Biohealth Innovation
Bethesda-based Telcare Inc. has secured more than $25 million in equity funding.
Telcare, the developer of the first FDA-cleared wireless glucose monitoring system for people with diabetes, will use the funds for marketing, sales, research and development and ongoing operations.
Sequoia Capital led the round, which includes backing from existing investor, Qualcomm Inc., acting through itsQualcomm Life Fund.
Voting is currently open for the South by Southwest (SXSW) PanelPicker! SXSW has evolved to become one of the largest interactive media, technology and innovation conferences in the country. While panels span topics from ‘Art and Inspiration’ to ‘Science and Space Exploration’, the ‘Government or Citizen Engagement’ track has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years. Of the 3,123 proposals this year, 82 have been tagged as "Government or Citizen Engagement."
Show your support for by voting for Entrepreneurs-in-Residence: Not Just for VCs! Venture capital firms have utilized the services of ‘Entrepreneurs-in-Residence’ (EIRs), seasoned innovators with functional expertise to help spur entrepreneurship and fill gaps in expertise. Now, imagine combining the “innovation mojo” of EIRs with some of the government’s brightest intrapreneurs to solve the nation’s most pressing challenges.
The life sciences venture capital industry is undergoing rapid change. Although many innovative ideas have been taken from the bench to scientific discovery to treating patients, funding today to develop new products and services is getting more difficult to attain. Getting a product to market involves not only a long scientific process, but a carefully orchestrated financial process. This article attempts to explain how a typical VC fund operates and makes investment decisions.
Although many management teams readily approach us for possible funding, more than a handful are not knowledgeable about the inner workings of a venture capital firm, specifically the process by which we decide whom we will ultimately fund. I believe an understanding of the entire funding mechanism will better help entrepreneurs understand what to expect, the types of information the venture capital fund will request, and how long the process will take.
Initiated by gb.tc (formerly the Greater Baltimore Technology Council) and sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Whiting School ofEngineering, local tech, nonprofit, business and government leaders are gathering this weekend at a new event called “unWIREd.”
Billed as an “unconference,” unWIREd hopes to pull together and mobilize Baltimore’s resources in a way that addresses the city’s challenges, according to a gb.tc press release.
UnWIREd is hosted by Johns Hopkins University and will take place at Maryland Hall on the Homewood campus, this Friday from 2 p.m. - 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Attendees will plan the conference’s agenda upon arrival, with Friday’s session dedicated to a series of status updates on current efforts to address local problems such as poverty, violence and struggling schools. At Saturday’s session, organized teams will set out to identify demands and resources, and brainstorm potential solutions.
The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM) has moved its headquarters to a new location within Rockville, the result of a transaction recently put together by two executives at Rockville-based Scheer Partners.
The leading provider of fully integrated commercial real estate services for the technology and health science industries in the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan areas announces today that it has negotiated on behalf of TCM in a 3,962-square-foot lease on the top floor of 9210 Corporate Blvd.
As Maryland’s bioscience industry focuses more on running clinical trials for drug developers, there’s a growing demand for the highly-trained workers needed.
Montgomery College answered that call this summer, with a course that focused on clinical trial project management and was offered to anyone with a bachelor’s degree. Eighteen people graduated from the course Saturday, including one who was immediately snapped up by Amarex Clinical Research, a Germantown contract research organization.
University of Maryland BioPark, Life Sciences Conference Center
Meet with Bahija Jallal, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of Research and Development, MedImmune The Changing Face of the Biopharmaceutical Industry—Creating a Culture of Innovation
The biopharmaceutical industry is not the same as it was even a decade ago. Today, there are even more pressures to produce not just safe and effective drugs but safe and effective drugs that the payers are willing to pay for. We also know that research and development costs are increasing while R&D productivity continues to be on the decline. How can we continue to make it in the industry when our ultimate goal is to provide much needed drugs to patients with unmet medical needs?
Aetna Inc. will acquire Bethesda-based Coventry Health Care Inc. in a $5.7 billion deal in cash and stock, a move that will make Aetna one of the largest providers of government-financed health care, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Aetna is paying $42.08 per share for Convetry, a 20.4 percent premium to Coventry's shares as of Friday's close. The boards of both companies have approved the deal, which is expected to be announced on Monday.
After a surgeon stitches up a patient’s abdomen, costly complications—some life-threatening—can occur. To cut down on these postoperative problems, Johns Hopkins undergraduates have invented a disposable suturing tool to guide the placement of stitches and guard against the accidental puncture of internal organs.
The student inventors have described their device, called FastStitch, as a cross between a pliers and a hole-puncher. Although the device is still in the prototype stage, the FastStitch team has already received recognition and raised more than $80,000 this year in grant and prize money to move their project forward. Among their wins were first-place finishes in University of California, Irvine, and University of Maryland business plan competitions and in the ASME International Innovation Showcase.
There are entrepreneurs all over our state. Here’s your chance to get to know them!
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.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified 26 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiota that appear to be linked to obesity and related metabolic complications. These include insulin resistance, high blood sugar levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as “the metabolic syndrome,” which significantly increases an individual’s risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke.
The results of the study, which analyzed data from the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, PA, were published online on Aug. 15, 2012, in PLOS ONE, which is published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS). The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (UH2/UH3 DK083982, U01 GM074518 and P30 DK072488)
Johns Hopkins imaging specialists are teaming up with investigators from the National Institutes of Health to host the second annual molecular imaging symposium on Sept. 21.
The inaugural event, held last September at Johns Hopkins, was the brainchild of Sanjay Jain, M.D., a TB expert and an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and his colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Center for Imaging Research.
Deal will accelerate development of affordable Pneumococcal Vaccines in China
Fina Biosolutions LLC, a research and development stage biotechnology company focused on developing affordable conjugate vaccines, and The Chengdu Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd (CDIBP) announced their agreement to license Finabio’s conjugate vaccine technology for the development and manufacturing of Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in China. The agreement will accelerate the multi-valent Pneumococcal vaccine development program at CDIBP.
The structure of the license in China includes an upfront payment, payments based on achievement of Chinese regulatory milestones, and royalty payments that are contingent upon successful development and commercialization. The agreement includes process development, personnel training at Fina BioSolutions labs in Rockville MD and scalable manufacturing of conjugate vaccines at CDIBP.
University of Maryland’s Maryland Industrial Partnerships awarded $4 million to 19 technology development projects.
The projects team Maryland technology companies with university researchers in an effort to bring promising technology to the commercial marketplace.
MIPS contributed $1.5 million of the grant money; the companies involved in the projects contributed the remaining $2.5 million.
We all know that NIH has seen a large increase in applications over the past decade, but how much of this is due to scientists writing more applications and how much is a result of a larger number of scientists doing biomedical research? I decided to take a closer look at this question, particularly at competing applications for investigator-initiated research project grants (RPGs), i.e., those that are not submitted in response to a specific request for applications.