From Christy Wyskiel,Senior Advisor to the President, Johns Hopkins University

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that Neil Veloso will join Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures as the executive director of technology transfer, effective May 18, 2015.

Neil has extensive experience in technology transfer and commercialization. He has spent the last nine years of his career in a variety of roles at Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI) in Ohio. Currently, he is serving as the senior director of innovation management, a role in which he directs technology commercialization at Cleveland Clinic and at seven of CCI's Innovation Alliance Partners. In this role, Neil focuses on commercialization strategy across a broad portfolio of both academic and hospital system assets. He manages a team that advises inventors, administers intellectual property, and promotes commercialization through licensing, new venture creation and the development of industry partnerships. Neil's collaborative leadership style and ability to work with myriad constituents has been cited repeatedly as one of his great strengths by former colleagues and industry partners.   

A few months into 2015, D.C.’s tech industry is continuing to prove itself a major region for venture capital investing interest. Based on an NVCA/PwC report provided to DC Inno, the District is ranked No. 9 among major U.S. regions for investments during Q1. In a quarter that saw vibrant deal flow and exceptional venture raises, the D.C. focused software sector did especially well by raising $220 million in investment dollars.

MaxCyte® Inc., the pioneer in cell therapies using scalable, high-performance cell transfection systems, today announces a strategic research collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to develop unique Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, which harness patients’ own immune systems to combat cancers.

MaxCyte’s unique approach to CAR cell therapy allows targeting of solid tumor cancers by enabling control over the on-target, off-tumor toxicity, which limits other CAR therapies to hematological cancers. MaxCyte achieves this by introducing the CAR construct as a transiently expressing messenger RNA (mRNA), thus allowing control of the duration of expression and toxicity against target antigens in normal tissue. This unique approach also avoids the cell expansion step required for standard approaches, dramatically reducing manufacturing time and expense for CAR therapies from days or weeks to a matter of hours.

The end may be near for Montgomery County’s Department of Economic Development.

County Executive Ike Leggett, speaking in North Bethesda as a panelist during the Washington Business Journal’s inaugural On the Road event, announced Tuesday he intends to replace Montgomery County's economic development agency with a public-private authority, along the lines of Fairfax County’s Economic Development Authority.

The list of the top five health systems in the Baltimore area was static this year, with Johns Hopkins at No. 1 and Mercy Health Services at No. 5.

The data comes from our List of Health Systems in the Baltimore area, which is available to subscribers.

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:

Notices:

Reminder: NIH Policy on Application Compliance
(NOT-OD-15-095) National Institutes of Health

Notice of Availability of Frequently Asked Questions for RFA-HL-16-002 "Sudden Cardiac Death in the Young: Population Based Studies (U01)" and the Sudden Death in the Young Case Registry 
(NOT-HL-15-258)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Requests for Applications:

Undiagnosed Diseases Gene Function Research (R21)
(RFA-RM-15-004)
NIH Roadmap Initiatives
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
The Common Fund/Office of Strategic Coordination
Application Receipt Date(s): June 24, 2015

Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.

Tokai Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:TKAI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel therapies for prostate cancer and other hormonally-driven diseases, today announced that scientists in the laboratory of Vincent Njar, PhD, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine presented preclinical data showing that galeterone and novel analogs of galeterone inhibited growth, survival and migration of human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells.

These data were presented in a poster presentation titled, “Galeterone and Its Novel Analogs Induce Profound Anti-Cancer Activities in Human Pancreatic Cancer Cell Lines,” abstract number 1764, at the 2015 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Thanks to our back to back April/May sponsor, The University of Maryland's Biotech Research and Education Program (BREP), who is sponsoring the upcomig event in Rockville on May 20th at the @AmericanTapRoom. BioBuzzMoCo events always draw an awesome crowd so join BREP for an awesome evening in the heart of the region's growing BioHub.

MAY 12, 2015, 2-3 pm ET

The landscape of potential customers for biomedical products can be complicated, with patients, providers and payers assigning different values to new technologies. Companies must navigate this landscape to find the individuals who will actually make the decision to purchase their products. In this webinar, entrepreneur and educator Rana Gupta will talk about how customers can not only help biomedical innovators to define the value proposition for their products, but can also guide and fund their product development work.

The Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS), created in 2007, is an inter-disciplinary, multi-departmental team of collaborative investigators within the University of Maryland School of Medicine led by Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., one of the world’s preeminent genome scientists.

IGS uses large-scale, cutting-edge experimental and computational tools to better understand gene and genome function in health and disease, to study molecular and cellular networks in a variety of model systems, and to generate data and resources of value to the international scientific community.

Blood draws typically require trained professionals to perform and can be both frightening and painful to patients. Tasso, Inc., a spinoff of the Unviersity of Wisconsin-Madison, has developed a device that can be applied by the patients themselves to nearly painlessly draw blood.

The device works thanks to capillary action, slowly pulling in blood through a tiny channel over a two minute period. Once the process is complete, the patient simply takes the device to a clinical lab for testing. Since current methods require refrigeration of blood samples during shipment, DARPA is giving Tasso $3 million to work with other firms to develop a way to extend to a week the time the blood samples can be safely stored at up to 140° F (60° C).

The tech incubator 1776 is a collegial place, with offices painted in lively colors, couches to greet visitors, and members who share seats, desks and the fixings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

It’s an atmosphere carefully cultivated by its founders, Evan Burfield and Donna Harris, and it helped position the outfit as a caretaker, connector and capital provider for tomorrow’s big technology companies.

In the face of growing criticism and impatience with the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program, National Health IT Coordinator Dr. Karen DeSalvo remains upbeat but aware of the tough work ahead to achieve the vision of a learning health system underpinned by a network of interoperable EHRs.

“Interoperability is a priority, but it is still just a means to an end,” De Salvo said Thursday morning in a keynote session on the last day of HIMSS15 at McCormick Place in Chicago. Without interoperability, it will be difficult to achieve healthcare payment and delivery reform, she added.

Washington companies raised more venture capital funding in the first quarter than they have during the first three months of any year in more than a decade, building on momentum the industry mustered up late last year.

During the first quarter, 38 Washington companies hauled in roughly $329.9 million from venture capitalists, a 55 percent increase over the $212.5 million raised by firms in the region during the same period last year, according to the latest round of data from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. While that’s down slightly from a surge last quarter, in which investors poured $363.5 million into local companies, it’s well above last year’s sluggish quarterly average ($270.4 million) and the largest first-quarter haul since 2001.

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) and the bwtech@UMBC Cyber Incubator announced today that continuous monitoring solutions provider DB Networks® will be the fifth cyber startup to graduate from the highly successful Cync Program. A ceremony marking the occasion is scheduled for next week during the RSA Conference 2015 in San Francisco, California.

OptioLabs of Baltimore joins Cync this month as the newest cyber startup accepted into the program since it began in 2011.

The news broke just after midnight Thursday that D.C. tech accelerator 1776 would acquire Disruption Corp. — both its Crystal Tech Fund, which currently includes 12 portfolio companies, and the startup-focused, data-crunching software that formed the foundation of Paul Singh's Crystal City enterprise.

It can't be denied that 1776 has built a rather explosive brand since it first popped on the scene in 2013. President Barack Obama and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron have toured the premises. Partnerships have been forged with several monster corporations (like Comcast and Microsoft) and, as of this week, two local municipalities (Montgomery and Arlington). Legions of startups work out of the District offices. And Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe will be speaking at Thursday's formal announcement of the deal.

The field of blood study and blood-related product development is a small one, and the field of autotransfusion (blood recycling) is even smaller. It often seems like everyone knows everyone else. We've had a lot of great mentors in the blood space from afar, but it hasn't been until we tapped into the inner workings of the Baltimore/DC area that we realized quite how small.

Just six weeks ago, we moved to the Charm City for the DreamIt Health Accelerator program from our medical device manufacturing home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We were looking for other resources and mentors in both the blood transfusion and global health community to take our company to the next level, and we've found them.

AstraZeneca today announced that MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, has entered into a collaboration to conduct clinical trials in immuno-oncology with Immunocore Limited, a privately-held UK-based biotechnology company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Immunocore will conduct a Phase Ib/II clinical trial combining MedImmune’s investigational checkpoint inhibitors MEDI4736 (anti-PD-L1) and/or tremelimumab (anti-CTLA-4) with IMCgp100, Immunocore’s lead T-cell receptor-based investigational therapeutic, for the potential treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma.  MedImmune has an exclusive relationship with Immunocore for the development of IMCgp100 in combination with MEDI4736 and/or tremelimumab, and will have first right of negotiation for the future commercial development of these combinations for tumours expressing glycoprotein 100 (gp100), a tumour-associated antigen.

Baltimore may not have the startup mecca reputation of Silicon Valley or Boston, but it is one of the fastest growing tech talent markets.

The city’s tech talent pool grew by 42 percent between 2010 and 2013, making Baltimore one of the fastest growing tech talent markets in the country, according to a new report by CBRE, a commercial real estate brokerage. Only San Francisco and the San Francisco Peninsula reported a faster growth rate than Baltimore. Tech talent grew 44 percent in those areas.

Venture firm New Enterprise Associates made some massive waves today on news that it’s closed its fifteenth – and largest – fund, which holds $3.1 billion. And a huge swath of that – 30 to 40 percent, according to Fierce - could likely be allocated to the healthcare space.

MedCity News reported initially on NEA’s plans to raise funds – it filed a document with the SEC in January indicating a $2.5 billion fundraise:

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. is opening a Gaithersburg wet lab space in a project that may help fill a gap left when Montgomery County's biotech incubator shuttered last year.

Called Alexandria LaunchLabs, the new space will create five lab and office spaces to accelerate early-stage life science companies. Each will have about 1,200 square feet and have access to supporting infrastructure and amenities such as an on-site gym. BioHealth Innovation, a public-private partnership created in 2011 to foster health and life sciences commercialization in Maryland, will provide startup and entrepreneur-in-residence programs to guide the early-stage life science companies.

Roche aims to have an immunotherapy cancer drug in 11 late-stage trials by the end of the year, the Swiss drugmaker's head of medical affairs for oncology, Nico Andre, said at a conference on Monday.

The Basel-based company's MPDL3280A, which is being tested in melanoma, as well as lung, bladder, kidney, bowel and blood cancers but has not yet been approved to treat any type of cancer, is the furthest developed of this class of drug. Some analysts have said such drugs could generate more than $30 billion in annual sales for the industry as a whole by 2025.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. made its first modest investment in Kendall Square about 14 years ago, developing a blocky five-story building it named The Science Hotel.

The building, on Memorial Drive, was designed to be an incubator for biotechnology startups as the industry was just emerging in East Cambridge. In the following years, biotech grew explosively in the Kendall Square area, and Alexandria grew, too.

New Enterprise Associates has closed more than $3.1 billion in new capital for its 15th fund and a joint "opportunity fund," the Chevy Chase venture capital giant said Wednesday.

The raise marks the fourth consecutive $2.5 billion-plus fund and brings the total capital under the firm's umbrella since its 1977 inception to nearly $17 billion.

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Karen B. DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., announced today the availability of $1 million in grant funds to support community projects for the Community Interoperability Health Information Exchange (HIE) Program. The funding will help support and enable the flow of health information at the community level, leading to better care and better health.

The Community Interoperability and HIE program will provide funds to up to ten community organizations, state or local government agencies, or other community groups. The awards will help unlock health information and better integrate community resources advancing better care and healthier communities.

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:

Notices:

• Notice of Potential Delays to NIH Issuing Awards in May 2015
• (NOT-OD-15-088) National Institutes of Health
• Racial and Ethnic Categories and Definitions for NIH Diversity Programs and for Other Reporting Purposes
• (NOT-OD-15-089) National Institutes of Health
• Reporting Publications in the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR)
• (NOT-OD-15-090) National Institutes of Health

Program Announcements:

• Administrative Supplements for Tobacco Regulatory Research on Tobacco Flavors and Flavorings (Admin Supp)
• (PA-15-183)
• National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, National Cancer Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Office of Disease Prevention
• Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement.

Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.

National Institutes of Health
Food and Drug Administration
National Cancer Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Office of Disease Prevention
Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple dates, see announcement.

In an effort to tap patient communities for insights on drug development, AstraZeneca has inked a five-year deal with PatientsLikeMe, according to a company statement.

Ed Godber, executive vice president of Life Sciences Ventures at PatientsLikeMe, said unlike most of its pharma collaborations, which have been with U.S. affiliates of drug companies, “this one integrates us into the engine of R&D globally. AstraZeneca is putting the patient voice and PatientsLikeMe into the DNA of their innovation process.”

Lung disease lands thousands of patients in the hospital every year. And that’s where many of them stay, unable to breathe without a cumbersome respirator to help circulate air through their lungs.

Breethe Inc., a startup out of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, wants to change that experience. The company is developing a portable, artificial lung that will allow patients to continue treatment outside the hospital. Breethe on Monday announced it had finalized an agreement with UM Ventures, the university’s commercialization office, to license the technology behind its invention.

University of Maryland (UM) Ventures and Breethe, Inc. announced today that Breethe, an early-stage, Baltimore-based medical device company, has obtained exclusive rights to University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) intellectual property (IP) for the development of a wearable, portable blood pump oxygenator that will function as an artificial lung system for patients suffering from respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary collapse. Faculty at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) developed the core licensed technology, with Breethe also obtaining important supporting technology co-owned by UMB and University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) as part of the license agreement.  The Breethe team plans to leverage the technology to bring the first wearable 'out-of-hospital' artificial lung system to market. UMB has made a $100,000 investment in Breethe through UM Ventures.

All it takes is one hit. And Christy Wyskiel likes her chances.

Johns Hopkins University, where Wyskiel heads up technology commercialization, is among the institutions scrambling to transform more faculty research into startup companies, patents and licenses. Hopkins in 2014 reported $16.5 million in licensing revenue, but is still far behind universities that have been leaders in commercialization. Columbia University, for example, earned $150 million in licensing revenue last year.

AstraZeneca's global biologics R&D arm MedImmune has received fast track designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop MEDI8897, an investigational recombinant human immunoglobulin G1 kappa (IgG1κ) monoclonal antibody (mAb).

This monoclonal antibody is being examined for the prevention of lower respiratory tract illness (LRTI) caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants and young children.

We're back in Baltimore thanks to The University of Maryland's Biotech Research and Education Program (BREP) who is sponsoring this BioBuzz networking event on April 9th at @HeavySeasAleHse.  Join us to share an evening with BREP and Baltimore's growing Biotech community. Heavy Seas Alehouse is located in a very accessible part of the city and has plenty of free street parking and a garage directly across the street.

Like plenty of science-oriented high school kids, Andrew Jin is interested in human evolution. But Jin, one of three $150,000 first-place winners in this year's Intel Science Talent Search, took that interest further than most. For his project, the high school senior came up with machine learning algorithms that detect mutations in the human genome—mutations that could one day be used to develop drugs to combat diseases like HIV and schizophrenia.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Vice Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, this week continued her Maryland Jobs Tour at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Senator Mikulski announced that she has introduced new legislation, the Accelerating Biomedical Research Act, to ensure NIH receives stable funding year after year to support community health, innovation and jobs across Maryland and the nation. Senator Mikulski was joined by NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins and NCATS Director Dr. Christopher P. Austin in touring the NCATS translational research facility to see first-hand state-of-the-art screening for potential new treatments and cures for diseases that can be delivered to patients faster.

The decline in first quarter digital health investment was a notable shift from the steadily rising levels since 2010. That’s probably the most striking development in StartUp Health’s latest report which otherwise highlighted some pretty consistent trends. In the the first three months of 2015, big data attracted the most investment (led by Health Catalyst, which raised $70 million). Plus, more venture capitalists are moving into the sector – at least 20 made two digital health investments. But the second half of the report, which looks at digital health subsectors and deals relevant to the graying market – ie. almost every aspect of consumer health – was a promotional, business-intelligence look at what’s happening with the constituents of one of its sponsors, AARP. Reading the report, I wonder if it really provides enough firepower for innovators to help that 50+ population.