Former New York mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg is giving $300 million to the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to help fight drug addiction, obesity and gun violence.

From Mark Suster:

"I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. I spent a bunch of time thinking about this position — especially since Beezer is an investor in Upfront Ventures. There are a lot of things I think entrepreneurs should care about when raising from a VC:"

From Mark Suster:

"I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. I spent a bunch of time thinking about this position — especially since Beezer is an investor in Upfront Ventures. There are a lot of things I think entrepreneurs should care about when raising from a VC:"

IDT Biologika, a globally integrated manufacturer of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals, announces today the one-year anniversary celebration of its first U.S. contract manufacturing facility in Rockville, Maryland. The state-of-the-art facility offers custom, end-to-end solutions to support the manufacture of viral and microbial vaccines (live and attenuated), gene and cancer therapies, and therapeutic proteins. IDT commemorates its first anniversary with a special program and tours of its facility for local political leaders and members of the biopharmaceutical industry.

Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a partnership that will enable Finland to utilize Watson cognitive computing to help doctors improve the health of its citizens, and strengthen and develop the Finnish innovation and business ecosystem in the fields of health and well-being. To facilitate the collaboration, IBM intends to establish a Watson Health Center of Excellence in Finland, the first Nordic Healthcare Competence Center, and the first National Imaging Center of Excellence outside the United States in Finland. These centers are expected to employ 150 people over the next few years.

At first glance, Moderna Therapeutics looks like the most enviable biotech startup in the world. It has smashed fundraising records and teamed up with pharmaceutical giants as it pursues a radical plan to revolutionize medicine by transforming human cells into drug factories.

But the reality is more complicated.

David Petr, who has been hired to guide economic development in Montgomery County, said the county has what it needs to compete against rival Fairfax County: a quality work force.

“The true benefit of doing business here is the quality of talent,” Petr said Tuesday after a meeting with the Montgomery County Council.

Verily, Alphabet's life sciences group, is investing big in developing technologies for the millions of people worldwide with diabetes.

Verily announced today that it is teaming up with pharmaceutical giant Sanofi to fund and spin out a new venture, Cambridge, Mass.-based Onduo, which is focused on helping clinicians and their patients manage the disease. The companies have tapped a new CEO to lead the startup, trained emergency-medicine physician Joshua Riff, from United Healthcare-owned Optum.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine tested out its first Zika vaccine shots Tuesday, in hopes to further research that could lead to a vaccine used around the world.

The vaccine was developed by the National Institute of Health, which chose three places to test, first in their labs in Bethesda, then at the U of M School of Medicine, and finally at Emery University in Atlanta.

The University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore announced details Tuesday of a joint national security academy.

Officials said the academy, which would be located in College Park, will enable them to expand their current programs in cybersecurity, law, criminology and counterterrorism.

Recently there have been numerous articles and editorials understandably scrutinizing the increases in pricing of EpiPen produced by Mylan, a generic drug company. The strong reaction to the behavior of Mylan and a few other companies is threatening to impede the ability of R&D-focused innovator companies to provide innovative, life-changing new therapies to patients.

Tech star and billionaire Steve Case has been hammering home one idea for the last few years — that the future of tech and startups rests outside of the traditional Silicon Valley ecosystem and in the fertile plains of America’s heartland.

Now, with less than a month until his fifth “Rise of the Rest” tour, he sees that idea gaining traction.

GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE/NYSE: GSK) today announces a series of agreements with Aspen (JSE: APN) aligned with GSK’s strategy of simplification through focusing on core therapeutic areas.

GSK will divest its anaesthesia portfolio to Aspen for £180 million plus milestones of up to £100 million. In addition to this divestment, GSK and Aspen have entered into parallel agreements to terminate their collaboration in Sub-Saharan Africa and for Aspen to exercise its option to acquire GSK’s remaining thrombosis business in certain retained markets.

Altimmune, Inc., a clinical stage immunotherapeutic company, today announced that Christine Brennan, PhD, Principal at Novartis Venture Fund, has joined its Board of Directors effective immediately. Dr. Brennan replaces Florent Gros from Novartis Venture Fund.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome Dr. Brennan to our Board. She has an impressive background in the biopharmaceutical industry, and her experience and guidance will be invaluable as we continue to advance the clinical development of our three drug candidates,” said Bill Enright, President and Chief Executive Officer of Altimmune. “We would also like to thank Mr. Gros for his service to Altimmune over the past year.”

Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University and the University of Virginia were among the top Washington-area universities making an appearance on U.S. News and World Report's 2017 Best Colleges edition released Tuesday.

$248 million in cash from Sanofi, and the same amount in a capital contribution by Verily (not in cash) have breathed life to a new company — Onduo — where the two equal partners will wage battle with a formidable enemy: diabetes.

Everyone likes to talk about innovation, but how can you stop simply talking about and start driving real innovation in biotech? We looked at some of the most ground-breaking, silo-busting movers and shakers around to bring you the "Top 5 Ways to Innovate in Biote

ExeGi Pharma, LLC announced the launch of the new probiotic formulation, Visbiome™ and Visbiome™ Extra Strength. Visbiome contains the pioneering probiotic blend developed by Professor Claudio De Simone, M.D., Ph.D. (the "De Simone Formulation"), and it has the same strains, in the same concentrations and proportions, and is therapeutically equivalent to the VSL#3®1 probiotic blend produced before January 31, 2016. Visbiome, a medical food, delivers anti-inflammatory probiotic bacteria in high concentrations, normalizing the gut flora and providing sustained relief from symptoms of multiple gastroenterological conditions including ulcerative colitis, chronic pouchitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Mandates for the provision of telemedicine have driven insurance companies and employers to jump into arrangements with pre-smartphone era companies like Teladoc, MD Live, and American Well.

Nope, this isn't a scene out of Free Willy.

It's actually taking place in the Army Bay, New Zealand, where a kayaker casually jumped out of his vessel to hang out with a curious orca on Monday. Tim Stewart is said daring kayaker, who told the NZ Herald he went down to the ocean after he heard of orca sightings in the area.

Smart money VCs are on pace to participate in fewer cybersecurity deals through the end of this year, compared to 2015. This year, through Q2’16, the top two dozen smart money VCs participated in nearly 30 cybersecurity funding rounds — deals that totaled $657M in aggregate.

Startups in the medical device industry are on pace for an uptick in financing, thanks to interest from private market investors, including corporates. We put together a periodic table of medical device companies to highlight promising startups, industry categories, exits, and active investors in the category.

The Georgetown-based Halcyon Incubator celebrated the commencement of a new cohort on Thursday with another announcement — two years ago, to the day, the incubator itself was launched. In that time, S&R Foundation COO Kate Goodall informed the gathered crowd, the incubator has served 32 ventures, which have raised a collective $10 million in funding and “impacted” 2 million lives around the world.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) Program provides funding for university-based research projects that help Maryland companies develop technology-based products, combining the creative expertise of Maryland’s university faculty with the drive of the state’s entrepreneurs. Up to $100,000 per year is available for each project.

Upcoming Information Sessions

Date: Thursday, September 8
Time: Noon-1 p.m.
Location: Chesapeake Innovation Center, 2288 Blue Water Blvd., Building 300, Suite 310, Odenton, MD 21113

Date: Wednesday, September 14
Time: 3-5 p.m.
Location: Frostburg State University Sustainable Energy Research Facility (SERF), 5 Technology Drive, Frostburg, MD 21532

In opening a recent interview with Under Armour (NYSE:UA) founder and CEO Kevin Plank, the commentator described Plank as "next." 

As perhaps the most high-profile member of a cohort of younger CEOs, Plank's overwhelming success in starting and growing Under Armour has become the stuff of business lore. Here are a few of Plank's top quotes on a host of subjects including business, entrepreneurship, and leadership. 

Let’s face it, cells generally like having company, forming communities with other cell types to make complete tissues. However, quite often, researchers isolate cells from their 3-D environments, creating 2-D models that don’t always replicate complex biology.

BIO released the new report “Advancing the Biobased Economy: Renewable Chemical Biorefinery Commercialization, Progress, and Market Opportunities, 2016 and Beyond,” documenting substantial, ongoing growth in the renewable chemical industry and outlining federal and state policies that support the industry.

Gov. Larry Hogan will travel to Israel later this month in an effort to attract more overseas businesses to Maryland, particularly in the areas of biotechnology and cybersecurity.

The Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), founded in Rockville, MD in 1968, is a not-forprofit research institute that emphasizes basic research in schistosomiasis. BRI expanded its subsidiaries in 1985 to include the Association of Entrepreneurial Science (AES), an incubator for startup scientific companies that brings scientists and basic research findings into the realm of commercial markets. AES brings together all the accompanying business skills required for profit making entrepreneurs to bring scientific products and services to the marketplace.

View Flyer

D.C.-based Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) is buying California molecular diagnostics company Cepheid Inc. (NASDAQ: CPHD) for about $4 billion in cash.

The $53 per share price represents a 54 percent premium on its Friday closing price of $34.42 per share. The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, would constitute a sizable addition to Danaher’s $8.2 billion life sciences and medical testing and equipment business.

The Next Phase of the FLC Awards is Here - 2017 FLC Awards

The 2017 FLC Awards is now open for nominations. One of the most coveted honors in the technology transfer field, the FLC awards have been presented to over 200 federal laboratories since their inception in 1984. Many of our winning technology transfer efforts have gone on to become products and devices that are indispensable in our daily lives.

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 NCCIH's Participation in PA-16-414 "Innovation Corps (I-Corps) at NIH Program for NIH and CDC Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Grantees (Admin Supp)"
• (NOT-AT-16-003)
• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
• Notice of Clarification to NHLBI's Policy Regarding Total Years of Support for K24 Funding 
• (NOT-HL-16-442)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Notice of Technical Assistance Webinars for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) FOAs: RFA-RM-011, RFA-RM-012, RFA-RM-013, RFA-RM-014, RFA-RM-16-015, RFA-RM-016, and RFA-RM-017
• (NOT-RM-16-028)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of New Expiration Date for RFA-RM-16-013 "Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Research Program (U01)"
• (NOT-RM-16-029)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives

Requests for Applications: 

• Maximizing the Scientific Value of the NHLBI Biorepository: Scientific Opportunities for Exploratory Research (R21)
• (RFA-HL-17-022)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute