Skim the headlines, and you might get the impression that the biotech startup world revolves around an insider’s club of Midas-listed venture capitalists.

Not true.

Risk management has become a top-of-mind issue for C-suites and boards around the world—nowhere more than in pharmaceutical companies. In a politically and economically turbulent environment, the risks pharma companies face, especially in clinical-trial design and execution, drug approval, product quality, and global commercial practices, are increasing in both frequency and magnitude.

Apply now!

CARB-X 2018 Funding Round 2 is open for applications until June 8, 2018, 5 PM EST. Expressions of Interest are welcome on-line only.

The scope of Round 2 funding is broad and includes therapeutics, vaccines, microbiome, diagnostics and other life-saving products for certain drug-resistant and difficult-to-treat pathogens. 

Detailed information about the scope of Round 2 can be found here.

Information about how to apply for CARB-X funding can be found here. The on-line link to submit an Expression of Interest is now live, and will be live until June 8 at 5 PM EST.

Healthcare focused startups and government agencies got together in the same room here for HHS Startup Day and each group brought some hard-earned advice for the other.

Today – May 31 – marks the end of Brain Tumor Awareness month. It’s a special time each year to educate the public and to reflect on the impact the disease has on patients, their families and friends.

Ceres Nanosciences (Ceres) is announcing today that it has reached a key product development milestone for its Nanotrap® Lyme Antigen Test System. The Nanotrap® Lyme Antigen Test System will proceed into manufacturing and analytical performance testing this year and is on track for clinical study and FDA submission in 2019.

Mary Meeker, leading technology analyst and partner at venture firm KIeiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), released her annual internet trends report on Wednesday. As usual, the lengthy compilation of Internet prognostications offers a comprehensive look at the current digital technology landscape and what tech trends to expect next. Here are a few highlights.

Are you interested in leading innovation within an established company or creating your own startup company?

Explore the online Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland. Applications for the fall 2018 entering class are due by June 15, 2018.

Philadelphia’s old brick residential neighborhoods aren’t the only part of the city that’s being gentrified.

The same thing is happening to University City’s rental lab space, where some rents are quadrupling. It’s a sign of success and the flood of investment boosting biotech firms. But it’s also a threat to startups that could force brainy startup leaders to flee to cheap space in the suburbs or go out of state, some university officials, start-up founders and young scientists say.

Bio-Trac, biotechnology training solutions company, announced the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund at TEDCO will partner on three stem cell related training programs: Gene Editing iPSCs and NSCs with CRISPR, Hepatocytes Derived from Human iPSCs, and Generating The Neural Lineage From iPSCs.

When Gov. Harry Hughes went to Anhui Province in China in 1980, it became Maryland’s first foreign sister state, and China’s first province to connect with an American state, the beginning of many steps in its engagement with the United States.

VLP Therapeutics is Recognized by the Government of Japan (Cabinet Office) “Comprehensive Strategy on Science, Technology and Innovation for 2017” VLP Therapeutics was recently recognized as one of eleven companies that exemplify Japan’s commitment to Innovation as outlined in the 2017 Comprehensive Strategy on Science, Technology and Innovation.

Perceptive Navigation, LLC, a medical device company developing minimally-invasive, image-guidance solutions for the areas of cardiology, emergency medicine, and interventional radiology, announced today that it has been awarded a Phase IIB Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The award provides up to $3 million in funding to complete the product development and clinical work required to commercialize Perceptive's first product, the Vu-PathTM Ultrasound System. This award comes as Perceptive completes work on a $1.4 million Phase II award from the NHLBI.

Bridging Innovations, Entrepreneurs, and Opportunities to Advance Global Biopharmaceuticals Development

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Wayne T. Hockmeyer Auditorium

MedImmune, A Member of the AstraZeneca Group

One MedImmune way, Gaithersburg, MD 20878

The Montgomery County Council approved the fiscal year (FY) 2019 operating budget on Thursday, May 24, 2018. Included in the budget is a total of $425,000 for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Matching Grant Program. The program provides matching fund for businesses that receive federal SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.

Bill 41-17, Economic Development Fund – Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Matching Grant Program established a County matching fund for businesses that receive federal SBIR and STTR grants. Councilmember George Leventhal, who serves as chair of the Council’s Health and Human Services Committee and is a member of the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee, was the lead sponsor of Bill 41-17. All other Councilmembers were cosponsors.

Scientists struggling to find funding for research may have a new source of money: crowdfunding.

AstraZeneca has officially opened its new research facility in South San Francisco, bundling five of its Bay Area sites into a single unit at the heart of California’s biotech cluster.

We're pleased to announce that Richard Bendis, President & CEO BioHealth Innovation, Inc., will be a featured speaker at the 2018 Inova Discovery Series: Early Stage Investing in Health Technology!

We have over 300+ registered for our inaugural event. We hope you'll join us on June 21st at the Inova Center for Personalized Health.

Applications CARB-X welcomes applications from around the world for funding and support for the early development of antibiotics, diagnostics, vaccines, devices and other products to combat the most serious drug-resistant bacteria. Please read the sections below carefully to find out what CARB-X funds and how to apply for funding and support.

While the number of active investors and funded ventures continued to shrink in 2017, an increase in dollars invested and deal sizes shows angel investors are bullish about their prospects, indicates an annual report by the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research.

The Administration is kicking off a series of public meetings as part of its “Return on Investment” initiative to increase the benefits that American taxpayers receive from funding $150 B annually in government supported R&D.  The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is heading the project and issued a request for information (Request for Information (RFI)) seeking ideas on how to improve the commercialization of resulting technologies.

The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator has announced the five AgTech startups selected for the program’s class of 2018. The Accelerator, based in Des Moines, Iowa, is a mentor-led program focused on ag technology innovations.

Brian Hahn, Chief Financial Officer of GlycoMimetics, Inc., provided testimony today on behalf of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment. Hahn serves as the Co-Chair of BIO’s Finance & Tax Committee.

Understanding the far- and wide-ranging Maryland technology ‘household’ or ecosystem is essential to success, according to Glenna E. Cush, director of marketing with the state’s Small Business Development Center.

The angel investor market in 2017 saw an increase in investment dollars and deal size, according to the latest angel market analysis released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

Total investments in 2017 were $23.9 billion, an increase of 12.6 percent over 2016, and 61,560 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding in 2017, a decline of 4.4% over 2016 investments. The number of active investors in 2017 was 288,380 individuals, a decrease of 3.2 percent from 2016.

It's not just tech companies that can trace their roots back to a garage. According to co-founder Joel Marcus, Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE:ARE) -- a real estate investment trust specializing in life sciences laboratory and office space -- got its start in a garage, too. Since its founding in 1994, Alexandria Real Estate has grown into an $18 billion commercial real estate Goliath with $1.1 billion in annual revenue. Can this company's success continue? I recently spoke with Marcus to learn more about the company and its opportunities.

The SBIR/STTR program, which dubs itself as “America’s Seed Fund,” is one of the broadest forms of early-stage capital available to small technology companies. During the five-year period from 2013 to 2017, the 11 federal agencies participating in the SBIR/STTR program distributed 25,524 awards. Using charts, maps, and a downloadable spreadsheet, this Digest article looks at trends in SBIR/STTR awards by state over the period, including the companies with the most awards and states where SBIR/STTR awards outnumber VC deals. A future article will look at awards by metropolitan area.

In the City of Clustered Spires, the steeples aren't alone in their impressive trajectories. This month, we recognize eight of Frederick's most successful young entrepreneurs who have also risen above the ordinary, and continue to reach higher. 

Some 40 years after the biotech industry's birth, old-school Big Pharma is planting flags in the Bay Area.

AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN) formally opened its 163,000-square-foot lab and office facility Tuesday in HCP Inc.'s (NYSE: HCP) Britannia Cove in South San Francisco. It joins Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) as some of the traditional drug maker names expanding operations in the Bay Area while trying to snare some of the region's drug-development mojo.

The United States–India Science & Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) was created for the promotion of joint activities that would lead to innovation and entrepreneurship through the application of science and technology. US-India research partners working on tangible innovations are suitable for this funding.

9th Call of the United States-India Science & Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) Program is now open with a deadline of 15 June 2018. While the detailed information about the program can be accessed through the websites www.usistef.org and www.iusstf.org

Opioids: Changing the Paradigm on Treating Pain and Addiction

4:15 PM–5:15 PM Jun 5, 2018

Room 256, Level 2

The opioid epidemic knows no age limits. Newborns and young children are the most vulnerable victims of the opioid epidemic. An American Academy of Pediatrics research suggests more than 100 children test positive for opioid addiction or dependency each day in US emergency departments. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) births in the US occur at the rate of ~6 for every 1,000 and 15 per 1,000 in some rural areas. Studies suggest there will be over 50,000 NAS infant births in 2017.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park and Baltimore campuses are working to shed new light on how, one day, immune tissues could be designed and implanted to create next-generation vaccines or immunotherapies for a range of diseases, or serve as cutting-edge tools for the early diagnosis of cancers or other illnesses.

The Maryland Technology Development Corp. has awarded a $750,000 grant to Longeveron LLC, a Miami-based biopharmaceutical company, to study whether stem cells can make a better flu vaccine for seniors with a researcher from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

VLP Therapeutics, LLC. (“VLP”), a biotechnology company focusing on the research and development of therapeutic and preventative vaccines and new cancer therapies, announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued US Patent #9,969,986 covering a virus like particle comprising modified envelope protein E3. The patent protects key composition of matter of VLP’s proprietary i-αVLP virus-like particle platform technology and the pharmaceutical composition for use in preventing infectious disease and the treatment of cancer. VLP Therapeutics is currently focused on developing preventative infectious disease vaccines and therapeutic cancer vaccines utilizing the platform technology covered by patent #9,969,986 and other issued US patents,

Although the concept of immunotherapy has been around for more than a century, it only gained prominence as a method of targeted cancer therapy in the early 2000s. In 2015, Merck’s Keytruda® (pembrolizumab), a checkpoint inhibitor drug, made headlines as a breakthrough therapy for melanoma after former U.S. president Jimmy Carter was treated with it. Keytruda had just received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the first anti-PD-1 therapy, and its highly-publicized success created a frenzy in the media; followed by the initiation of scores of immuno-oncology (I-O) clinical trials.