Startup Maryland Teams with Regional Innovation Stakeholder to Co-Host Tour Stops Across the State of Maryland

Startup Maryland is launching Pitch Across Maryland, a state-wide startup tour and business pitch competition. Taking place September 11 – 28, this two and a half week tour across the state will travel from the Eastern Shore to Western Maryland; from Cecil County to St. Mary’s County; from the Baltimore Beltway and the DC Beltway — and everywhere in between.

The bus will travel the state to visit incubators, economic development agencies and universities—all in the name of celebrating entrepreneurship.  At each stop, Startup Maryland will hold rallies sharing information about the incredible entrepreneurial resources across the state and within their region. Additionally, entrepreneurs will get coaching and support from business mentors and other leaders of Maryland’s innovation economy.

Arlington-based Surescripts will partner with health record-keeping giant Epic Systems Corp. to allow doctors to transfer records between the two patient data networks, the company said Thursday.

Surescripts, which specializes in transmitting prescription data, launched a network for doctors to share all clinical data in 2010. Under the deal announced Thursday, doctors using that network will be able to connect to physicians using Epic's own network, known as the Care Everywhere interoperability platform.

Aeras and the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) announce today the start of the first clinical trial of IDRI’s novel tuberculosis vaccine candidate, ID93 + GLA-SE. The Phase I clinical trial will assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the vaccine candidate in 60 healthy adult volunteers. The study will be conducted by Johnson County Clin-Trials in Lenexa, Kansas, in close collaboration with Aeras and IDRI.  

Tuberculosis (TB), which kills more people than any other infectious disease except HIV, has orphaned 10 million children, and costs the global economy an estimated $1 billion every day. An increasing number of diagnosed multidrug-resistant TB cases are making the disease more difficult to control and multiplying the cost and time it takes to treat patients, which can take two years or longer for multidrug-resistant TB.

Fyodor Biotechnologies, a Baltimore-based diagnostic and biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the National Science Foundation has awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant. With the $150,000 funding, Fyodor plans to develop a novel recombinant antibody to be used in a urine-based test for the point-of-need detection of Leptospirosis.

Leptospirosis is a worldwide, potentially serious but treatable bacterial disease that occurs in humans and domestic animals, including pets. The causative bacteria are spread through the urine of infected animals, which can get into water (including swimming pools) or soil, and can survive there for weeks to months. Clinical signs of leptospirosis are nonspecific, and current diagnostic tools rely on complicated testing methods that are unsuitable for use in many point- of-need settings. Therefore, a simple one-step test is urgently needed for rapid diagnosis.

The deadline for contract proposal submissions is Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Details and solicitation materials are available at the NIH SBIR Website in the Funding Opportunity Table: http://sbir.nih.gov/.

Applications must respond to a topic in the solicitation. All submissions must be on paper. Contract proposal forms are available electronically at PHS 2013-1 PDF [http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/SBIRContract/PHS2013-1.pdf] or MS Word [http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/SBIRContract/PHS2013-1.doc]. Please follow the direc­tions in the solicitation very carefully.

Just look at The Crescent condominium on Wayne Avenue, which has seen a rotating cast of retail tenants since it opened in 2006. Or the newly-completed United Therapeutics headquarters, which has several empty retail spaces at the intersection of Cameron and Spring Streets.

Around the corner, developers of an apartment building called The Cameron placed tables and chairs in front of their ground-floor retail space in anticipation of a restaurant, but they got an outpatient surgery center instead.

In this weekend edition of the 2013 Unigo College Rankings we're showcasing the colleges across the country that, according to students, have built exemplary entrepreneurship programs and made resources for aspiring founders readily available.

Angel investing stands to benefit from economies of scale. Solo startup investing isn’t quite as terrifying a process as solo entrepreneurship, but it still involves the same sort of iron guts and optimism in the face of probable failure. It's your cash on the line, after all. Finding good deals, performing due diligence, haggling with founders over valuation — all can be daunting jobs for a single angel. Getting it wrong means lot of grief and an eventual tax write off.

The wisdom of crowds, especially seasoned, sophisticated crowds, has much to offer in this regard. And that is the basic idea behind angel networks, which boost not only the amount of capital available to an entrepreneur, but also – if done correctly — the intelligence on the other side of the table.

The Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville is bringing in a program this fall that leaders say will help educate the county work force to match the opportunities available.

After watching the growth of the health care industry, and talking with students and local businesses, the campus will offer the University of Baltimore’s Master of Science in health systems management program, said John Callahan, program director for the University of Baltimore’s health systems management program.

McLean-based Science Applications International Corporation says it will split into two separate, publicly traded companies.

The newly formed spin-off company would focus on government technical services and enterprise information technology, it says.

SAIC expects the spin off to take place in the latter half of its next fiscal year. It will not require a shareholder vote, though the board, which has authorized management to pursue the plan, will have final approval.