Date:  Monday, September 22, 2014

Location: North Carolina Biotechnology Center 15 TW Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3547 http://www.ncbiotech.org/

Background:

NHLBI’s Office of Translational Alliances and Coordination (OTAC) hosts this semi-annual Regional Innovation Conference that brings together small businesses, angel investors, venture capitalists, strategic partners, and business leaders from the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. NHLBI staff will be available to describe the details and impact of recent changes in the Federal SBIR/STTR program, as well as note other funding opportunities and resources for NHLBI small businesses.

Previous conferences have been held in Boston, MA, San Francisco, CA, San Diego, CA, and Rockville, MD.

On a recent tour of the latest addition to University City Science Center’s campus in Philadelphia – an innovation hub in an established building on its campus set to officially open next week — I unexpectedly came across an office belonging to Merck.

It’s all the more interesting because it’s just a few doors down from DreamIt Ventures and its accelerator DreamIt Health, which has a second class of health IT entrepreneurs moving in next week. The Science Center’s own digital health accelerator will also be working in the building.

New Enterprise Associates averaged a U.S. funding deal every three days in the first half of this year, the hottest six months for the industry since the end of the dotcom boom in 2001.

Not far behind NEA's 64 first half deals were Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (54), Andreessen Horowitz (52) and Google Ventures (50), according to a report from investment database research firm CB Insights.

The Tech Council of Maryland hopes a new office at the University of Maryland BioPark will help the organization play a bigger role in technology and life sciences in Baltimore.

Much of the tech council’s activities are centered in Montgomery County, where the organization’s headquarters and many of its members are based. The tech council will open a new office at the biopark and staff it every Thursday. The Baltimore office will focus on strengthening partnerships with other technology organizations in the city and developing new programs that meet needs of Baltimore-area companies.

Register TODAY for one or more of the 5 NEW FastTrac Entrepreneurship classes being offered this fall at Montgomery College.

FastTrac is a nationally recognized entrepreneurship program that Montgomery College offers in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation. Nationally, 59% of FastTrac course participants launch start-ups and 60% of existing businesses report revenue growth in the following year. Locally, the FastTrac program has real and positive economic impact in Montgomery County.

Take advantage of an incredible international business opportunity and explore the India market with Montgomery County Executive Leggett during a business mission to India this November! 

Sign up now to join Leggett and fellow business, educational and community leaders for engaging stops in New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Raipour.  August 1st is the deadline to apply for ExportMD grant funds to help defray the cost of participation in the  m

More than 70 percent of college graduates with a bachelor's degree in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are not employed in those industries.

About 74 percent of STEM college graduates hold jobs unrelated to their fields of study, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. And those who are working in STEM fields are predominantly male. Specifically, Census data shows more than 80 percent of engineers and more than 70 percent of computer professionals are men.

The 4th edition of the Orphan Drugs Summit, Northern Europe’s premier orphan drugs conference, will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark this September.

As the conference approaches it is becoming more obvious that collaboration is one of the most important driving forces in the development of orphan drugs. The Orphan Drugs Summit will focus on how to build relationships on multiple levels, highlight how to access partnership parallel advice, and will also outline how stakeholders can benefit from collaboration to develop stronger clinical trials.

Supernus Pharmaceuticals of Rockville has sold certain royalty and milestone rights to a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension for $30 million to HealthCare Royalty Partners of Stamford, Conn.

The agreement relates to the commercialization of Orenitram Extended-Release Tablets by Supernus’ partner, United Therapeutics of Silver Spring. Supernus will retain full ownership of the royalty rights after a certain threshold has been reached, according to a company news release.

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association for life science and technology, today announced that it has opened a new satellite office at the University of Maryland BioPark in Baltimore. By expanding its reach, TCM will be able to collaborate closely with industry leaders located in the Greater Baltimore area and more effectively bring together the state’s technology and life sciences sectors.

“With members, such as Johns Hopkins University, Verizon, HP, Howard Community College and Semmes, Bowen & Semmes P.C., located in the Baltimore metropolitan area, we saw a need to build a stronger presence,” said Phil Schiff, TCM’s CEO. “TCM is excited to have the opportunity to work more closely with the wide variety of innovative companies and entrepreneurs in Baltimore, and provide them with important resources they need closer to home.”

Johns Hopkins University is expected to receive almost $6.4 million from the federal health department for a support program for people with dementia. The award, worth up to $6.38 million, is part of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Health Care Innovation Awards.

The award is contingent on final administrative approval by the federal health department.

Healthcare startups, and all startups for that matter, need investors and funding to stay alive. For this reason, MedCity is pleased to announce that investor Andrew Jay, MD, will be speaking at CONVERGE. Dr. Jay is the head of the medical solutions fund at HealthCare Fund at Siemens Venture Capital, which invests in companies focusing on imaging, diagnostics and health IT.

Jay will be speaking on the second day of MedCity CONVERGE at 9:20 a.m. The third annual CONVERGE is July 15-16 in Philadelphia.

Two private equity firms announced the formation of a $26.6 million fund that will focus exclusively on the aging marketplace and companies within it.

Chicago-based Ziegler and Ohio-based Link-age Ventures announced the close of the Longevity Fund, which aims to address a number of key issues affecting seniors. Among them: coordination of care, chronic disease management, reducing hospitalizations and re-admissions, disease prevention and wellness, aging and government funded programs and public health issues, according to the companies.

Maryland has one of the Top 10 best-buy colleges and universities, according to the 2015 edition of Fisk's Guide to Colleges.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County ranked No. 9 out of 44 schools in the U.S., United Kingdom and Canada.

The Frederick Innovative Technology Center Inc. is looking for business leaders to volunteer for its board of directors.

Preference will be given to those in private industry in the fields of life sciences, advance technology, finance, marketing and entrepreneur. The board meets the fourth Monday of each month. 

Happy 10th anniversary to the National Institutes of Health’s Common Fund! It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade since I joined then-NIH Director Elias Zerhouni at the National Press Club to launch this trans-NIH effort to catalyze innovation and speed progress across many fields of biomedical research.

Allow me to take this opportunity to share just a bit of the history and a few of the many achievements of this bold new approach to the support of science.

Healthcare Interactive Inc. — which sells Web-based software for companies to monitor medical costs in real time — has raised $8 million in funding.

The Series A funding in the Glenwood, Maryland-based company came from Grotech Ventures, which has more than $1.3 billion under management, and Harbert Venture Partners, an emerging growth-stage investor with $200 million under management.

It’s still a good time to go public.

Twenty-eight venture-backed companies completed initial public offerings during the second quarter, raising $4.9 billion. That was a 45 percent increase in dollars raised compared to the previous quarter, according to an analysis by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. It was the fifth consecutive quarter of more than 20 IPOs at venture-backed companies.

A cadre of venture capital firms could cash in from the wave of Bay Area biotech initial public offerings in the first half of the year.

Stalwart VCs such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers of Menlo Park and Domain Associates are among the venture capital firms whose names pop up most often in the IPOs of local life sciences companies through June. Among the other VCs are DAG Ventures of Palo Alto and Essex Woodlands Health Ventures in Palo Alto.

Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:SUPN), today announced the execution of a royalty acquisition agreement ("Agreement") with HealthCare Royalty Partners ("HC Royalty"). Per the Agreement, HC Royalty will make a $30 million cash payment to Supernus in consideration for acquiring from Supernus certain royalty and milestone rights related to the commercialization of Orenitram(TM) (treprostinil) Extended-Release Tablets by Supernus' partner United Therapeutics Corporation. Supernus will retain full ownership of the Royalty Rights after a certain threshold has been reached per the terms of the Agreement.

"We are pleased to have completed this royalty transaction, which strengthens our balance sheet and enhances our financial flexibility," said Jack Khattar, President and Chief Executive Officer of Supernus. "The transaction allows us to partially monetize our royalty stream from Orenitram(TM) for a significant cash consideration while positioning Supernus to further benefit from the future upside potential of the product."

Alexandria-based venture capital firm Columbia Capital is planning a $425 million fund according to SEC filings reported in the Washington Business Journal. The firm invests in information technology, especially infrastructure, wireless spectrum and other related fields. It's done plenty of investing around D.C. in the quarter century since it was founded. Millennial Media, Broadsoft, Virtustream and Summit IG are all on the list of local companies invested in.

Not that Columbia limits itself geographically. It led a $23 million round of funding for Seattle-based 2nd Watch in November. According to WBJ, it even occasionally builds a company from scratch to satisfy some IT need, like Cloud Sherpas, which provides enterprise cloud-based services. Whether or not that will be the path Columbia takes this time remains to be seen, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that the fund is being raised for creation rather than strictly investment.

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:

NIH Guide Notice:

• NIH Announces Change in Policy Requirements for Activation Notices for Fellows Sponsored by Foreign and Federal Institutions
  (NOT-OD-14-101) National Institutes of Health
• Notice of Correction to Budget Instructions for PA-14-042 "NIH Pathway to Independence Award (Parent K99/R00)"
  (NOT-OD-14-102) National Institutes of Health
• Request for Information: Collaborative Translational Research Consortium to Develop T4 Translation of Evidence-based Interventions
  (NOT-HL-14-028) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

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.

ORTHOMETRIX, INC. announced today that it has signed an exclusive agreement with ENCORE PATH, INC. to market, sell and service worldwide the Tailwind™ arm rehabilitation device. The Tailwind™ is a patented Bilateral Arm Trainer with Rhythmic Auditory Cueing (BATRAC) that was developed at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Services and licensed to Encore Path, Inc., a portfolio company of the New Ventures Department of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The Tailwind has been shown to improve arm movement in stroke patients with paralysis. It will be initially marketed in Asia and in Israel, and then in the U.S. after a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) HCPCS code is obtained for use of the Tailwind as a durable medical equipment (DME). Commenting on this agreement, Reynald Bonmati, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orthometrix, stated, “I am very pleased to partner with Encore Path and the University of Maryland. The Tailwind™ for upper-limb rehabilitation of stroke patients is a natural addition to our SmartStep® Biofeedback system for lower-limb rehabilitation, developed and manufactured by our partner Andante Medical Devices, Inc. Orthometrix, Andante and Encore Path are currently working on the manufacturing of the Tailwind™ by Andante.

The Tailwind was developed by physicians from the University of Maryland specializing in physical therapy and rehabilitation after a decade of scientific research. Clinical studies have shown that the device helps improve arm mobility, function, and range of motion in patients with even severe paralysis. Representatives from the University of Maryland’s New Ventures Department facilitated the introduction of Encore Path, Inc. and Orthometrix, Inc. and the subsequent agreement. The University of Maryland Ventures is designed to fuel the growth of the University’s startups, particularly those based upon intellectual property developed by physicians at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and University of Maryland, College Park.

It looks like Valeritas, which is developing insulin pumps for Type 2 diabetes, is in the midst of raising another big round of cash.

The New Jersey medical device company filed paperwork with the SEC indicating it’s raised about $22 million in a round that could go as high as $45 million.

Personalized medicine (PMx), medical treatment tailored to specific patient populations based on their genetic or molecular biology profiles, has long been heralded as the next big thing in healthcare. It’s been about 16 years since Genentech launched Herceptin, a drug for breast cancer patients with a specific genetic mutation. At the time, Herceptin seemed to usher in a revolution for how drugs would be developed and patients would be cured.

In that new version of care, drugs could be tailored to a patient’s specific biochemical profile, dramatically improving efficacy rates and reducing the system-wide costs and complications associated with one-size-fits-all medications. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, this approach had the potential to improve sales and profits through a radically new business model: differentiated products for segmented populations (see “A Strategist’s Guide to Personalized Medicine,” by Avi Kulkarni and Nelia Padilla McGreevy, s+b, Winter 2012).

Storrer will oversee strategy, expansion and operation of Strand Genomics Inc., the wholly owned subsidiary of Strand Life Sciences in North America. Strand is a leader in technology innovations for personalized medicine using genomics in over 2,000 clinical and research institutions worldwide. By enhancing sequence-based diagnostics and clinical genomic data interpretation using a strong foundation of computational, scientific, and medical expertise Strand is bringing individualized medicine to the world.

“We are excited to have Scott Storrer join our team,” said Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman and CEO of Strand. “Storrer’s twenty plus years of executive experience leading and growing profitable businesses in the U.S. healthcare industry across payer, provider and personalized medicine sectors will help develop a strong presence for Strand in North America.”

Originating as a solution to educate health workers in developing countries, emocha is now a powerful platform that allows researchers and clinicians to use mobile data capture, health education, and communication to address the challenges of adherence, linkage to care, and patient data management across a myriad of use cases. Sebastian Seiguer, CEO and Founder of emocha, and Morad Elmi, Director of Marketing, spoke with us about the latest from this Baltimore-based startup.

The adoption of IT in healthcare systems has, in general, followed the same pattern as other industries. In the 1950s, when institutions began using new technology to automate highly standardized and repetitive tasks such as accounting and payroll, healthcare payors and other industry stakeholders also began using IT to process vast amounts of statistical data. Twenty years later, the second wave of IT adoption arrived. It did two things: it helped integrate different parts of core processes (manufacturing and HR, for example) within individual organizations, and it supported B2B processes such as supply-chain management for different institutions within and outside individual industries. As for its effects on the healthcare sector, this second wave of IT adoption helped bring about, for example, the electronic health card in Germany. It was also a catalyst for the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act in the United States—an effort to promote the adoption of health-information technology—and the National Programme for IT in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. Regardless of their immediate impact, these programs helped create an important and powerful infrastructure that certainly will be useful in the future.

Biopharma firms continued to attract US venture capital investment in Q1 according to new analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which says the number of firms that received backing is encouraging.

The analysis – part of the “MoneyTree” report published by PwC and the National Venture Capital Association in April – showed that the biotechnology sector garnered $1.1bn from venture capitalists in Q1, up from $871m in the equivalent period in 2013.

Anyone who wants a job next year at Anne Arundel Medical Center -- whether as a surgeon or security guard -- will have to prove they don't smoke or use tobacco.

The Annapolis hospital's new hiring policy might be controversial, but it is legal in Maryland and more than half of the United States. And it's a type of job screening that is gaining favor with employers -- from hospitals to companies such as Alaska Airlines -- trying to control rising health costs and cultivate a healthier, more productive workforce.

Former Johns Hopkins University college student Alex Koren wants to make a difference.

Koren feels he has a better opportunity of doing that by dropping out of Johns Hopkins, and devoting all of his time to his ideas on a Thiel Fellowship.

Two Montgomery County companies each took home the top prize of $100,000 in their category as part of the 2014 InvestMaryland Challenge.

Bethesda-based life sciences company, Brain Sentry, won for its helmet-mounted sensor used to identify team sport players who should be evaluated for a concussion. Gaithersburg-based IT company, ClickMedix, won its catergory for technology aimed at helping physicians and health organizations maximize the number of patients they are able to serve.

Both companies were also recipients of the Kauffman FastTrac award entitling them to enroll in any FastTrac course and receiving a copy of the new Kauffman release -- "Chance & Intent: Managing the Risks of Innovation & Entrepreneurship"

Rockville biotechnology company Cellphire is the latest receipient of funding via the State’s InvestMaryland program, receiving $1 million last month!

Cellphire is developing stabilized cellular products, including freeze-dried platelets that can be stored for years and used in a range of advanced therapeutic and diagnostic applications including sports medicine, plastic surgery and dentistry. The company received a contract last year worth up to $57 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research Defense Authority, a division of U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The InvestMaryland funding will be used to continue development of the company’s freeze-dried platelet product, Thrombosomes, and move it closer to winning FDA approval.

On June 24, UBI Index announced the Global Top 25 University Business Incubators of 2014. We would like to thank all participants of this year's benchmark for great efforts in supporting entrepreneurs and helping the industry understand the importance of incubation.

Valuations on venture-backed companies jumped again in the second quarter as the number of IPOs and the amount VCs invested in startups both hit post-dot-com highs, a new report from PitchBook Data shows.

The total amount invested has climbed steadily each quarter in the past year, jumping from $12.8 billion in Q2 of 2013 to $21.5 billion in the same period this year. The $13.9 billion raised in 76 new venture funds is also a recent high.