Barbara Crews, assistant executive director for community relations at the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus, has been appointed to an executive committee position with the Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

Crews will serve a yearlong term as vice chair for member recruitment and retention. In this role, she will help the chamber recruit new members and retain existing ones. She will help existing members get the most out of their memberships by engaging them in chamber activities.

Facebook has been making tentative steps in the health tech realm. I’m not referring to Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic ambitions. But the social media network has demonstrated an interest in some diverse areas from genomic testing to public health. There’s even more going on with its Internet.org division but the company has been pretty tight-lipped about new developments on this front with most information on healthcare projects coming from entrepreneurs rather than the technology company. Here are a few areas that could grow in 2016.

Medical technology is slated to be a $40 billion market in India by 2025. But it’s largely ignored, says Siraj Dhanani, founder of InnAccel, India’s first medical technology incubator.

“It’s a market that’s suboptimally served, and there are global models for med-tech innovation that can be successfully implemented in India,” he says, seated in his Bangalore office.

The 2015 return of 12.3% for the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index ETF makes the biotech sector one of the market's best-performing baskets this year, and the returns of the five best biotech stocks in the space were downright mind-boggling. All five of these biotech companies boast billion-dollar market caps, and each has seen its shares post eye-popping returns of nearly 200% or more this year. Let's find out why.

Here are three things we can agree on. Some predictions are good. Some predictions are bad. Most predictions are wrong.

Stephanie Baum, Meghana Keshavan and I spent the last fews days spouting off on the kind of deals we think should happen in healthcare in 2016. Afterward, we polled the full MedCity News reporting staff and incorporated feedback from social media to rank these healthcare M&A predictions from completely loony tunes and to actually having some merit.

As the year draws to a close, I want to reflect on FDA’s many accomplishments in these previous 12 months, the last nine of which it has been my pleasure to serve as Acting Commissioner. FDA has broad responsibilities – indeed, we are tasked with overseeing products that account for about 20 cents of the consumer dollar — so we work on a wide range of topics in any given year. In this and two additional blog posts over the coming days I’ll cover some of our key accomplishments in 2015. Each blog will examine a different area of FDA’s work. This first post will focus on medical product innovation – our role in making safe, effective and innovative products available to patients who need them.

Older adults can be the focus of emerging digital health firms.   Kudos to Aging 2.0 and its effort to find an attract startups that can help older adults.  So much of the Digital Health landscape acts, just like Apple, agnostic about age, avoiding the chance to shape a market message for products that clearly could benefit (and in Apple's case, do benefit) older adults. Even more striking is the percentage of health care costs that are actually spent on older adults.  For other age-indifferent health-related see Connected Health Symposium and mHealth Summit for too many examples. But Aging 2.0 has a different agenda than these -- welcoming the messaging about age and inviting companies that these other events might (or might not) welcome in LivePitch events. Here are a few of the companies in the Digital Health space pitching for pilots at Aging 2.0. Material is from the companies' websites: 

Most people would agree that it would be better to prevent cancer, if we could, than to treat it once it developed. Yet economic incentives encourage researchers to focus on treatment rather than prevention.

The way the patent system interacts with the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval process skews what kinds of cancer clinical trials are run. There’s more money to be made investing in drugs that will extend cancer patients’ lives by a few months than in drugs that would prevent cancer in the first place.

Bethesda-based Northwest Biotherapeutics Inc. is raising $12.6 million in new funding as part of a direct offering to health care-focused investors, according to a company announcement.

We are at the beginning of a transformation in human health, treating diseases in ways that we could only speculate about in the recent past. While biology isn’t quite engineering (yet), biotech has become a technology-based, high-growth, high-wage space, all while working to cure cancer. Doing well by doing good. It is more than a business.

As we look back on the medtech developments of 2015 there’s definitely a sense that we’re living through revolutionary times. Nearly every day exciting and fascinating technologies are being unveiled by small and large companies, universities, and even tiny independent groups. Empowered by high-powered computers, 3D printers, and other technologies, researchers, scientists, and engineers are coming up with novel solutions to age-old medical problems. Everything from treating gunshot wounds to how fetuses inside the womb are monitored is going through change thanks to technologies developed by thousands of independent minds around the world.

Biologists often emphasize how little anyone really knows about the brain, the genome, and the mechanisms behind effective drugs. But this year their tune changed as diverse technologies–gene editing, stem cells, cloning, and DNA databases–coalesced into an immensely powerful toolkit for manipulating life. The message in 2015 seemed to be: “We can do anything.”

The Executive Director is a full-time, benefited position which serves as CEO of the organization, reports to the Board of Directors, and is responsible for all operational aspects of organization including facilities, staff, day-to-day business and financial functions.  The position also requires providing entrepreneurial support and advice to FITCI clients.  The position requires normal weekday core hours and participation at evening/ and some weekend events.  The salary is negotiable.

Like many CEOs, Peter Greenleaf knows that disagreements will inevitably arise among smart, driven executives. He says the best leaders serve as aligners who bring people together to pursue a shared vision, even if they hold different views on how to get there.

Emergent Biosolutions has announced the selection of its spin-off company’s board of directors. The spin-off company, Aptevo Therapeutics Inc., was announced by the Emergent in August. According to an earlier report from Bio Prep Watch, the company will be focused on therapeutics development in oncology and hematology. 

Maryland-based Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) will spin out cancer research group Aptevo Therapeutics into its own publicly traded company to be based in Seattle, the company announced this week. The tax-free spinoff will happen in mid 2016, the company said.

The Food and Drug Administration granted marketing approval to AstraZeneca’s gout medicine Zurampic. Zurampic was approved as combination therapy with a xanthine oxidase inhibitors (XOIs) for the treatment of hyperuricemia — an excess of uric acid in the blood — associated with gout in patients who have responded to XOIs alone.

Private equity firm TPG Growth just invested $75 million in Precision for Medicine, a Maryland-based startup that melds value-based care with precision medicine.

We’re waiting to hear back from TPG Growth and Precision for Medicine for comment on how this funding will be deployed.

Global biopharmaceutical business AstraZeneca has expanded its presence in Asia by entering two significant relationships with medical companies in China and Japan.

A strategic alliance was announced on December 16, between WuXi AppTec (WuXi), an open-access research and development capability and technology platform company, and, MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca.

Today, the White House announced the latest recipients of the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation—our Nation’s highest honors for achievement and leadership in advancing the fields of science and technology. The new awardees will receive their medals at a White House ceremony early next year.

NHLBI has issued the first in a series of Requests for Information (RFIs) to solicit input from its stakeholders on ways to optimize the clinical trials enterprise. This first RFI seeks stakeholder views on clinical trial management, performance milestones, and metrics.

NHLBI has an important legacy of conducting and funding clinical trials that have provided critical insights into mechanisms of human disease and have shaped medical practice improving the lives of those with sickle cell disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, and other debilitating conditions. In funding and overseeing these trials, NHLBI has an important stewardship responsibility to the research participants and the public.

Venky Ganeson, managing director of Menlo Ventures and future chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, told Inc. that 2015 has been the third-strongest year for venture capital investment since the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. Only 1999 and 2000 were stronger years. The LA Times reported there was $98 billion in worldwide venture capital investment in the first three quarters of 2015 alone. That's 11 percent higher than the investments for all of 2014.

When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued their 2014 quality and financial performance results in August, an accountable care organization (ACO) formed by Johns Hopkins achieved a perfect score for quality reporting.

The Johns Hopkins Medicine Alliance for Patients, or "JMAP," reported on all 33 quality measures. A perfect quality reporting score is an indication that the ACO is able to provide timely, complete and appropriate information to CMS regarding each of the requisite ACO quality measures.

OrbiMed, a leading investment firm focused on the healthcare sector, announced the closing of its next venture capital fund, OrbiMed Private Investments VI, LP, with $950 million in limited partner commitments. Investors in the fund include some of the preeminent medical research institutions globally, along with leading endowments, foundations and sovereign wealth funds.

It’s taken 30 years and more than $565 million to make it happen: the first-ever malaria vaccine. The innoculation, called Mosquirix, is the first of its kind to fight a parasite and has the potential to transform the lives of millions of people living in malaria-stricken areas. An estimated half million people die from the disease every year, the majority children. Such deaths have fallen by 47% since 2000 thanks to better prevention methods, but many have been waiting a long time for a vaccine that could protect children better and earlier.

Headquartered in Pasadena, California, Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE) was founded by Joel S. Marcus and Jerry M. Sudarsky in 1994. The company is structured as a REIT (real estate investment trust) and completed an initial public offering in 1997. The company is now the third-largest publicly traded office REIT in the United States and is part of the S&P 400.

Chief Scientific Officer Prof Dolores Schendel appointed new Chief Executive Officer of Medigene AG

Dave Lemus appointed Chief Operating Officer of Medigene AG and Chief Executive Officer of Medigene Inc. in the United States

Martinsried/Munich, 17 December 2015. Medigene AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: MDG1) announced today that the Supervisory Board has resolved important changes and additions to the senior management team to better align the organisational structure with the strategic goals of the company in immuno-oncology and to expand Medigene's presence in the United States.

Drs. Donald Zack and Valentin Sluch spent 30 anxious days waiting for their experiment to yield results.

They were eager to see if the retinal ganglion cells growing in their lab would turn red, indicating that they'd successfully edited the cells' DNA. Turning the eye cells red would allow them to be sorted from other cells and potentially provide the key to research that one day could lead to a cure for blindness caused by glaucoma or multiple sclerosis.

Brace Pharma Capital led a $33 million Series B funding in Navitor Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company. Other investors in the funding included Remeditex Ventures, Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures and an undisclosed individual investor. Existing investors Polaris Partners, Atlas Venture, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and SR One also participated. Vinzenz Ploerer, president and chief executive officer of Brace Pharma Capital, will join Navitor’s board.

May 8 - 11, 2016

ANNOUNCING NOMINATIONS NEW BEING ACCEPTED FOR THE HEALTH DATA LIBERATORS AWARD

The Datapalooza's Health Data Liberators Award recognizes extraordinary contributions and leadership in the liberation of health data, helping to accelerate the pace and multiply the volume of data available to innovators in order to foster the creation of products and services to improve health and health care. The Award is presented annually and will be bestowed to the recipient at 2016 Health Datapalooza in Washington, DC.

It’s hard to get people to eat right.

Healthy food can be expensive and time consuming to prepare.

Pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline said its majority-owned HIV business would buy drugs at different stages of development from U.S. rival Bristol-Myers Squibb for an initial $350 million.

GSK said the acquisitions would provide ViiV Healthcare, its HIV unit in which Pfizer and Shionogi are junior partners, with new opportunities for growth.

AstraZeneca along with MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, announced a range of strategic initiatives to accelerate the delivery of innovative biologics and targeted medicines to patients in China, the company’s second largest market globally and a key growth platform.

The initiatives and investments include a strategic alliance with WuXi AppTec, a leading Chinese biologics manufacturer and contract research organisation, to produce innovative biologics locally in China. Under the agreement, AstraZeneca has the option to acquire WuXi AppTec’s biologics manufacturing capacity in Wuxi City in the next few years through an overall investment approximating $100 million. Prior to that, Wuxi AppTec remains the company’s exclusive partner for R&D manufacturing for innovative biologics in China.

On Thursday, January 14th from 4-6:30pm pm there will be an open house for the spring courses in the “Advanced Studies in Technology Transfer” program at the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (FAES) Graduate School at NIH in the FAES Academic Center in NIH Building 10.

On Monday, I wrote about a new bill introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) to overhaul the Food and Drug Administration. Among other things, the bill would try to speed up FDA approvals in order to boost innovation and address the current dearth of new drugs in the pipeline.

I was skeptical. In recent years, Congress has passed a number of measures to greatly shorten the amount of time that drug applications languish in the FDA bureaucracy, and that hasn't led to a lasting boom in new drugs that are significant improvements over existing treatments. So far, cutting through red tape hasn't ushered in a new age of innovation.