It will be obvious when the Department of Health and Human Services’ IDEA Lab is a success, because it will no longer be needed, according to Damon Davis, the director of the department's Health Data Initiative.

Whatever Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) learned about MacroGenics’ off-the-shelf approach to stirring a T cell attack against cancer since inking their first partnership deal 17 months ago seems to have only whetted the pharma giant’s appetite for more. 

Novartis is splitting its pharmaceuticals division into two business units, one focused on cancer and the second on other drugs, while switching out its current pharma head in the second high-profile management reshuffle this year.

Dr. J. Thomas August, who has spent the last 40 years at Johns Hopkins and decades developing a way for people to fight off viruses, has turned his attention to developing a Zika virus vaccine. He is relying upon one of his own discoveries - a means of delivering cells injected with the DNA code of the virus to a person's own immune system to fight off infection. "Others talk about 10 years to invent and develop a new vaccine,” said August, “We're going to do this in about a year."  August is bankrolling his new Baltimore-based company called Pharos Biologicals with his own money and has enlisted CEO David Wise to help raise as much as $5 million to conduct the initial trials.

The TMCx accelerator program couples the resources of Texas Medical Center with the innovative horsepower of entrepreneurs working in the areas of medical technology and digital health. Throughout the program, startups engage with TMC physicians and other hospital stakeholders to refine their value proposition and determine their product/market fit.

Neuralstem, Inc. (Nasdaq: CUR), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of central nervous system therapies based on its neural stem cell technology, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell 2,700,000 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase 2,700,000 shares of common stock in a private placement. The securities are being sold in a private offering at a price of $0.40 per one share of common stock and one common stock purchase warrant. The warrants have an exercise price of $0.40 per share, are immediately exercisable and expire on the fifth anniversary of the date of issuance. The shares of common stock and warrants are immediately separable and will be issued separately.

Researchers at the University of Maryland were able pull away color and chemicals from a block of wood to leave it impressively see-through. The result is a material that is both stronger and more insulating than glass, with better biodegradability than plastic. "We were very surprised by how transparent it could go," said Liangbing Hu, who wrote about the project in Advanced Materials.

At the North Bethesda Marriott, Maryland's leading technology and life science companies gathered to celebrate recent successes from the most innovative teams in the state on Thursday night's industry celebration.

Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi (NYSE: SNY), announced today a research collaboration with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine that will focus on novel strategies aimed at advancing the understanding of underlying causes of disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS). The collaboration, under guidance by a joint committee of representatives from Sanofi Genzyme and the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center, will leverage certain technologies and methodologies designed to inform new therapeutic approaches to treating disease progression.

Satellite campuses are increasingly popular for public institutions hoping to expand their reach and increase access to students throughout the state, but the Post reports Maryland’s configuration of combining nine satellite programs onto one campus is unique.

The 2030 Group has hired a consultant to create a campaign to rebrand Greater Washington and expects to launch that campaign early next year. The fear is that the region all too often loses its best and brightest to places such as Silicon Valley and lags when it comes to diversifying its economy away from a dependence on the federal government to a more entrepreneurial one centered on innovation.

The state venture capital fund led an add-on investment for Columbia's Healthcare Interactive and is the kind of deal the fund wants to do more of in the future.

It’s abundantly clear that microörganisms play an essential role in maintaining the health of humans, animals, and plants. But how exactly they pull this off is still mostly a mystery—one that the White House hopes to help solve by way of a new microbiome research initiative.

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 Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Research Program (U01)
• (NOT-RM-16-014)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human  Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Collaborative Centers (U54)
• (NOT-RM-16-015)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Research Grants (U01)
• (NOT-RM-16-016)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Collaborative Centers (U54)
• (NOT-RM-16-017)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Administrative Coordinating Center (U24)
• (NOT-RM-16-018)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Informatics Network (U24)
• (NOT-RM-16-019)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• BD2K Predoctoral Training in Biomedical Big Data Science (T32) 
• (RFA-LM-16-002)
• National Library of Medicine, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Cancer Institute, National Eye Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01)
• (PAR-16-238) 
• National Cancer Institute, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Due to California’s penchant for legislating at the ballot box, the state has reigned as the top destination for industry campaign spending since even before the Supreme Court widened the door to corporate political donations with its 2010 Citizens United decision. 

Europe already has many of the ingredients for successful biotech and pharma activity—top-tier academic research, a commitment to public research funding, a heritage of pharmaceutical giants stretching back to 1668 (when Merck was founded in Darmstadt, Germany), and a growing number of biotechs nurtured by regional biotech clusters (especially in Germany and France).

This week at Health Datapalooza, a group of medtech and pharma companies traded insights on the strategic partnerships they built with technology companies and what they learned in the process. But they also touched on how they collaborate with startups.

Johns Hopkins University took over the No. 1 spot on this week's List of patents in Maryland. The private research institution obtained 133 patents in 2015, achieving a total of 454 patents in the last five years.

It would be easy to mistake the Universities at Shady Grove as a flagship public school, with its red-brick buildings and its state-of-the-art labs, library and fitness center.

Stafford County leaders voted to infuse $500,000 into the county’s Tech and Research Park.

The money from the county’s Economic Opportunity Fund will be used to launch a co-working space and business incubator at the Quantico Corporate Center site in North Stafford. Incubators attract start-up companies and entrepreneurs looking for temporary office and meeting space to grow their firms.

Not only have several of the top bioscience companies in our region grown in the past year, but we can already predict some of the biggest growth spurts we’ll see next.

Healthcare Interactive tacked on a few extra million dollars to its latest funding round.

The Glenwood-based company announced $3.4 million in additional funding. It’s a tack-on to the health planning company’s $8 million Series A announced in 2014.

Epigenomics AG, a German-American cancer molecular diagnostics company, with its U.S. headquaters in Germantown, MD, announced that LabCorp® to offer Epi proColon®, a blood-based test for colorectal cancer screening, in the U.S.

With its U.S. headquarters located within the Germantown Innovation Center, Epigenomics recently announced that its blood-based test for colorectal cancer screening, Epi proColon®, will be available in the U.S.  This deal is yet another example of the success of a company in Montgomery County’s Business Innovation Network, specifically in the life sciences incubator, earning significant revenue from the marketplace.  "It's truly hard to express how proud we are when an incubator company makes it through FDA approvals and gets their product to market," said Sally Sternbach, Acting Director of Montgomery County Department of Economic Development.

Redonda Miller, senior vice president of medical affairs for the Johns Hopkins Health System and vice president of medical affairs for The Johns Hopkins Hospital, will assume the role of president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital on July 1.

She will succeed current president Ronald R. Peterson, becoming the hospital's 11th president and the first woman to hold the post since the hospital was founded in 1889.

Greater Washington builds great startups – we just can’t keep them here.

Over the past 20 years, 105 D.C. area startups were sold for more than $1 billion, but only 16 of those deals kept the businesses in the region, according to a new report examining innovation in the D.C. area. And out of 6,000 business sales over the last 20 years, about 75 percent were to out-of-region purchasers.

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association, announced the winners of it 28th Annual Industry Awards during a celebration at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center attended by more than 600 technology and business leaders.

A team of MIT and Harvard University students who invented a smartphone-connected sensor that detects lung cancer from a single breath took home the grand prize from Wednesday night’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

The 2030 Group has hired a global brand consultant to help rebrand Greater Washington and expects to launch a marketing campaign early next year.

There’s no doubt that telemedicine is growing: Its usage is up 50 percent since 2013 with nearly 15 million people using such services in 2015. Here are the top five telemedicine trends happening right now.

Healthcare Interactive Inc. has raised $3.4 million to bring on more clients for its health care planning business.

The new funding is an add-on to the company’s Series A round and was led by the Maryland Venture Fund, the state’s venture capital arm. Previous investors Grotech Ventures and Harbert Management Corp. also participated. The new funding brings Healthcare Interactive’s total Series A to $11.8 million.

Wait, can this be true? From a new report by 1776, “a global incubator and seed fund,” comes this startling claim: “Boston is the #1 city in the U.S. for fostering entrepreneurial growth.”

Boston, not Silicon Valley? Really? This chart from the reports seems to say otherwise:

Join us this month at a special Baltimore BioBuzz to to showcase the region's #1 ranked strength among other Biotech industry hubs - our talent. Graduate Student groups from JHU and UMB have come together to sponsor BioBuzz and welcome all of our regional industry partners to join them. They are all seeking to connect with and impact our regional industry and ecosystem and begin to show you what their vision of tomorrow looks like.

Come out on May 26th to the Baltimore BioBuzz at Heavy Seas Ale House to meet the leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Event is for Post-Docs & Professional Scientists currently working in the Therapeutic Areas of:

•Oncology

•Respiratory, Inflammation & Autoimmunity

•Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases

•Infectious Diseases & Vaccines

•Related scientific disciplines    

Event will include music, lawn games, hors d'oeuvres, drinks.

Helping individuals returning from incarceration pay for housing, mentoring high school students to build robotic cars, and providing a system to reuse dorm furnishings and supplies are among the winning ideas to emerge from the latest round of online crowdsourcing on the Johns Hopkins Idea Lab.

IBM today announced a multi-year, cognitive computing collaboration with the University of Maryland in Baltimore on an Accelerated Cognitive Cybersecurity Laboratory (ACCL). It’s the second such move in a month. In mid-April Big Blue announced plans for the Center for Cognitive Computing Systems Research (C3SR) to be based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.