Imagine a world in which everyone is empowered to take charge of their own health care by discovering their personal genetic risk factors. That's the vision of Anne Wojcicki, founder and CEO of the personalized gene-testing company 23andMe.

"How many people love the health care they're getting today?" Wojcicki asked a large audience here Sunday (March 9) at the South By Southwest Interactive festival. Only a handful of people raised their hands.

Health technology startups shone this year at South by Southwest Interactive.

Pedicab bikers raved about TumorPaint (the inventor of the “molecular flashlight” delivered a rousing talk), and Misfit Wearables piqued excitement by giving out 100 of its free fitness devices to attendees. And a mental health startup called ThriveOn beat out social networking apps to win Best of Show at the accelerator competition.

Here’s a testament to how 3D printing is making rapid prototyping more accessible to startups and entrepreneurs. Pictured here is a smartphone case designed and 3D printed by 15-year-old Suman Mulumudi, a student at Lakeside School in Seattle (where Bill Gates attended).

Mulumundi is also the CEO of Stratoscientific, a company he co-founded with his father, a cardiologist, to commercialize the case and another cardiology device he developed.

Featuring Chris Sasiela, PhD, RAC, Regulatory Strategist, Office of Translational Alliances and Coordination, NHLBI, this inaugural Hangout, “Navigating the FDA website,” will provide biomedical innovators with an overview of the types of information available on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website including: organization charts, contact info, guidance documents, and more!   Key take-away points will include: -A guide to finding organization charts for the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research -Contact information for various Offices and Divisions -Contact information for Small Business Assistance contacts -Guidance documents -Public information related to product approvals that can be applied to your technology   Tune in and share out using the hashtag #SBIRChat .

MIT professor Yael V. Hochberg revealed the most effective startup accelerators in the country Tuesday at SxSW in Austin. DreamIt Health showed up in slot #15 and was the only health focused accelerator on the list.

Hochberg is a professor of Finance at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She and professor Susan Cohen of the University of Richmond and the Batten Institute at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, used original research and data from CrunchBase to rank the 15 accelerators.

Juxtopia®’s (www.juxtopia.org) team, Juxtopia® Imhotep, formed as a program to create minority telemedicine companies to address telemedicine marketplace needs. The global telemedicine market grew from $9.8 billion in 2010 to $11.6 billion in 2011 and will almost triple to $27.3 billion in 2016, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.6% over the next five years, according to a report from BCC Research.

Juxtopia® Imhotep officially entered the Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE http://www.qualcommtricorderxprize.org/ in January, 2014. In this X PRIZE competition, Juxtopia® Imhotep will compete with 31 teams around the world to engineer a consumer-friendly mobile telemedicine device that will measure vital signs and diagnose 15 health conditions including, but not limited to, diabetes, anemia, atrial fibrillation, stroke, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pneumonia, and hepatitis.

DreamIt Ventures continues its investment in the health tech space by launching its third DreamIt Health program. We’ve previously covered the 2013 DreamIt Health Philadelphia program and the 2014 DreamIt Health Baltimore program, which is ongoing. Applications for the third class, which will be in Philadelphia from July 18th till November 9th, are currently being accepted until May 16th. If you have the next great startup idea for health, you can apply here….

We had the opportunity to speak with DreamIt Health Managing Partner, Elliot Menschik, MD, PhD, about the program and where he sees opportunities in health tech entrepreneurship.

The IPO wave kept rolling for venture-capital-backed biotech as two life science companies held their first trading day Friday, while another estimated a price range for its public debut and a fourth publicly filed its paperwork.

Reuters Shares of Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. rose 8.6%, while Recro Pharma Inc.‘s stock rose 3.8%.

To celebrate Women’s Day, we hobnobbed with 24 year-old Silicon Valley-based high-tech startup founder Meredith Perry. She’s audacious, persistent, resourceful and a game changer in every sense. Perry’s start-up, uBeam, develops technology using ultrasound to wirelessly charge devices. In 2012, Mike Arrington hailed her demo as the “closest thing to magic” he had seen in a long time. Since, Silicon Valley powerhouses such as Marissa Mayer, Peter Theil, and Andressen Horowitz have invested in uBeam.

Perry designed the early prototypes of uBeam’s technology without any engineering degree, relying on in-depth Internet research and “begging professors to teach her extra concepts after class.” When she first brought her idea to experts and engineers she was met with point-blank responses along the lines of ‘you are trying to do the impossible; it will never work.’

A number of devices now exist that turn smartphones into medical monitors, but they tend to focus on specific vital signs and you’d have to carry a number of separate components to measure a variety of parameters. A new iPhone case called Wello from Azoi Inc. is planned to be released later this year combines a one lead ECG, thermometer, pulse oximeter, and supposedly even a cuffless blood pressure sensor in one device. It will also come with an optional spirometer for measuring airway flows and volumes.

Though other components are available in existing devices, cuffless blood pressure measurement is not trivial and has never been demonstrated to be as accurate as traditional cuffed BP monitors. And since FDA clearance is still required to release the Wello in the U.S., it will be interesting to see just how accurate it really is. Coincidentally, the Scanadu Scout, a device with similar claims, including cuffless blood pressure monitoring, is set to be shipped this month to all those who invested in it through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

Debt isn’t always a dirty word in the world of startups.

Yesterday I heard John Hoesley from Silicon Valley Bank give a brief presentation on venture debt as a funding mechanism for startups at a capital connections event hosted by BioOhio. He mentioned that SVB has seen an uptick in its venture debt business over the last few years as venture capital dollars have become more scarce and companies have turned to alternative sources of funding.

Alejandro Zaffaroni, a prolific biotechnology entrepreneur and Silicon Valley legend who played a significant role in the development of the birth control pill, the nicotine patch, the DNA chip and corticosteroids, died on Saturday at his home in Atherton, Calif. He was 91.

The cause was complications of dementia, Ana Leech, his longtime assistant, said.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: MARCH 14

The 8th Annual Entrepreneurial University Startups Conference is organized annually by the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2.org). The University Startups Conference is a unique conference series dedicated exclusively to the best practices for creating and funding globally-competitive, venture-backable university startups.

We bring together universities creating startups with VCs, angel investors, SBIR program managers and Fortune 500 technology scouts funding them. The conference also includes NSF, NIH, NIST, DOD, DOE, DHS and other government agencies working on improving the Innovation Economy by increasing the quality and quantity of startups coming out of universities.

Fierce Biotech today published the top 15 sites in the US for biotech venture capital in 2013.  This according to figures from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) as compiled by Thomas Reuters.  The findings are not terribly surprising in terms of the rankings -- except it might be a mild surprise that San Francisco outspent Boston/Cambridge on the VC front last year.  Otherwise, the rankings look to make sense.  Here is the summary below in terms of place, dollars and numbers of deals.  The total dollars for the US was $4.5 B.

Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR) finished off 2013 with a strong showing, collecting revenues of over $1.1 billion for the first time in its corporate history as well posting a net profit for the full-year 2013 and upbeat 2014 outlook.

Hidden beneath all the earnings news is a very important line segment on the balance sheet called “Cash and Cash Equivalents”. These are assets that have high liquidity and can be easily converted to cash or are cash themselves; that being said United Therapeutics has amassed nearly $1.14 billion worth of it. The amount is over $350 million more than the company held at the end of 2012.

Startup incubator DreamIt Ventures Austin is kicking off a new microfund this week that will benefit the companies involved with its second accelerator program.

The microfund, which will run through a partnership with AngelList, allows accredited investors to crowdfund money for startups. Everyone who participates in DreamIt Austin’s microfund will need to make a $2,500 minimum investment that will fund all nine companies within DreamIt’s Austin program — that means you can’t just pick and chose to fund only the companies you like.

The rumors were true – kind of: The Founders Fund has been out raising a massive amount of cash for a fifth fund, but it’s not $750 million as originally thought. It’s $1 billion, the fund said today.

Most known for backing Facebook, Spotify and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, FF is a “stage agnostic” fund that focuses on aerospace, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, energy, health and consumer Internet.

J. Craig Venter is the latest wealthy entrepreneur to think he can cheat aging and death. And he hopes to do so by resorting to his first love: sequencing genomes.

On Tuesday, Dr. Venter announced that he was starting a new company, Human Longevity, which will focus on figuring out how people can live longer and healthier lives.

The University of Maryland just announced a new relationship with Lockheed Martin where the two will partner to develop an integrated quantum computing platform. The duo signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday putting into effect the establishment of the Quantum Engineering Center at the UMD.

"Classical computing can only take us so far," Dr. Ray O. Johnson, Lockheed Martin senior vice president and chief technology officer, said in an interview with the university. "In the future, critical systems will become so complex that problems will take too long or become too expensive to solve using even our most powerful supercomputers. We believe the next computational revolution will stem from applied quantum science—a discipline that connects physics, information science, and engineering."

angelMD, a crowdfunding platform that connects physicians and leading medical startups, has stated the number of medical startups with live profiles on the site  now exceeds 100. Startups listed on the site must be a medical product or product enabled service, must be a legal entity and be ready to share their story. angelMD selects investment candidates from those listed on the site seeking capital.  Based in both San Francisco and Seattle, Washington, angelMD has incorporated the participation of leading physicians from all over the United States to source and evaluate opportunities.

In his $3.9 trillion fiscal year 2015 budget proposal released Tuesday, President Obama asked for $1.8 billion to support health information technology incentive payments — the same amount he requested last year. Actual spending for this category came to $1.07 billion in 2013.

The budget also included $77.1 billion in discretionary funding to support HHS’s mission, $800 million below the 2014-enacted level.

J. Craig Venter, the human genome pioneer, today unveiled a new San Diego-based venture with an ambitious goal of providing whole genome sequencing and cell-therapy-based diagnostic services for patients.

Venter said he co-founded the company, Human Longevity Inc., or HLI, with Robert Hariri, who oversaw Celgene Cellular Therapeutics and Peter Diamandis of the X Prize Foundation. The company already has raised $70 million in Series A venture financing that includes a Malaysian investment fund that also is the lead investor of another Venter venture, Synthetic Genomics, San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), and other individual investors.

A new teacher “pipeline” at the University of Maryland, College Park, is expected to help with difficult-to-fill teacher positions in Prince George’s County.

“It absolutely bolsters our available pool of STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] teachers. And because we’re partners with the university, it gives us ready access to those students coming through the program,” Debra Sullivan, recruitment and retention officer in Prince George’s County Public Schools Department of Human Resources, said of Terrapin Teachers, a new program designed to encourage more undergraduate students in STEM fields to go into teaching.

If you love the company you work for...

Then tell us! Share with the Frederick business community all the great things your company offers its employees. Great health insurance? Company picnics? Job training? Philanthropic efforts? Service awards? No detail is too small. Take home the coveted Best Places to Work award and window cling. Let everyone know just how great your company is. 

New this year: All winners and the event will be covered in Frederick Magazine.

Fundrise, a crowdfunding start-up that finances commercial real estate projects for investors, will be debuting its latest offering on Wednesday morning on its site: a vacant commercial building on 1539 7th Street NW, in Washington, DC that the developer hopes to turn into a boutique retail site. The project is $2 million and $350,000 will be available to the general public.

This will be Fundrise’s 18th project and while in many respects it is similar to the ones that came before it, there is something new. Maryland residents can invest in the project–in as little as $100 increments—for the first time. Prior to this, these projects were only open to DC and Virginia residents.

You may remember him best for his hit song "She Blinded Me With Science," which rose to No. 5 on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart in 1982, but Thomas Dolby is more than just an '80s pop star with an interest in blending technology with sound. He is a legendary artist who has been on the forefront of digital music. Now, the synthpop musician will have a chance to share his passion with students by serving as Johns Hopkins University's first Homewood Professor of the Arts, a position that will allow him to create a new incubator on campus for technology in the arts.

Governor Martin O’Malley announced today that the State, through the BioMaryland Center, has awarded nearly $1.5 million to seven innovative life sciences companies and one educational institution through its Biotechnology Development Awards program. The companies, which received up to $200,000 each, will use the funding to accelerate the commercialization of a wide range of treatments and technologies; including a device that detects concussions in youths engaged in sports; a tool that takes a minimally invasive approach to mitral valve repair; and a drug to reduce eye injections for macular degeneration. An award was also given to a Johns Hopkins University researcher who is developing a device to lessen certain risks involved with cardiac ablation.

China Fortune Land Development Co., Ltd. (CFLD), a leading expert in investment and operation of industrial zones in China, officially launched a high-tech incubator in Silicon Valley on February 28. The incubator marks a new way to upgrade China's industries, a new platform to connect Chinese and US high-tech industries and a key step of CFLD's global expansion.

The US has the richest technological resources, the most sophisticated educational system, and the best innovative environment in the world. It fosters a large number of international giants and innovative startups that provide services and products to customers around the world.

Eight projects aimed at bringing new technology to market will share almost $1.5 million from the state’s BioMaryland Center.

Seven life sciences companies and Johns Hopkins University were selected for the awards. Each will receive up to $200,000. The funding will go toward developing new, commercial uses for technology and research findings.

Johns Hopkins University and MedImmune, one of the largest biotechnology companies in the region, have teamed up for an innovative, $6.5 million research collaboration, and eight students in the Master’s in Biotechnology Enterprise and Entrepreneurship practicum are directly involved. They will be doing their practicum projects with MedImmune.

“The partnership between JHU and MedImmune is a wonderful opportunity for MBEE students to gain real-world experience,” said Lynn Johnson Langer, director, Enterprise & Regulatory Science Programs for the university’s Center for Biotechnology Education. “Their work will be highly valuable to the company, and a great learning experience for the students. Truly a win-win.”

Phlebotomy. Even the word sounds archaic—and that’s nothing compared to the slow, expensive, and inefficient reality of drawing blood and having it tested. As a college sophomore, Elizabeth Holmes envisioned a way to reinvent old-fashioned phlebotomy and, in the process, usher in an era of comprehensive superfast diagnosis and preventive medicine.

That was a decade ago. Holmes, now 30, dropped out of Stanford and founded a company called Theranos with her tuition money. Last fall it finally introduced its radical blood-testing service in a Walgreens pharmacy near company head­quarters in Palo Alto, California. (The plan is to roll out testing centers nation­wide.) Instead of vials of blood—one for every test needed—Theranos requires only a pinprick and a drop of blood. With that they can perform hundreds of tests, from standard cholesterol checks to sophisticated genetic analyses. The results are faster, more accurate, and far cheaper than conventional methods.

March 13th, 2014 8:00am-10:00am at the Shady Grove Innovation Center, 9700 Great Seneca Highway, Rockville, MD 20850

The Maryland/Israel Development Center and The Tech Council of Maryland invite you to join us on March 13, 2014 at 8:00 am, for an informational session to discuss business growth opportunities for U.S. companies nterested in potential partnerships with companies in Israel.

A representative of the Israel Bi-national Industrial R&D Foundation (B.I.R.D Foundation) will be presenting information on the foundation’s technology collaboration grants of up to $1 million. If you are working with a company in Israel or could be looking to partner with one, you could be eligible. Join us to learn about the application process and timelines.
You will also have an opportunity to hear about an upcoming Israel trade mission. This is a great way to explore partnership opportunities with Israeli companies. Learn about a trade mission to Israel's premier Innovation Conference -- featuring Israel’s renowned Biomed Conference side-by-side with a groundbreaking High Tech Conference.

The recent federal mandates for healthcare information technology have increased demand on the field, boosting the need for educated and knowledgeable staff for health IT projects. But with the emergence and recent popularity of graduate education in healthcare informatics, we are seeing an influx of students entering these programs who do not have clinical or information technology backgrounds.

These individuals have a great desire to work in informatics and recognize the enormous impact the field can have on healthcare, but they lack the hands-on experience that many employers seek. Some of these students have even reported challenges getting hired after obtaining their master’s degree, for lack of ‘experience.’

Dennis Truong and Jody Crane have reinvented the traditional house call.

The Kaiser Permanente doctors are responsible for the creation and implementation of a new program called HouseCalls, in which patients can schedule 20-minute appointments with physicians via video. The foray into mobile health saves the patients a visit to urgent care centers and saves those centers money, the doctors said. It’s just one new initiative underway at the national health provider aimed at improving care while lowering costs.

Long ignored in favor of enterprise software, social networking and other sexy Internet technologies, biotech has roared back in the past year.

With drug companies desperate to replace expiring drug patents, and President Barack Obama's new health care law demanding cuts in medical costs, Wall Street has shown a seemingly insatiable appetite for initial public offerings of stock. Last year's 35 IPOs, including seven in the Bay Area, represented the most in the sector in nearly a decade. In the first two months of this year, 17 others have launched -- shattering records.