Gentian’s CEO Dr. Hilja Ibert, Ph.D., guests on BioTalk from the BioHealth Capital Region Investor Conference to talk about their presence in the US market, Biomarkers, and Innovate Diagnostic Efficiency.

Listen now on Google Podcasts http://bit.ly/2MwE0w8, Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/2P7e5Nw, and TuneIn http://bit.ly/2oZkv6x

Dr. Hilja Ibert has over 25 years’ experience from the international diagnostic industry, from which she also has extensive leadership experience. She is a hands-on CEO, driving development and commercialization of product solutions for the clinical diagnostics market.

Gentian is a research-driven company that Dr. Ibert knows to appreciate, as she has gained experience with the development and market introduction of innovative technology throughout her career. Gentian develops and manufactures immunoassays based on unique and proprietary technologies, which enables these products to run on a wide range of high-throughput clinical chemistry analyzers. This results in significant workflow advantages for the laboratories. Through Dr. Ibert’s leadership, the company innovates and focuses on diagnostic efficiency through development and production of accurate and high throughput immunoassays that save time and costs for the laboratories and which provide relevant information earlier to clinicians. By doing so, Gentian contributes to improved patient outcomes. Gentian’s current products and pipeline cover kidney, infectious, inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases.

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield's corporate investment and innovation organization, Healthworx, has partnered with the Washington, D.C.-based Halcyon incubator program to provide funding and support for healthcare entrepreneurs.

Through the partnership, Healthworx will allot up to $200,000 to support innovative healthcare ventures in the incubator. Additionally, a Healthworx team member will join the Halcyon selection committee, tasked with ensuring that at least one slot in each of the next four program cohorts will go to a healthcare entrepreneur or startup developing solutions to improve outcomes and reduce the cost of care.

Virginia Tech plans to launch a cancer research initiative to promote collaboration among engineers, veterinarians, biomedical researchers and other scientists.

“We are going to create a sense of intellectual community of common interest for people. That takes money, resources and creating things they are interested in,” said Michael Friedlander, Tech’s vice president of health sciences and technology. “We are going to make available instrumentation and facilities for cancer researchers to use from all over the campus, some of which will be here, some of which will be new things we haven’t gotten yet. And we’re going to survey people: What do you need that you don’t have at Virginia Tech for leading-edge research?”

Image: Michael Friedlander

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) recently conducted a survey called, “Women in Technology Leadership 2019”, which examined tech and healthcare company startup data and demographics. Respondents were from the U.S., UK, Canada and China.

SVB’s survey found that only 56% of responding startups have at least one woman in an executive position and only 40% have at least one woman on the board of directors. 28% of surveyed startups had at least one female founder. 

Image: https://biobuzz.io

Cerecor Announces $43 Million Deal with AYTU BioScience to Sell Pediatric Portfolio and Advance Towards NDA

It was announced today that Rockville, Maryland-based Cerecor Inc. (NASDAQ: CERC) has entered into an asset purchase agreement with AYTU BioScience, Inc. (“AYTU”) to sell Cerecor’s Pediatric Portfolio in a deal valued in excess of $32 million.

Cerecor is a biopharmaceutical company focused on becoming a leader in the development and commercialization of treatments for pediatric rare diseases. Earlier this year the company received Fast Track Designation for its lead product candidate, CERC-801 and expects to receive its first FDA approval within the next 18 months.

Visit https://lnkd.in/e8zm7df to read more.

A pair of biotechnology companies — Viela Bio and NextCure — launched initial public offerings this year, raising nearly $260 million in public funds between them.

Image: Courtesy of Catalyte 

We are hiring! Maryland Commerce is looking for a professional from the life sciences industry to serve as our Director of BioHealth and Life Sciences. Come be part of the team!

I am happy to announce that a manuscript detailing a AEX and VF spiking study performed with MedImmune (AstraZeneca) and Texcell has been published in Biotechnology Progress. Click here for a good read!

On September 18, 2019, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was named the Venture Capital Firm of the Year at the 2019 LMG Life Sciences Awards, besting four other law firm nominees for the second year in a row. LMG's annual awards program honors the top firms and legal professionals in the life sciences market. Awards are based on interviews and surveys completed by participants who are active in the life sciences market. This year's awards program was held in New York City at Essex House.

Thank you Nasdaq for shinning a light today on Adaptive Phage Therapeutics and the significant market potential of our phage therapy in meeting the rapidly expanding un-met need for a cure for patients with antibiotic resistant bacterial infections. Thanks to the NEXT team at Shulman Rogers for your support!

With more than three months to go, 2019 is already turning out to be an inspirational year for women entrepreneurs working toward closing the gender gap in VC. As of the end of August, companies founded solely by women have garnered around $2.4 billion of VC dollars in the US in 2019, on pace to surpass last year's decade-high of $3 billion, according to the latest update from PitchBook's VC Female Founders Dashboard.

Image: https://pitchbook.com

JPMorgan Chase is working to pair its financial and philanthropic resources to create a more diverse, equal, and bias-free financial world. Part of those efforts is its program for gender equality, Women on the Move, which aims to expand women-run businesses, improve women’s financial health, and empower women’s career growth. At the 2019 Women on the Move Leadership Day, CEO Jamie Dimon spoke with Raquel Oden, the Northeast Division Director at JPMorgan Chase & Co to hear his thoughts on the company’s philanthropy, being an ally, and healthcare.

Image: PHOTO: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM / FLICKR / CREATIVE COMMONS 2.0  

CEO Jason Miller to step down in June 2020; Mark Weinberger, EY and Peter Scher, JPMorgan Chase to lead search for new CEO

Washington, D.C.—In almost three years since its creation, the Greater Washington Partnership has become a driving force in moving the region forward, having immediate impact around the issues and opportunities that differentiate the Capital Region as a leading innovative regional economy. Jason Miller has been the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership, and he will be stepping down as CEO in June 2020, to pursue opportunities working on pressing economic issues at the national level, building on his efforts driving economic growth and prosperity in a regional economy. As the Partnership looks forward, Mark Weinberger of EY and Peter Scher of JPMorgan Chase will lead the search for a new CEO to continue the advancement and impact of the organization.

Suburban Maryland has become one of the nation’s strongest markets for life sciences, according to JLL’s latest industry Outlook.

As home to the headquarters of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), suburban Maryland has always held a distinct advantage over core life sciences clusters. Innovation is thriving and investors, employers and real estate stakeholders have taken note and are collectively changing the market, cementing its role as a leader in the life sciences sector.

Image: https://www.bizjournals.com

Gentian’s subsidiary in the US, Gentian USA, Inc. collaborates with BioHealth Innovation (BHI) in order to expand Gentian’s presence in the USA.

BHI, with its established healthcare market and business expertise, addresses Gentian’s needs at this early market entry stage. BHI’s market analysis expertise will allow Gentian to gain valuable market insight to market both their existing products and their pipeline product developments to the US market. In addition, it will also support launches of newly developed, innovative products.

DSC Partners, an investment firm formed in 2017 by former First Potomac executives, has just acquired 28 office buildings in the D.C. suburbs.

The firm announced Wednesday it bought three Montgomery County office parks totaling 1.3M SF for $149M. The 28-building office portfolio consists of the MetroPark North campus in Rockville and the WestTech and Meadows business parks in Silver Spring. 

Image: Courtesy of DSC Partners The MetroPark North office property in Rockville 

On this episode, Carolyn Yarina, CEO & Co-Founder of Sisu Global Health, chats about her Career, Sisu’s Technology, and Thoughts on Entrepreneurism with BioTalk Host Rich Bendis

Carolyn Yarina, CEO and Co-Founder of Sisu Global: Carolyn is a two-time founder/CEO with a proven track record of execution. She has raised nearly $3M from investors like Camden Partners & Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Carolyn has been featured in USA Today, Forbes, TEDxMidAtlantic, and has received awards like Maryland’s Innovator of the Year, Baltimore Business Journal Tech 10, and Baltimore’s Top 10 BioHealth CEO.

We have 108 invited companies and 40 investors participating. Thank you to the Conference partners AstraZeneca, BioHealth Innovation, JP Morgan, Deloitte, WSGR, Maryland Department of Commerce and NIST.

Qiagen and Illumina just made a huge commitment to one another. The two companies announced a 15-year partnership to broaden the availability and use of NGS-based in-vitro diagnostic kits, including companion diagnostics, for patient management.

Initially, the partnership will focus on commercializing oncology IVD kits to support patient management.

The agreement grants Hilden, Germany-based Qiagen non-exclusive rights to develop and globally commercialize IVD kits to be used together with Illumina’s MiSeq Dx and NextSeq 550Dx Systems.

QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) announced today that Peer M. Schatz, Chief Executive Officer, has notified the Company that, after 27 years at QIAGEN, he has decided to step down as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Management Board. He will remain with QIAGEN as Special Advisor to the Supervisory Board and transition into this role in the coming weeks. The Supervisory Board will now start a search for a permanent CEO. In the meantime, Thierry Bernard, Senior Vice President, Head of Molecular Diagnostics Business Area, will now act as interim CEO and work in tandem with Roland Sackers, Chief Financial Officer.

MADISON, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BioForward, the member-driven association that serves as the voice of Wisconsin’s biohealth industry, held its annual Wisconsin Biohealth Summit on October 2nd at the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin.

The 2019 Biohealth Summit had over 500 attendees and featured two keynote sessions, and in a new format had two panel discussions, six fireside chats, an industry-specific career fair, a social media blitz, and virtual reality demonstrations from 3Data and ARCH Virtual.

Manassas, Va. - George Mason University researchers have discovered the exact location where two proteins responsible for hiding cancer cells from the immune system bind. This discovery provides a novel approach to developing new cancer immunotherapy medicines that can be administered as a pill, compared to existing intravenous therapeutics. The findings were published in July 2019 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Image: These 3-D models of a receptor, co-receptor, and ligand demonstrate how the protein painting technology works. Bound proteins in their native form are coated with small molecule dyes. The regions which aren't painted when the proteins are bound, designated white, can be detected by mass spectrometry and inform rational drug development. - Evan Cantwell

What excites you most about taking on the new role of Head of JLABS @ Washington, DC?

The DC-Maryland-Virginia region is a hotbed of life science innovators, along with strong public and private research institutions. This network of connectivity offers such an opportunity for entrepreneurs working in the life sciences, medical device, and consumer technology space. Opening a JLABS in DC introduces our no-strings-attached JLABS model into the region with the aim to support the focus of these innovators on what they do best – their science and research. By providing the resources, mentoring, programming, and connections start-ups need to be successful, we hope to speed the development and commercialization of innovative treatments and solutions for patients and consumers.

Image: https://jlabs.jnjinnovation.com

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Maryland small businesses with innovative research and development (R&D) ideas will have an opportunity to gain comprehensive proposal development support to win federal funding. OST Global Solutions' GovCon Incubator, a woman-owned small business, will train 20 additional Maryland small businesses on how to win government seed fund capital. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Federal and State Technology (FAST) grant awarded to Maryland's Technology Development Corporation(TEDCO) and OST Global Solutions, Inc. for the second consecutive year.

A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Sally Allain on her new position as Head of hashtag#JLABS @ Washington, DC. We, at @Children's National Health System, are super excited to work with Sally and the entire JLABS team to hashtag#Innovate4Kids

Richard Bendis Judy Costello Vasum Peiris, MD, MPH, FAAP, FACC, FASE Jeffrey M. Gallagher Michael Friedlander @Cassandra Isley John Newby @Kyparissia (Kyp) Sirinakis Tami Howie TEDCO Arti Santhanam @Marshall Summar Josh Wilson, MBA Cherri Carbonara @Kimberly Ovitt, APR Kurt Newman Elizabeth Flury @Chelsea Hewitt Jennifer Cosenza Melinda Richter @Carli Hickman Michelle McMurry-Heath

Image: https://www.linkedin.com/

The firm is just the latest locally to raise big new funds.

Image: Carter Griffin, general partner at D.C.-based UpData Partners. AARON CLAMAGE

On Monday morning in Bethesda, Maryland hundreds of industry leaders emerged from a large ballroom at the inaugural Bio Innovation Conference, hosted by Maryland Life Sciences, a division of the Maryland Tech Council.

After hearing the opening remarks attendees could only have felt one of two ways – proud to be part of Maryland’s life sciences community or eager to become part of it.

Image: https://biobuzz.io

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Oct. 10, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) today announced that the company’s chikungunya virus (CHIKV) virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine candidate, CHIKV VLP, was granted PRIority MEdicines, or PRIME, designation by the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) during its September meeting. The PRIME scheme is designed to enhance support for the development of medicines that target an unmet medical need and that may offer a major therapeutic advantage over existing treatments, or benefit patients without preventative or treatment options. The CHIKV VLP vaccine candidate is being developed for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus infection, an illness that spreads through mosquito bites and for which no vaccine or treatment is available.

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Emmes today announced the award of eight new task order contract awards associated with the Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM Initiative, known as the NIH HEAL InitiativeSM. The total value for the eight contracts is more than $9 million. The contract awards' duration ranges from one to five years.

The National Institutes of Health launched the HEAL Initiative in April 2018 to improve prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction and enhance pain management. The eight Emmes contract awards are among 375 grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements across 41 states made by the National Institutes of Health in fiscal year 2019 to apply scientific solutions to reverse the national opioid crisis.

The biotech is a step closer to getting its therapy for drug-resistant infections to patients.

WASHINGTON – The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) today announced that industry veteran Jim Greenwood will step down as President and CEO of the world’s largest biotechnology organization after the 2020 election and help transition a new leader to represent the industry globally and to defend innovation from domestic political attacks.

The last 10 years have seen a rev o lu tion in drug de vel op ment. Time lines have short ened, par tic u lar ly in on col o gy. Reg u la tors have opened up. In vest ment has sky rock et ed. Chi na be came a play er. Biotechs have mul ti plied as gene and cell ther a py has ex plod ed — of fer ing ma jor new ad vances in the way dis eases are treat ed, and some times cured.

Image: llogene HQ Open House on September 17, 2019 in South San Francisco. (Jeff Rumans, Endpoints News)

A team of researchers has published evidence showing in mice that mitochondria-associated pathways in cell bodies and dendrites within the CA2 subregion of the brain’s hippocampus influence plasticity and mitochondrial respiration—a finding that highlights a potential molecular target for treating human neurodegenerative disorders ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease.

Image: Shannon Farris, PhD, a principal investigator at the Center for Neurobiology Research, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion 

Thanks to a yearslong boom in the world of venture capital, keeping tabs on biotech means constantly reading that some so-called startup is suddenly worth more than $1 billion. But just who is putting the horns on all these unicorns?

Welcome back to “The Facts, STAT!”, a not-infrequent STAT video series in which our reporters briefly explain the need-to-know basics of issues in the world of health care and biotech.

Image: https://www.statnews.com - From Video

Venture capitalists are pouring cash into U.S. biotechs at a rate set to replicate 2018’s record deal count, according to PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association’s third-quarter Venture Monitor report.

In the first three quarters alone, VCs struck 609 biopharma deals — the majority of which were Series A or B — and contributed $11.5 billion in investments.

Notably, the average deal size shrunk from a 2018 high of $25.6 million to $21.2 million. That figure reflects growth in early stage investments but significant declines in late stage.