When the Human Genome Project got underway in 1990 it was expected to take 15 years to sequence the over 3 billion chemical base pairs that spell out our genetic code. In true Moore’s Law tradition the emergence of faster and more efficient sequencing technologies along the way led to the Project’s early completion in 2003. Today, 22 years after scientists first committed to the audacious goal of sequencing the genome, the next generation of sequencers are setting their sites much higher.

About a thousand times higher.

In the world of drug development, honing an effective molecule is just the first step. As everyone in the drug delivery business knows, issues like solubility, permeability and targeting can be vexing challenges to getting treatment where it needs to go. But what if you could deliver drugs the same way the body dispatches white blood cells to fight infection, or the same way a virus proliferates throughout the body?

That's what researchers at U.S. universities are working on, aiming to develop synthetic cells that could target ailments and release drugs to treat them. As Popular Mechanics reports, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania are using plastics to build artificial white blood cells called leuko-polymersomes, which would be guided by synthetic molecules designed to mimic the natural receptors white blood cells use to find enflamed tissues and stick to them.

Dr. Charles Hamner has been researching the nanotechnology industry since, as he puts it, “before they called it nanotechnology.”

But he says it’s not an industry – “It’s a community, because the technology is going to spread across all industries,” particularly into biotechnology.

Nanotech deals with small particles, at the molecular level, and is applied by companies to create technological innovation. An example is Liquidia, a biotech that uses the nanoparticles in its vaccines.

Cerecor Inc., a Baltimore biotech startup headed by former Alba Therapeutics CEO Dr. Blake Paterson, has raised $22 million in a Series A financing round.

The company focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription drugs for the human nervous system.

Maryland has chosen a London firm to oversee the selection of venture capital firms interested in making investments in young state companies through the InvestMaryland program.

Altius Associates was tapped to ensure the process is open and transparent and not influenced by the state, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development said in a statement.

Over the past decade, collaborative research efforts to support the discovery and development of medicines has increased dramatically. Last month, the National Institutes of Health and Eli Lilly and Company announced a new collaboration: they will generate a publicly available resource to profile the effects of thousands of approved and investigational medicines in a variety of advanced disease-relevant testing systems [1]. In-depth knowledge of the biological profiles of these medicines may enable researchers to better predict treatment outcomes, improve drug development, and lead to more specific and effective approaches.

Pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca PLC and Amgen Inc. just announced a deal to co-develop and co-commercialize five product candidates, all monoclonal antibodies. No surprise here: LLC    – AZ’s Gaithersburg-based biologics arm that specializes in antibody-based products — will be taking on a good deal of the work.

The Maryland biotech took the lead on negotiating the transaction with Amgen and will lead the development of three of the five compounds, President Peter Greenleaf said in an interview Monday afternoon.

Back in the old days of biotech, the business was pretty straightforward. You’d craft your scientific idea, aim a new drug at patients in need, charm investors to give you some money, run bang-up clinical trials, win FDA approval. Do all that, and you’re good as gold. Charge insurers whatever the market will bear, and count the money.

That model worked for a long time, but there’s another hoop everyone needs to jump through now, and I’m not sure everyone in the industry has fully come to terms with it. No matter what happens with President Obama’s healthcare reform in the Supreme Court or Congress, there are forces now that limit what society will pay for new drugs. We don’t have actual price controls in the law, but the pressure to wring costs out of the $2.6 trillion U.S. healthcare system is intense and will only grow as the baby boomers get older. Drugmakers can’t duck and hide from this issue anymore.

Companies like Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) aren’t healthcare companies, but one venture capitalist believes their example can guide personalized medicine.

Bob Kocher, a partner at venture capital firm Venrock, said that these consumer-focused companies have all taken steps toward personalizing their offerings. Personalization increases the value of those offerings and helps the companies make delivery of services and products more efficient.

Gene scans for everyone? Not so fast. New research suggests that for the average person, decoding your own DNA may not turn out to be a really useful crystal ball for future health.

Today, scientists map entire genomes mostly for research, as they study which genetic mutations play a role in different diseases. Or they use it to try to diagnose mystery illnesses that plague families. It's different from getting a genetic test to see if you carry, say, a particular cancer-causing gene.

But as genome mapping gets faster and cheaper, scientists and consumers have wondered about possible broader use: Would finding all the glitches hidden in your DNA predict which diseases you'll face decades later?

Fuad El-Hibri has started a financial consulting business. He’s started telecommunications businesses.

But his most challenging venture has been the Rockville biotech he helped launch 14 years ago.

Still, El-Hibri — CEO and board chairman of Emergent BioSolutions — says the challenges are worth it, because the rewards are so great from protecting and saving lives.

Following a considerable contraction in investment dollars in 2008 and 2009, the U.S. angel investor market continued to recover in 2011, a trend that began in 2010 in investment dollars and in the number of investments, according to the 2011 Angel Market Analysis released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

Total investments in 2011 were $22.5 billion, an increase of 12.1 percent over 2010 when investments totaled $20.1 billion. A total of 66,230 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in 2011, an increase of 7.3 percent over 2010 investments, and the number of active investors in 2011 reached 318,480 individuals, a substantial growth of 20 percent from 2010.

Shares in AstraZeneca ticked up after the Anglo-Swedish drugs giant announced a tie-up with biotechnology giant Amgen to develop and commercialise five treatments.

Under the terms of the agreement, Astra will make a one-off upfront payment of $50m and the companies will share costs and profits on the drugs for a variety of inflammatory, respiratory and auto-immune diseases.

Pharmaceuticals have figured that out that if they can't be as innovative or nimble as biotechs, the next best option is to pay for their good ideas with licensing deals and acquisitions.

And what better way to identify those potential deals than to cozy up to the biotechs?

Invite them into your homes

Earlier this year, Johnson & Johnson (NYS: JNJ) opened an incubator within its San Diego campus to house biotech startups. Janssen Labs -- named after one of Johnson & Johnson's drug divisions, Janssen Pharmaceutical -- is a no-strings-attached affair with startups free either to develop the products on their own or partner with Johnson & Johnson or another company.

Surprise, surprise — Johns Hopkins University    spent more money on medical, science and engineering research than any other university in fiscal 2010.

Hopkins topped the research and development spending list, compiled by the National Science Foundation    , for the 32nd consecutive year. The 2010 data is the most recent available.

Hopkins also tops the foundation’s list for federally funded research and development.

No matter how privatized healthcare is in America, at the end of the day it remains a social sustainability issue and a government concern. That’s why America’s newly minted CTO Todd Park is sparking health care innovation and reform through liberation of data from the vaults of NIH, FDA, CMS, USDA, CDC and other government health agencies.  Park believes that de-centralization and data liberation leads to empowerment and innovation.  In this interview at the Healthcare Experience Design Conference in Boston, Park outlines his initiatives to catalyze the ecosystem of health services by unlocking data.

Prior to being appointed the CTO of America to the White House, Park was a successful health IT entrepreneur who co-founded Athenahealth and Castlight, then served as the CTO at Health and Human Services (HHS). His Health Data Initiative (HDI) is mandating that HHS agency data be publicly accessible in machine readable format using APIs.

Dingman Center Angels

The Dingman Center Angels connects regional start-up companies seeking seed and early-stage funding with angel investors.

Facts About Dingman Center Angels

• Over 150 companies submit applications to Dingman Center Angels each year
• $4M invested in start-ups since our inception in 2005
• 50 qualified angel investors and venture capitalists comprise our network
• Partnerships with incubators, economic development orgs and service providers in the region
• Companies receive coaching to prepare for their pitch

U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.)

U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today spoke out in support of Maryland's health research and innovation economy at a fiscal year 2013 oversight and budgetary hearing of the Senate  Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The hearing included testimony from NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, MD.

"I am for being frugal but we must not jeopardize or hamper America's gold standard as the worldwide leader in medical research and innovation," Senator Mikulski said. "NIH invests in the best and brightest scientific minds at universities, in the public and private sector, and with our federal employees."

On March 30, the University of Maryland launches its expanding lineup of competitions and activities devoted to innovation, ingenuity and ideas: 30 Days of EnTERPreneurship. Nearly a quarter-million dollars in prizes will be awarded at six events involving UMD faculty, students and alums.

The events honor the best in entrepreneurship at all stages of innovation - from invention to business plans to start-ups. Celebrants will include Gov. Martin O'Malley and one of Maryland's most successful entrepreneurs, Kevin Plank '96, founder and CEO of Under Armour.

Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland  and Wasabi Ventures, a venture capital company in San Mateo, California, have begun a new-business accelerator near the university’s campus. As part of the collaboration, Wasabi’s co-founder Thomas “T.K.” Kuegler, a 1994 Loyola graduate, will serve as the university’s entrepreneur-in-residence.

Loyola says the accelerator will provide opportunities for its students and help the surrounding community. “It creates new opportunities for our students to think creatively about new products, new markets, and the types of business, marketing, and expansion plans that will help young companies grow, and to apply these ideas to real-world organizations and the entrepreneurs behind them,” says Rev. Brian Linnane, Loyola’s president. “For those with an entrepreneurial spirit of their own, it can give them a chance to get their own businesses off the ground.”

The MdBio Foundation, Inc., a private charitable organization that is an affiliate of the Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), today announced that it has received an unrestricted donation of $75,000 from MedImmune, the Gaithersburg, Md.-based global biologics arm of AstraZeneca.

MdBio Foundation will use the donation to support operation of the MdBioLab, its popular mobile bioscience laboratory that travels to schools across Maryland, and development of MdBioSphere™, an innovative interactive digital game that is being designed to enhance high school biology education and awareness.

Peter Greenleaf

Peter Greenleaf visited the Department of Business and Economic Development recently to oversee the historic tax credit auction that raised $84 million for the state’s InvestMaryland program. Greenleaf took some time out from his duties as chairman of the Maryland Venture Fund Authority for a quick Q&A about his day job — running MedImmune, one of Maryland’s most successful life sciences companies.

An initiative aimed at helping Maryland research universities better commercialize technology developments received initial approval by both houses of the General Assembly.

The Maryland Innovation Initiative could provide early funding for tech transfer efforts and encourages collaboration between the University System of Maryland    , Johns Hopkins University    and Morgan State University    . The House of Delegates approved the measure (HB 442) and the Senate approved its companion bill (SB 239).

Three student groups from Johns Hopkins University are among the 42 teams hailing from some of the world's top universities who will vie for more than $1 million in prizes at the 12th annual Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) April 12-14.

The teams for this year's competition were chosen from more than 400 entrants based on their executive summaries to compete in six categories: life sciences; information technology; energy and clean technology; green technology, renewable and recycling; social; and other. The teams will have 15 minutes to present business plans in the competition for the grand prize valued at more than $460,000 and the opportunity to ring the closing bell at NASDAQ OMX this fall. Judges will rank the presentations based on which company they would most likely invest in.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett's proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 would give a 35 percent funding increase to the county's Department of Economic Development, The Gazette reported.

Venture giant New Enterprise Associates filed paperwork Monday morning signaling plans to raise a 14th fund of as much as $2.3 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filing by NEA comes two years after it closed a $2.5 billion fund.

Crowdsourcing and the world of medicine are already proving strong bedfellows with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca, who are using open innovation to fund academic research for new treatments and medicines.  However, such ventures are only beneficial as the resources and funding are being made readily available to them, leaving many other research and development projects without the means to get started.

Crowdfunding has already provided a lifeline to charitable, creative and entrepreneurial projects and looks set to offer the same support to medical research, development and provision.

That’s not quite a trick question. If you have been preparing a National Institutes of Health (NIH) SBIR/STTR grant submission, you are obviously aware that the deadline is 5 p.m. your local time on Thursday, April 5. However, since January 2011 there have been some important changes in the electronic submission process, so please read the rest of this email closely.

BBC has always advised that you submit your proposals well in advance of the deadline, and we highly encourage you to submit your SBIR/STTR to Grants.gov by April 1. This has always been a good strategy, but now it is essential. The Error Correction Window, which was implemented in December 2005 to facilitate the transition from paper to electronic submission of grant applications, has now been removed. The window had allowed applicants an opportunity after the deadline to correct missing or incorrect aspects of their applications, identified by NIH system-generated errors and warnings displayed to the applicant after submission.

Science and entrepreneurship are both acts of experimentation. Both involve taking risks to reach a positive end, changing course when needed, and attempting the never-been-done. While many start-ups now are focused on creating the next Facebook or some genius e-commerce play, there are also scientists tinkering in labs.

Biotechnology is sometimes forgotten about, but the field leads to real products — new drugs and medical devices that aid human health. Want to cure cancer? These people will be the ones to do it.

The recent news that tiny FerroKin BioSciences earned a big buyout deal with Shire ($SHPGY) has helped spotlight the growing popularity of the virtual biotech model. And that has big implications for everyone in the outsourcing industry.

Like other virtuals--such as Stromedix, recently acquired by Biogen Idec ($BIIB)--FerroKin had only a handful of employees working full-time for the company. CROs, CMOs and other outsourcers created a network of support vendors that carried out much of the heavy lifting in drug research. And with some proof of concept data in hand, FerroKin made a tantalizing morsel for an acquirer looking to build up its pipeline without having to acquire a sizable research infrastructure it didn't need.

As if we didn’t already know this, yes? Still, a new survey finds that 68 percent of pharma execs agree that Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall. To be specific, 44 percent agree that the pharma industry model is broken and 24 percent strongly agree with this statement. Another 22 percent are neutral and 6 percent disagree. We wonder where this 28 percent is working right now…

And over the next two years, 76 percent believe the healthcare system pricing and budget pressures will be the biggest challenge; followed by 70 percent who believe they will have to demonstrate cost effectiveness; 69 percent who cite more restrictive market access; 60 percent who fear generic competition; 53 percent who worry about less access to docs and 50 percent who are concerned about the ability of patients to pay for their meds.

GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson are teaming up with Index Ventures to launch a $200 million fund devoted exclusively to backing early-stage biotechs. And while its primary focus will be in Europe, the venture group intends to invest in biotechs throughout the U.S. as well.

Index takes what it calls an "asset centric" approach to investing, looking for developers with just one or two products--a classic feature of most start-ups. And some heavy hitters from GSK ($GSK) and J&J ($JNJ) will sit on the scientific advisory board of the new fund, giving a few early-stage companies a chance to mix with some top execs from companies they'll be hoping to partner with at some point. From GSK, R&D chief Moncef Slaoui (photo) and Paul-Peter Tak, head of GSK's immunoinflammation therapy area unit, will join Janssen's Paul Stoffels and Bill Hait, global head of R&D. They'll confer with Index Ventures' Francesco De Rubertis, Kevin Johnson, Michele Ollier, Roman Fleck, and Remy Luthringer.