Rich Bendis was a speaker at the BioHealth Capital Region Forum last week to discuss the state of the BioHealth industry in the capital region and benchmark our region against the top regions in the United States.
- Details Published:

Rich Bendis was a speaker at the BioHealth Capital Region Forum last week to discuss the state of the BioHealth industry in the capital region and benchmark our region against the top regions in the United States.
Corvidia Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on the development of precision cardiovascular therapies, announced today that it has raised $26 million in a Series A financing, co-led by seed-investor Sofinnova Partners, and Apple Tree Partners.
Concurrent with the financing, Corvidia has licensed a clinical stage compound from AstraZeneca to develop and commercialize as its lead therapeutic (COR-001). Funds from the Series A financing will be used to progress COR-001 into Phase I/II clinical trials during 2016, as well as to advance the company's preclinical pipeline.
Today, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the 25 awardees that will receive $10 million under the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) 2015 Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program. The 2015 RIS program is managed by EDA’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) and is designed to advance innovation and capacity-building activities in regions across the country through two different competitions: the i6 Challenge and the Seed Fund Support (SFS) Grants competition.
“As the driving force behind the Administration’s focus on entrepreneurship, the Department of Commerce is committed to helping set the conditions for innovators and entrepreneurs to test new ideas, take risks, find financing and customers, and ultimately thrive,” said Secretary Pritzker. “The Regional Innovation Strategies program is critical to ensuring that entrepreneurs have access to the tools they need to move their ideas and inventions from idea to market.”
Hear from the exciting companies completing the first Relevant Health cohort! This event is currently invite only, but if you would like to find out more and possibly attend please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
To find out more about the cohort, click here!
Sixteen leaders from key federal, academic and industry organizations have been appointed by Governor Larry Hogan to the Maryland Life Sciences Advisory Board (LSAB).
The new appointees include a patient advocate, executives from global life sciences companies with U.S. headquarters in Maryland, small biotechnology companies, and leaders from the University of Maryland, University of Maryland Baltimore, Johns Hopkin University, Montgomery College, NIH, FDA and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command.
We are very excited to welcome Andrea Custead and Yesenia Estrada to the BHI team!
The D.C. area is home to a number of great startup accelerators that can really make a difference for young companies. The right program can provide the resources and advice that entrepreneurs need to transform what may be a great idea into a viable product and thriving startup. Check out a few of the newer and vertical-specific accelerator programs in the D.C. area that you should keep an eye on in 2016.
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. would like to welcome Ellen Raines, the newest addition to our team! She is responsible for supporting the CEO, interacting with industry and academic institution leaders, as well as local, state and federal government officials and staff. Ellen has over 10 years of executive assistant experience with local and bioscience companies. She lives in Gaithersburg with her two teenage children and spends her free time supporting her children’s sports teams and events, teaching Pilates, swimming, biking, golfing and enjoys cooking for family and friends.
A new health technology accelerator is looking for applicants for its five month program.It is the latest in a steady growth of organizations helping entrepreneurs navigate the long sales cycle and other unique challenges healthcare industry startups face.
Relevant Health, based in Rockville, Maryland, was formed through a partnership between BioHealth Innovation, Montgomery County’s Economic Development department and Product Savvy, which will run the day-to-day operations.
BHI issued a Commercial Relevance Award to three companies as part of the Invest Maryland Challenge, Maryland's statewide business plan competition. The three companies each offer a differentiated product or service to the biohealth marketplace with an opportunity to provide significant commercial value to the health industry granting the the Commercial Relevance title..
Sickweather is a Batimore-based health information company that scans social networks for indicators of illness, allowing you to check for the chance of sickness as easily as you can check for the chance of rain.
Care Progress is a Bethesda-based company with a software platform to efficiently manage and treat cancer patients at home and maximize reimbursement through outcomes-based care management.
Tissue Analytics is a Johns Hopkins University spin-out that is transforming the common smartphone into a sophisticated medical imaging system.
BHI will offer strategic consulting services with selected companies to support the growth of these businesses and doe do using our knowledge, network and process for assisting early-stage biohealth companies. BHI is pleased to continue to partner with the State of Maryland's Invest Maryland Challenge to support the growth of emerging biohealth businesses.
New for 2015! BHI's Funding Newsletter provides a monthly snapshot of biohealth funding opportunities from federal, state, local government, and private sources that could be relevant to advance your small business. BHI's goal is to assist companies determine feasible non-dilutive funding pathways or government contract opportunities to enable biohealth businesses at multiple stages of development.
Recent winners: Perceptive Navigation wins Phase II SBIR
A new business accelerator dedicated to health technology startups is launching this fall in Montgomery County's Rockville Innovation Center. Led by health and life sciences consortium BioHealth Innovation Inc., eight startup companies with health tech ideas will be selected to begin the five-month acceleration program called "Relevant Health." The program is part of a partnership with Montgomery County's Department of Economic Development and will begin in September.
The story of MedImmune, the Maryland startup that British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca bought for $15.6 billion in 2007, is an example for entrepreneurs striving for their own blockbuster deals. But MedImmune leaders say they want to go beyond leading by example.
MedImmune taps federal institute for research partnership The company, now responsible for half of AstraZeneca's pipeline of drug candidates, has signed a flurry of partnerships with federal and nonprofit labs in recent months, including deals to share resources and researchers with the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard University. Through the partnerships, the company can tap the labs' brainpower and expensive equipment, and share its own resources.
The Montgomery County Department of EconomicDevelopment (MCDED) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2015 Life Sciences Impact Grant Awards. The program, introduced in December of 2014, was created to provide financial assistance to life sciences employers to retain jobs and stimulate the organic growth of the life sciences industry in Montgomery County.
"The county is committed to supporting the innovation economy,” commented Sally Sternbach, Acting Director, Department of Economic Development. “The Life Sciences Impact Grant is just one example of the comprehensive portfolio of programs that make up the MC Squared initiative."
Tao Yu, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, talks about his internship with Biohealth Innovation, through the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Biomedical Careers Initiative (BCI).
View the interview here.