Digital health incubator Rock Health released data today that shows an increase in funding for med-tech startups in the first quarter of 2013.

Thirty-seven health deals were valued at a total of $365 million, which is 35 percent higher than the first quarter of 2012, “suggesting that 2013 will be another record year for the digital health industry,” the blog post reads.

A big-data revolution is under way in health care. Start with the vastly increased supply of information. Over the last decade, pharmaceutical companies have been aggregating years of research and development data into medical databases, while payors and providers have digitized their patient records. Meanwhile, the US federal government and other public stakeholders have been opening their vast stores of health-care knowledge, including data from clinical trials and information on patients covered under public insurance programs. In parallel, recent technical advances have made it easier to collect and analyze information from multiple sources—a major benefit in health care, since data for a single patient may come from various payors, hospitals, laboratories, and physician offices.

Johns Hopkins researcher Se-Jin Lee was named Wednesday as the 2013 recipient of the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments in medical research that pave the way to conquering disease. It is awarded each year to an ethnic Korean and is sometimes referred to as “Korea's Nobel.”

Lee is best known for his discovery of myostatin, a hormone that regulates muscle mass, and related work that lays the foundation for new therapies for conditions such as muscle wasting and muscular dystrophy.

Philadelphia has reached a milestone in its efforts to be recognized as a healthcare and life sciences hub with the start of its first health IT accelerator.

DreamIt Health’s inaugural class includes 10 startups. The four-month program co-sponsored by Independence Blue Cross and Penn Medicine includes members seeking to develop tools for healthcare providers to speed up diagnoses and improve outcomes.

Maryland has invested $500,000 in Cytomedix Inc., a regenerative medicine company in Gaithersburg.

The investment was made through the state's Maryland Venture Fund and InvestMaryland program. The state said the money is part of a $27.5 million fundraising round by Cytomedix (OTC: CMXI) that will result in the company adding 13 new employees to its current staff of 55.

Tom Sadowski, President and CEO, of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore has been appointed to UMBC’s Public Policy External Advisory Board. Created in 2003, the External Advisory Board provides advice and guidance to UMBC’s Department of Public Policy and the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR). An important part of their mission is to bring the University’s public policy expertise to bear on the concerns of the communities they serve.

Gaithersburg-based MedImmune, which is gaining hundreds of jobs in a consolidation by parent company AstraZeneca PLC, has completed its acquisition of AlphaCore Pharma LLC for an undisclosed sum.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based biotechnology company is developing a drug for high cholesterol. Cardiovascular and metabolic disease is one of MedImmune's core research areas.

GlaxoSmithKline is trying to expand the market for its Benlysta drug beyond lupus by launching a major study of the medicine as a treatment for a serious blood vessel disorder.

GSK acquired full control of Benlysta when it bought Human Genome Sciences for $3 billion last year. Current sales of the drug are modest, at 70 million pounds ($106 million) in 2012, but GSK hopes it will become a major seller.

President Obama unveils a bold new research initiative designed to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain, and discusses the importance of investing in American innovation to create jobs and strengthen our economy. April 2, 2013.

Since the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act (H.R. 3606) last year, the financial and medical press has been buzzing about the potential for crowdfunding to revolutionize fundraising for early-stage biotech companies. Even more recently, a portal that is exclusively dedicated to crowdfunding biotech and healthcare start-ups launched at medstartr.com. Although there may be reason for biotech entrepreneurs to be excited about crowdfunding, there are significant limitations and risks to this approach as well.

BioMed Realty Adds 1.6 Million Square Foot Portfolio & Expands University / Research Institution Segment to 18% of Annualized Base Rents

BioMed Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: BMR) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Wexford Science & Technology, LLC, a subsidiary of Wexford Equities, LLC, furthering BioMed Realty’s position as the leading provider of real estate to the life science industry. Wexford Science & Technology is a private real estate investment and development company that owns and develops institutional quality life science real estate for academic and medical research organizations, and that boasts well-regarded skills for urban development and redevelopment of life science real estate. The aggregate consideration for Wexford Science & Technology is approximately $640 million, excluding transaction costs and subject to adjustment based on working capital levels and construction and development costs incurred prior to closing. Wexford Science & Technology will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of BioMed Realty.

And then there were nine.

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development has named three finalists in three separate categories of the final round of the InvestMaryland Challenge. The winning companies, to be announced April 15, will receive $100,000 in top prizes and $125,000 in cash and in-kind awards as part of the Maryland Venture Fund’s first business competition.

InvestMaryland is a state venture capital initiative managed by DBED and the state-run Maryland Venture Fund. The initiative raised $84 million through a tax credit auction in 2012 to invest in startup companies.

Monday, April 15th 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. at MICA's Brown Center

After months of submitting business plans, scoring applications, developing special awards and partnering with us, it’s time to celebrate entrepreneurship! Please join us April 15th at Maryland Institute College of Art’s Brown Center as we announce the top three $100K winners. 

Congratulations to Elaine Amir! Elaine, executive director of the Montgomery County Campus of Johns Hopkins University, was named to The Daily Record’s 2013 list of Maryland’s Top 100 Women.

The announcement brought kudos from JHU interim provost Jonathan Bagger.

The following eight companies have joined our campus community within the past few months. Welcome! We look forward to hearing more about your work.

“Transformation” is the best description of what is happening in health care right now. We are seeing historic changes in how health care is administered in the United States—with increased focus on quality of care versus just paying for a service. We are seeing changes in how people can enroll in health insurance—with the upcoming establishment of a new market place that will help more people get insured in this country than ever before.  And, we are seeing changes in how people understand and make decisions about their own health—with an increasing number of tools and services becoming available to help individuals access health information and manage their own personal health data. 

As the CEO of Pulse8, John Criswell works with health insurance exchanges and long-term care facilities on big data and analytics, which gives him a purview into the back-end integration required for states and the federal government to setup HIXs. Yet, he’s optimistic that the gvoernment will meet the October 1, 2013 deadline.

Government Health IT Editor Tom Sullivan spoke with Criswell about the complexity of standing up HIXs, how the exchanges might fare come October, and the overarching opportunities that both HIX and health information exchanges will create as they amass mammoth data sets. 

No action is good action. At least for online investment platform the Funders Club that today received a ‘no-action letter’ from the SEC stating that it will not recommend enforcement action.

The letter is a green light for the FundersClub and validation that its investment model is legal. The news is significant for the venture capital and finance industries, as well as startups looking for more flexible methods of fundraising.

The Congressional hearings debating the regulatory framework for mobile health devices and apps made me think about how we view mobile health apps and the criteria we use to determine what makes some better than others.

And as we all think in terms of the NCAA college basketball tournament around this time, I thought we would do a mini tournament using mobile health apps.

As we come to the close of Q1 of 2013, LSN has compiled some insight into three of the hottest subsectors being targeted by investors in the medical technology space. New technologies are surfacing that are changing treatment philosophies, and more importantly, medtech is attracting a whole new class of investors such as corporate venture from the consumer electronics, digital media, and telecom space. Here are the three trend areas that are changing the world from the medtech investor perspective:

The Maryland Venture Fund has awarded $300,000 to Adlyfe, a Rockville diagnostic test developer, as part of the state’s InvestMaryland program.

Adlyfe, which is developing an early detection test for Alzheimer’s disease, is also receiving a $200,000 grant from the Maryland Biotechnology Center.

This the title [paraphrased] of a keynote given last week by Jonathon Bush, the CEO of AthenaHealth, at the Xconomy Mobile Madness conference in Cambridge, Ma. What follows are my notes from the speech. The ideas are Jonathon’s. I really like what he’s saying and mostly agree, and he puts it very well.

AthenaHealth’s base business is medical practice billing in the cloud. This is an example of technology-enabled transformation of the health care business system, which we believe will be a big opportunity for entrepreneurs going forward. Founded in 1997, AthenaHealth is now a successful public company (ATHN).*

A week after the Congressional hearings discussed how the US Food and Drug Administration’s impending regulatory guidelines (expected by October) will impact mobile health apps, aspiring and current digital health entrepreneurs may be rethinking their path. In a report dubbed “FDA 101,” health startup accelerator Rock Health has compiled a handy report to help digital health entrepreneurs assess whether their mobile health apps would be classified as medical devices by the FDA and require 510(k) clearance.

Some of the pressure to clear the waters has come from technology developments that have simply outpaced the regulatory environment. Another is that provisions of health care reform call for making greater use ofremote monitoring, to reduce healthcare costs. Providers are pretty keen to reduce costs where they can as well. Remote monitoring would be particularly helpful when it comes to patients with chronic conditions, such as congestive heart failure or diabetes or both, so they can have shorter hospital stays and care managers can be alerted for any changes in their vital signs.

President Barack Obama's top healthcare adviser acknowledged on Tuesday that costs could rise in the individual health insurance market, particularly for men and younger people, because of the landmark 2010 healthcare restructuring due to take effect next year.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said definitive data on costs will not be available until later this year when private health plans become authorized to sell federally subsidized coverage on new state-based online marketplaces, known as exchanges.

Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., a global specialty pharmaceutical company, is generating fresh ideas from Michigan State University students at its Lansing location to improve operations.

Emergent BioSolutions, the Roscommon-based Lear Corp., the Saginaw-based Mistequay Group, Ltd. and approximately five other companies hosted more than 20 undergraduate and graduate business and engineering students on various projects. The initiative is the brainchild of Bill Demmer, the CEO of the Lansing-based Demmer Corp., who donated $5 million to the university to create the Marnie Demmer Center for Business Transformation in late 2011, MLive.com reports.

Sure, New Enterprise Associates is much, much bigger than most venture capital firms. And not all of their deals fall neatly into what we think of as traditional Series A-B-C venture.

NEA invests in private hospital systems in China. It does the occasional PIPE deal. It does big-ticket "growth" fundings that look a whole hell of a lot like private equity.

But NEA is definitely not a private equity firm, as it is here described in The Wall Street Journal.

Tech entrepreneurs will soon find a new home at Innovation Crossroads, the Eastern Shore’s first, full-service business incubator.

Gov. Martin O’Malley and the department of public works recently approved $1.2 million in funding from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development for construction of the incubator, the Dorchester County Council announced on Tuesday.

Innovation Crossroads is the planned anchor tenant of the newly constructed Cambridge-based Regional Technology Park.

Two announcements on Monday and Thursday of last week signaled a fundamental strategic and physical shift for biopharma giant AstraZeneca, including the establishment of a new corporate headquarters in a new UK location; the shift of small molecule and biologics R&D to three strategic centers around the world; and an eventual overall headcount reduction of 5,050 between now and the end of 2016.

On Monday, March 18, the company announced its intent to focus the R&D in three places, and to fully implement these plans by 2016:

Many of the changes in the healthcare industry outlined by the Affordable Care Act and HITECH Act call for shifting to healthcare IT for helping physician practices run more efficiently to helping guide clinical outcomes. But the shift from paper based to digital records isn’t just happening among providers. It is carrying over into other industries that healthcare intersects such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices and more robust collaborations with payers.

Andrew Khouri of Quaker Partners, who also mentors Blueprint Health accelerator companies, highlighted some needs in healthcare that are creating interesting investment opportunities and some investment trends at a recent event at the University City Science Center. Khouri acknowledged the “industry is in turmoil” because there’s uncertainty about how the changes will work in practice from the transformation of payment models to setting up health insurance exchanges. But there’s so much momentum to reduce costs and improve outcomes that there is a lot of opportunity.

The Series A crunch has left the realm of Bigfoot and Nessie and is entering the realm of truth, at least according to Fenwick & West.

The law firm released the results of its 2012 Seed Financing Survey today, which found that the number of startups obtaining Series A financing after a seed round declined significantly in 2012.

Why not explore what’s to gain from crowdfunding when there’s nothing to lose? MedStartr’s co-founder and CEO Alex Fair explains.

Alex Fair, Co-Founder & CEO of MedStartr Thinking about joining the crowd? We know, your mother probably told you not to get mixed up with the wrong kind. But according to MedStartr’s Alex Fair, there’s a lot right with the mob mentality growing among today’s entrepreneurs; crowd communities are creating equitable springboards for promising startups. That’s right, we’re talking about crowdfunding. After all, there is strength in numbers— especially from those that come with dollar signs.

A certain song has been running through my head the past few days. Lately, it strikes me as an anthem of sorts for biotech venture capital in 2013.

It’s Fleetwood Mac’s classic break-up song, “Go Your Own Way.”

Allow me to explain. Biotech venture capital has been going through a shakeout now for a couple years, which I’ve written about quite a bit. If you want to be charitable, there are maybe half as many venture firms investing in life sciences companies today as there were five to 10 years ago. There are maybe only a dozen firms left in the U.S. who can say with a straight face that they still are active investors in early-stage biotech startups. It may be harder now than it’s ever been to raise money for a new biotech idea.

Third Rock Ventures has spent the last six years betting big on early stage biotech investing when most other VC firms have been hunkering down or getting out of healthcare investing altogether. Now Third Rock has been rewarded with another $516 million to keep doing what it’s been doing.

The Boston and San Francisco-based firm, founded in 2007, said today it has raised its third fund, bringing its total assets under management to about $1.3 billion. The firm said this round was “oversubscribed” meaning that there wasn’t enough room to accommodate all the limited partners such as endowments and pensions who wanted a piece of the new fund.

In a demonstration of the booming field of genomic research, investors have pumped $21.3 million into a company that makes and manufactures genome-wide research tools and services.

OriGene Technologies said its Series C was led by Chinese venture firm Qiming Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers China, with participation from previous investor IDG-Accel, a China-focused private equity firm.

Startup Maryland (www.startupmd.org), a regional initiative of the national Startup America Partnership (www.s.co), today announced the Raise Your Game initiative to provide the Maryland entrepreneur community with a structured educational program designed to help startup CEOs and founders understand and employ the building blocks of strong startups and startup communities.

Development of the Raise Your Game program and curriculum was led by Startup Maryland Entrepreneur Champions Sam Polakoff, (president of TBB Global Logistics), Gregg Smith (CEO of Koolspan) and Startup Maryland co-chair Michael Binko (CEO of kloudtrack®). Beginning in July of 2013, Raise Your Game will consist of a 6 month educational “bootcamp” program emphasizing the critical components of building successful companies.