One of the exciting and frustrating things about convergence, particularly in healthcare, is that it’s tough to predict how the hybrid technologies will find their way to market. The process of reaching that goal is filled with unexpected obstacles, twists and pivots.

United Therapeutics Corp., one of the region's largest bioscience firms, is planning a major expansion of its Silver Spring campus with plans to hire about 100 employees in the next three to six years.

The publicly traded firm, with about 200 D.C.-area employees and $340 million in net income in 2014, wants to develop a six-story building at the southwest corner of Spring Street and Colesville Road connecting to its existing corporate presence in the immediate area. The 121,724-square-foot building, to include new office, lab and retail space, would be developed on the site of what is now a Montgomery County-owned, three-story parking garage that is under contract for sale to United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR).

German pharma giant Bayer is uniting with researchers at Johns Hopkins University to ferret out new treatments for retinal diseases, signing a 5-year deal targeting early-stage R&D.

Under the agreement, Bayer will work alongside the school's Wilmer Eye Institute to spot new therapeutic targets, shed light on disease mechanisms and develop new drug delivery methods for back-of-the-eye ailments. Bayer will have exclusive rights to option any and all drug candidates that emerge from the collaboration, and the companies are keeping quiet on financial details.

Bayer HealthCare and Johns Hopkins University entered into a five-year collaboration to develop ophthalmic therapies that target retinal diseases. They will work together on discovery and development of drugs for treatment of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, among others.

72% percent of health IT leaders think consumer and patient considerations are the most important business issue affecting care delivery.

Registrants can now save $300 on MedCity ENGAGE on July 14-15 in Bethesda, MD. Sign up now to take advantage of advanced general registration.

MedCity ENGAGE is an executive-level event featuring the most innovative thinking from payers, providers, policymakers, health IT and beyond to highlight best-in-class approaches to one of the biggest challenges in healthcare: patient engagement. It will feature speakers discussing the current attempts to innovate in care delivery and reimbursement, along with the innovations that will form the backbone of technological infrastructure.

BioBuzz is an ongoing monthly networking group of professionals from all sectors of the Biotech/Pharma/Life-sciences industries. Each month we host a FREE event for like-minded people to come together and network, reconnect with past coworkers, build stronger relationships and share stimulating conversations in a welcoming atmosphere.

This month's event is made possible by our sponsor, Breezio (@brzio), who is helping to advance the pace of research and discovery through their Research Collaboration Platform. Join us at the upcoming Bethesda event - June 25th at Barking Dog Bar - to meet them and learn about Team Science.

Lake Whillans, in an effort to help level the playing field for entrepreneurs in the new world of healthcare investing, has partnered with MedCity News to deliver independent research on corporate venture capital in the life sciences. MedCityNews.com reached out to its 400,000 monthly readers, and more than 450 healthcare innovators familiar with corporate firms shared their insights.

Pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline could reportedly become the latest takeover target in the industry.

According to the Daily Mail, market participants are speculating that the company may face an approach from Switzerland’s Roche or US company Johnson & Johnson at about 1900p per share.

Scientific American has released its list of the 100 most influential people in biotechnology.

I am honored to be included in this exclusive list and recognized for my thought leadership on the business of biotechnology.

There is always talk, sometimes tongue-in-cheek but mostly sort of serious, that a lot of jobs will be replaced by robots or computers. Maybe that new iPhone I just bought will replace me by year end. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla thinks that the most doctors’ current functions will be replaced by algorithms; many believe that lots of white collar jobs, such as lawyers, accountants, and bankers will be replaced by machines with warmer personalities. Venture capitalists have already been “supplemented” with algorithms and, no doubt, there are plenty of people who would like to see us replaced by nearly anything metal—spatula, can opener–if they had their way. In Iron Man we see a world of robot-based soldiers going to war and in real life the echo of that is not so far off.

Only a year after its founding, Bethesda-based health tech company Aledade Inc. raised $30 million in a Series B fundraising, it announced Monday.

ARCH Venture Partners led the funding round with an investment from Series A investor Venrock, which first invested $4.5 million in Aledade to start the company last June.

Two years ago, a television cartoon in Pakistan made waves for its star, a superheroine named “Burka Avenger,” who promotes positive social change while clad in the titular billowing black silk outfit. With the tagline “don’t mess with the lady in black,” the show presents plotlines promoting gender equality, environmentalism and health.

H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, includes vital resources for the National Institutes of Health and important policy - See more at: http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/21st-century-cures-renews-commitment-biomedical-research-america#sthash.2aIzVevb.dpuf changes that will allow America’s most promising scientists and researchers to unleash the next generation of cures and therapies. As Greg Satell writes in Forbes, “science is what made America a technological superpower” and the 21st Century Cures Act would help to “renew our commitment to science and competitiveness.” The Alliance for Aging Research adds, “the pace of scientific discovery since the turn of the century has accelerated at a speed that was not possible a generation ago. [H.R. 6] was developed after the realization by leaders in Congress that the current health care innovation infrastructure needed improvement to accommodate those advances in science.”

Entrepreneurs beat long odds when they launch a company, scale it up and sell it to investors. Smith School alumnus Jason Cohen has done it five times in 15 years with brands such as Sensible Portions low-calorie snacks, Rickland Orchards yogurt, SkinnyPop popcorn and Mrs. Thinsters cookies. Now Cohen and his partners are focusing on identifying high-potential startups that need capital and expertise to grow. Their latest project is a jerky company called Chef’s Cut. “If we invest in your business, then we believe it can be a $50 million to $100 million business,” says Cohen, who lives in New Jersey. “And you’ll get a roadmap from an entrepreneur who has been in your shoes.” Part of that roadmap includes the following seven secrets of Cohen’s success.

Startup Maryland (www.startupmd.org), a venture development community forged with Maryland Pride, By Entrepreneurs … For Entrepreneurs, today announced the schedule for the 2015 Raise Your Game entrepreneur bootcamp. Raise Your Game provides the Maryland entrepreneur community with a structured educational program designed to help startup CxOs and founders understand and employ the building blocks of strong startups and startup communities.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today expressed continuing opposition to The Innovation Act (H.R. 9) as amended and reported by the House Judiciary Committee today, and believes that, without substantial changes, the bill will jeopardize America’s leadership in medical, agricultural and environmental innovation.

BIO consistently has urged Congress to proceed cautiously when addressing any changes to the patent system that could unduly shift the legal balance against legitimate patent owners. Despite some improvements to the bill, the latest version of the Innovation Act remains unacceptable in certain respects, and includes new provisions that require additional careful vetting for potentially negative unintended consequences for patent owners. BIO remains concerned that the bill would impose unreasonable challenges for innovative start-up and other small companies seeking to protect their intellectual property in a timely and efficient manner, and could chill the investment and collaboration that is so critical to the biotech innovation ecosystem.

Dubai based startup Fetchr has raised Series A funding worth $11 million led by New Enterprise Associates and participation from Delta Partners, Dhabi Holdings, Triple Point Capital, Ben Narasin, Roland Berger and 500 Startups, reports the Wall Street Journal. Fetchr will use the funds to launch its mobile app on Android and iOS and product development.

Johns Hopkins University was among seven research institutions selected by French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to play a larger role in helping decide which projects it should fund.

Sanofi on Wednesday unveiled a new grantmaking program that will support up to $2.4 million in research grants a year. The program aims to encourage collaboration among research groups to advance the development of new drugs. A scientific steering committee with representatives from seven research institutions will review proposals for the Sanofi Innovation Program, which will award grants of about $100,000 each.

There are a couple of common analogies for startups wooing potential investors, said entrepreneur Brian Razzaque — it's like herding cats, or getting one lemming to lead the others. Most investors are wary of bankrolling an unproven company without someone else's seal of approval.

When Open Works makes its debut in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District next year, Will Holman hopes it will become just the kind of place where he can set up shop. An architect by training and furniture maker, Holman is also the project director for Open Works, a $10 million incubator Baltimore Arts Realty Corp. is developing in a warehouse across from Greenmount Cemetery.

Pieris Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: PIRS), a biotechnology company advancing its proprietary Anticalin® biotherapeutic technologies, announced today the completion of enrollment of healthy subjects in a blinded, placebo-controlled Phase I clinical trial for the Company's PRS-080 program, a hepcidin antagonist to treat anemia. This study was conducted at a single site in Germany.

The event will focus on the most innovative life sciences clusters in Europe. It will bring together top level representatives from universities, research labs, science parks, incubators, venture capital, hospitals, start-ups and government agencies, all having a role to play in these regional innovation ecosystems.

Hundreds of people from more than 140 life sciences organizations based in Maryland are traveling to the BIO International annual conference taking place next week, June 15th-18th, in Philadelphia.

Stop by our Booth (#301), enjoy a cup of espresso, meet key industry leaders, and learn more about the many resources and experts available in Maryland to help you grow your business!

Take a poll of most of biotech’s venture capitalists—the ones that survived the financial crash, anyway—and you might find that just about all of them have reloaded with new funds over the past few years. Today, you can add Clarus Ventures to the list.

Clarus—a VC firm with offices in the bi-coastal biotech hotbeds of Cambridge, MA, and South San Francisco, CA—has raised its third fund, a $500 million haul called Clarus Lifesciences III LP that’ll it’ll use to invest in both early and mature drug developers.

Symbiomix Therapeutics today announced the dosing of the first patient in a Phase 3 clinical trial, the second of two planned pivotal trials for its lead drug candidate SYM-1219 for the treatment of bacterial vaginosis (BV). Symbiomix previously announced that it plans to submit the multi-center, randomized Phase 2 trial completed last year as one of two pivotal trials required for a New Drug Application (NDA) filing. This Phase 3 trial is the second pivotal study to support an NDA submission for BV. SYM-1219 is a novel drug candidate that contains secnidazole, an antibiotic with favorable pharmacokinetics (PK) allowing for single-dose oral therapy in a condition that is marked by high recurrence rates and low adherence to the current recommended treatment.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities will break ground next week on The Alexandria Center, an 11-story biotech building at 400 Dexter Ave. N.

Juno Therapeutics will be the anchor tenant, taking about 90,000 of the 285,000 square feet. Juno will lease the top four floors and has an option on three more.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the University of Maryland (UMD) and the headquarters of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China’s top science and technology research and educational organization.

Signed on June 2nd by UMD President Wallace D. Loh and CAS President Bai Chunli at CAS headquarters in Beijing, the MOU encourages joint research activities, student exchanges, and other related and mutually beneficial activities. CAS is composed of 104 research institutes, two universities, 12 academies, and over 100 key national labs.

Tech award season rolled on in Maryland on Thursday night at the American Visionary Art Museum. The Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards recognized startups in a host of categories like life sciences, health technology and technology services.

Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development Secretary Mike Gill offered the keynote address, detailing a few specifics of how Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration wants to make the state more business-friendly. That will include a new name for the department, and will likely mean a new title for Gill.

Gemstone Biotherapeutics, a Baltimore company developing treatments to promote wound healing, has raised $2.45 million in a seed round of investment, company officials said.

The company plans to use the money to further test its technologies and pursue regulatory review and clinical trials. It is developing biosynthetic "scaffold" technology that has shown in animal tests it can help skin regenerate and prevent scarring when applied to burn wounds.

Personal Genome Diagnostics has raised $4.3 million in private financing, the firm said in a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. 

A spokesperson for the firm said that the financing was in the form of a convertible note funding and is part of a larger Series A round currently underway. No further details were disclosed. 

The Incubator Company of the Year Awards is an opportunity to highlight Maryland's impressive incubator system and recognize the breadth and depth of technology talent that we have throughout Maryland. In determining the winners, judges considered factors such as technology and product development, increase in employee numbers, growth in revenue, and the attraction of outside investors. The Incubator Company of the Year Awards represent some of the best companies in Maryland that have recently been started and have gone through incubator programs. With BioHealth Innovation's assistance, Avhana Health has been able to create a category-defining product, triple it's workforce and gain funding from outside investors.

Investment to accelerate momentum behind cloud-based electronic health record software for behavioral health market

June 2nd, 2015 | Rockville, MD - Credible Behavioral Health, Inc. ("Credible"), a leading provider of electronic health record ("EHR") and practice management Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") solutions to the behavioral health market, today announced that it has secured a $30 million minority investment from Goldman Sachs. The investment will allow Credible to further pursue its mission of helping behavioral health agencies improve their quality of care by scaling its presence across the clinic, community, residential, and inpatient behavioral health market. Credible plans to accelerate product development, build out its sales and marketing team, and opportunistically pursue acquisitions.

Gaithersburg-based Novavax Inc. — known for its work developing vaccine candidates for the flu, a pediatric respiratory illness and Ebola — expanded into a new 54,000-square-foot research and development space where it plans to house its vaccine work.

"It's a very important signal of our continued growth," said Buck Phillips, chief financial officer of Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX) of the new space at 21 Firstfield Road, across the street from its headquarters.

For decades, a postdoctoral appointment in a university laboratory has been the “default” next step for new Ph.D. researchers in biomedical sciences and, increasingly, in other sciences as well. In those positions, scientists encounter such well-known issues as low pay, long hours, and little or no preparation for career opportunities outside academe.

The Human Genome Project was one of mankind’s greatest triumphs. But the official gene map that resulted in 2003, known as the “reference genome,” is no longer up to the job.

So say scientists laying plans for a new universal map they say will combine the genomes of hundreds, and eventually thousands, of people to create a true reference that reflects all of humanity.