins' plan and asked for additional details about both nonprofit system's outreach to under-served neighborhoods.

America urgently needs a national, research-based effort to empower all undergraduates and help more of them, particularly underrepresented minorities, graduate with science and engineering degrees, said Freeman Hrabowski, III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) during the 2013 William D. Carey lecture.

Hrabowski addressed the 38th Annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy on 2 May 2013—fifty years to the day after he had participated in the historic Birmingham Children's March, which was inspired by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I wanted a better education," Hrabowski said of his participation in that 1963 event. "All children really do want to be well-educated."

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), the state’s largest technology trade association with more than 400 biotechnology and technology members employing more than 200,000 in the region, announced at its 25th annual Dinner and Awards Celebration last night that Doug Doerfler was elected as chairman of TCM’s board. Doerfler was the association’s vice chairman and succeeds Larry Letow, who has served as chairman since 2010. TCM also named four current board members to executive leadership positions.

“I am honored to continue serving TCM at such an important and promising time,” said Doerfler. “Our members have become the catalysts of Maryland’s dynamic economy, creating new, high-paying jobs and discovering breakthrough technologies that can change our world. We may come from diverse backgrounds, but a single mission unifies us: creating a healthier, safer world with game-changing innovations right here in Maryland. I especially thank Larry Letow for his outstanding board leadership these past three years. He has positioned TCM, our membership and Maryland for a very bright future.”

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association with more than 400 biotechnology and technology members employing more than 200,000 in the region, last night announced the winners of its 2013 TCM Awards. The 25th annual celebration was attended by more than 750 technology and business leaders from around the state.

"Maryland is ripe with innovative companies – from ones focused on high tech and IT solutions that make businesses and governments run smoothly and securely, to biotech companies that are developing cutting-edge cures for serious diseases," said Doug Doerfler, chairman of TCM’s Board and founding president and CEO of MaxCyte, Inc. "Winners of the 2013 Tech Awards exemplify this broad cross section of individuals and companies that make up the Tech Council membership and are key to driving advances in all aspects of technology."

As a follow up to a $1 billion initiative last year that funded projects across the nation designed to improve outcomes and save money in the healthcare system, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services today announced a second, $1 billion round of Health Care Innovation Awards.

According to CMS, funding will be awarded to provider groups, health systems, payers, states, public-private partnerships, for-profit organizations or any other parties that have developed innovative payment and delivery models to improve population health, quality of care and cost efficiency.

Having recently stressed that oncology is a core therapy area for its research, AstraZeneca is moving three of its cancer compounds into Phase III trials.

First up, MedImmune, AstraZeneca’s biologics R&D arm, has enrolled the first patient in a late-stage study of moxetumomab pasudotox. It is sponsored by the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), and will evaluate the CD22 immunotoxin as a potential treatment in adults with hairy cell leukaemia who have not responded to or relapsed after standard therapy.

Entrepreneur Magazine has named Maryland the No. 1 state to start a new business, with neighboring Virginia following close behind at No. 3.

The California-based magazine cited the state's Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List -- which connects experts with startups -- and the University of Maryland Baltimore County's initiative to find and train female entrepreneurs in choosing the state for the top position.

AURP 2015 International Conference Host  

Would you like to highlight your city and your university research park by hosting AURP's 2015 International Conference? As the host park, you'll be recognized as a leader in the field and attract worldwide attention to the exciting progress and success of your region. Find out more about the requirements at AURP.net/hostrfp. 

To be considered, submit your proposal, electronically, to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Deadline: Friday, September 6, 2013. 

By Eve Green

Last week, the Baltimore BioPark played host to the Innovation Working Group, which consists of executives from the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. The commission was founded as a joint venture between President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The highly anticipated event is an opportunity for the United States and Russia to find new ways to collaborate on projects in the fields of biotech and science. Members of the group were given a tour of the University of Maryland, College Park and Baltimore BioPark. The event was led by Oleg Fomichev, the Russian Deputy Minister of Economy, and Lorraine Hariton, Special Representative for Business and Commerce of the U.S. Department of State. Among those that joined the three day tour were chief executives of biotech companies from both Maryland and Russia, as well as leaders from the Pushchino BioTech Cluster.

As the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and HITECH Act are rolled out, providers and payers are looking for ways to address pain points varying from improving patient engagement and remote monitoring to helping consumers better understand their insurance options to making better use of patient information in the context of big data.

Some accelerators are helping members of the healthcare ecosystem and entrepreneurs find each other. These four healthcare accelerators are currently looking for applicants.

Version 2.0 of a plan to create an Office of mHealth in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should be out soon. The office of U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, Silicon Valley’s Democratic Congressman who authored the legislation, said the next draft will at the least fine-tune the way the office would work with other federal agencies.

But is the big-ticket item – a new office dedicated to adding more context and understanding of mHealth within the federal agency – the most interesting thing about the bill? I don’t think so. Read through the details and see if you agree.