With the push to encourage researchers to take steps to commercialize their discoveries, there are grants and awards and tech transfer offices and incubators and competitions and…

But receiving money doesn’t automatically mean that a successful business will appear right away. Like all startups, they need to identify the potential market for a product, and come up with a plan.

With the county’s proximity to the nation’s capital and the federal government, combined with our highly educated workforce, Montgomery County is rapidly growing as a global cybersecurity power hub.

The MCEDC board has identified cybersecurity as a target industry, and commissioned a 2017 report called “Building a Cybersecurity Industry in Montgomery County.”

Standing to address a crowd of biotech business leaders and health experts at a conference hosted by Virginia's biotechnology association this week, Inova Center for Personalized Health CEO Todd Stottlemyer began with a question.

As with many new fields, synthetic biology—which incorporates disparate disciplines like engineering, computer science, biotechnology, and molecular biology—is hard to pin down. But a rough working definition says that it is the application of the principles of engineering to biological systems. Instead of using engineering’s discrete modules of code, transistors, resistors, and capacitors, synthetic biology builds things from sequences of genetic material. The field has remarkable potential and has already been used to aid the production of antimalarial drugs and synthetic flavorings. One researcher used mail-order DNA and a genetic map available online for free to create a live polio virus. The implications could be enormous.

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional innovation intermediary focused on commercializing market-relevant bio-health innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Maryland, has been awarded a renewal of its contract to extend and expand its entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) program with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). BHI will place EIRs within the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the NIH Office of the Director and other NIH Institutes and Centers.

Unicorns pranced all over Twitter Sunday as users celebrated an imaginary holiday for an imaginary creature. But some Twitter folk weren't in the mood for make-believe. 

After all, who needs unicorns when majestic, spear-headed animals actually exist?

It's not the current product lineups that matter the most for big pharma companies. It's their pipelines.

Three big pharma companies boasting the strongest pipelines are Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Novartis (NYSE: NVS), and Roche (NASDAQOTH: RHHBY). Here's what sets these drugmakers apart from their peers.

Standing to address a crowd of biotech business leaders and health experts at a conference hosted by Virginia's biotechnology association this week, Inova Center for Personalized Health CEO Todd Stottlemyer began with a question.

Much has been written about the role of the creative economy as a key indicator of economic health. The “rise of the creative class” and “creative clusters” are concepts that inform the larger conversation on cities as the economic drivers of regions. As a result, everyone from academics to governments are increasingly looking for ways to measure the scope and size of the creative economy.

When we visit a friend or go to the beach, our brain stores a short-term memory of the experience in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. Those memories are later “consolidated” — that is, transferred to another part of the brain for longer-term storage.

The Johns Hopkins University's newest business incubator, set to open formally at the end of April, adds more office and lab space to spur the school's ongoing effort to commercialize research.

FastForward 1812, located in the East Baltimore development area at 1812 Ashland Ave., offers a home to startup companies trying to build products that grow out of research at the univeristy or its medical school. It's also open to other Baltimore-area entrepreneurs.

Social Lab@Light City panelists Michelle Geiss, Darius Graham and Tammira Lucas talked about what it takes to create a sustainable ecosystem of social entrepreneurship.

It’s been over a year since Mayor Muriel Bowser broke ground on the new Inclusive Innovation Incubator based on Howard University’s campus, and now the space is getting ready to open its doors.

The incubator which, as the name suggests, aims to host and support diverse entrepreneurs, will officially open to the public with a “Week of Welcome” starting April 17. The week will feature a total of 30 events in the space — everything from coding classes to meetups and even a class on fitness for entrepreneurs. Most events are free and will give the D.C. startup (or would-be startup) community a chance to get a feel for the place.

CSSi LifeSciences™, a trusted partner from discovery to commercialization for biologics and vaccines, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with the Prince William Science Accelerator, the only public-private commercially available wet lab space in Northern Virginia. The partnership promotes the development of new businesses and the retention and expansion of existing businesses within the county's growing and diverse life sciences community, through CSSi LifeSciences' technical assistance, regulatory, clinical and commercial assessment for all Prince William Science Accelerator tenants.

Redox, the leading integration platform for digital healthcare applications and health systems, announced today that the Intermountain Healthcare Innovation Fund has invested $1 million as a follow-on to the company’s recently announced Series B, bringing the final closing to $10 million. The round was led by RRE Ventures with participation from .406 Ventures, HealthX Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Dreamit Ventures.

Student and faculty entrepreneurs have until April 14 to apply for the first round of funding from the University System of Maryland's new $25 million venture fund.

Entrepreneurship is a thrilling roller coaster ride. There are highs, but there are also lows. What isn’t talked about enough is the struggle that so many entrepreneurs face pursuing success. How do you navigate through the tough times? Where do you turn?

What do you do when you hit rock bottom?

Towards the end of last year I explored the growth in intrapreneurship in our organizations. The concept of intrapreneurship is one that has been around for some time, but it is one that is growing at quite a pace as organizations attempt to leverage and empower employees to create and innovate.

Whilst there are many organizational levers that can be deployed to help employees to innovate, there is also a growing appreciation that this is something that can be taught.

Scientists and policy-makers have long argued that public investments in science have practical applications. Using data on patents linked to U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants over a 27-year period, we provide a large-scale accounting of linkages between public research investments and subsequent patenting. We find that about 10% of NIH grants generate a patent directly but 30% generate articles that are subsequently cited by patents. Although policy-makers often focus on direct patenting by academic scientists, the bulk of the effect of NIH research on patenting appears to be indirect. We also find no systematic relationship between the “basic” versus “applied” research focus of a grant and its propensity to be cited by a patent.

WalletHub recently analyzed innovation nationwide to compile a list of the Most Innovative States. Maryland ranks second among the 50 states and Washington D.C. in WalletHub’s report, reinforcing what many in Maryland already know: Innovation thrives here. Here are five reasons why innovation flourishes in Maryland.

You're invited to LM's greatest event of the year! Join us on Tuesday, June 6 as we present the 2017 graduating Core, Senior and Emerging Leaders classes. Meet the newest community members, interact with our honored Award Recipients and network with key influencers in the region. A delicious dinner and an open bar are included.

Four years into its existence, Cydan Development, New Enterprise Associates’ orphan drug startup accelerator, has notched its first big win. Vtesse, the first company to emerge from Cydan, has been sold in a deal valued at $200 million.

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SCMP), a Rockville, MD-based maker of a drug to treat various bowel conditions, will acquire Vtesse for $170 million in cash and 2,782,678 shares of Sucampo, which closed at $11 apiece on Friday. Vtesse’s shareholders—New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Bay City Capital, Pfizer Venture Investments, and Lundbeckfond Ventures—could also get royalties on sales if Vtesse’s experimental drug, VTS-270, ever reaches the market. The drug candidate is designed to be a potential treatment for the rare genetic condition Niemann-Pick Type C1 disease, which mostly affects children.

Almost four years after the launch of the Ten by Twenty vision plan, Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels today invited the university community to explore a second update on the institution's progress and share feedback.

No two stem cells are identical, even if they are genetic clones. This stunning diversity is revealed today in an enormous publicly available online catalogue of 3D stem cell images. The visuals were produced using deep learning analyses and cell lines altered with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. And soon the portal will allow researchers to predict variations in cell layouts that may foreshadow cancer and other diseases.

Big funding deals across a number of industries propelled the D.C. area to one of its best first quarters in recent venture capital memory, setting the stage for a strong 2017.

April 27-28, 2017 - Washington, DC

Secure your spot today at the 8th Annual Health Datapalooza, the gathering place for people and organizations creating knowledge from data and pioneering innovations that drive health policy and practice. The Datapalooza takes place April 27-28, 2017 in Washington, D.C.

Join us at this exciting event and gain new knowledge on the use of health data to improve health outcomes, learn about the newest, most innovative and effective uses of health data, and network with peers offering diverse voices and perspectives in the field.

New techniques for improving plants and animals promise to reshape virtually every aspect of the relationship between humans and our environment for the better. Safer and more sustainable crops have already made enormous contributions to the economy and the environment, and genetically improved livestock and companion animals are close behind. Discovery of more precise, predictable, and easily used techniques derived directly from nature is dramatically accelerating this progress. But fears of the new have led to calls in many nations for “precautionary” regulation, which risks stifling agricultural innovation without any showing of need or benefit. There is a better way.

The National Cancer Institute has picked the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus as the site for a new laboratory building for its epidemiology and genetics researchers.

The planned 70,000-square-foot building will bring together about 134 scientists and employees now working in separate facilities in Gaithersburg and Frederick, about 25 miles apart.

Despite only coming into life two years ago, Pfizer and NEA-backed upstart Vtesse has already seen its rare disease candidate VTS-270, for Niemann-Pick disease type C1, nab the coveted FDA breakthrough tag, and has now been bought out by Maryland-based biotech Sucampo.

The deal sees the biopharma pay $200 million upfront in cash and stock, with the pair also seeking to set up a new foundation, after the deal is signed, “to support research related to NPC disease.” Both will pay into this new organization.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Tagrisso (osimertinib; AstraZeneca) for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as detected by an FDA-approved test, whose disease has progressed on or after EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy. 

Silver Spring-based biotech United Therapeutics Corp. (NASDAQ: UTHR) lost a recent challenge to one of its lead patents for its flagship drugs.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that all of the local company's claims for the particular patent — which impacts its lead products for treating pulmonary arterial hypertension such as Remodulin, Tyvaso and Orenitram — are not patentable.

When President Trump proposed a cut of nearly 20 percent in support for the National Institutes of Health, many wondered how the administration would even attempt to find such reductions. The answer emerged in the congressional testimony last week of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who argued the government could save billions without hurting research by cutting back on the overhead reimbursements to colleges and universities.

Qiagen said Friday after the close of the market that it has acquired an exclusive worldwide license from Johns Hopkins University for detection of the AR-V7 biomarker in all sample and cell types using nucleic acid tests such as PCR or next-generation sequencing.

As a result, Qiagen will commercialize its research-use-only AdnaTest Prostate Cancer Panel AR-V7 to detect the androgen receptor splice variant 7 from liquid biopsies to investigate resistance to potential drugs for advanced prostate cancer.

Research tools developer Canopy Biosciences announced today that it has exclusively licensed a novel gene-editing technology from Washington University in St. Louis and Johns Hopkins University.

The technology, called Tunr, involves targeting translation elongation by introducing consecutive adenosine nucleotides — known as polyA tracks — into a gene coding sequence of interest. As described in Nature Communications earlier this year, inserting polyA tracks into the open reading frame of an mRNA will suppress protein expression by decreasing the efficiency of the translation elongation phase leading to diminished production of protein and mRNA destabilization, thereby diminishing mRNA levels.

Independence Health Group, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. have given a $150,000 seed investment to VitalTrax. This is the group’s first investment from their $6 million digital health funding initiative announced in December 2016.