Roger Jeffs will step down as president and co-CEO at United Therapeutics Corp. as part of an executive shakeup at one of Greater Washington’s largest bioscience firms.

Biopharmaceutical research has never been for the faint of heart. For small biotech companies working on the absolute edge of innovation, one clinical trial can literally mean the difference between closing up shop or commercializing a breakthrough, life-saving medicine. And even for big pharmaceutical companies, setbacks have always been inevitable – the nature of discovery means that success comes only after years of trial and error.

How can we detect ovarian cancer before it’s too late? Can we make wounds heal faster? What are the alternatives to bariatric surgery for people with type 2 diabetes? Is there a way to reduce complications and cost in reconstructive surgery?

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) held a grand opening for its Community Engagement Center in West Baltimore at 1 N. Poppleton St. on Saturday, April 16, including a spring community festival to introduce the neighborhood to the center and its valuable services. Maryland’s First Lady Yumi Hogan was a guest at the grand opening, assisted with the ribbon-cutting, and spent the day with community members at the spring festival.

Baltimore is in line to have two schools that offer a career pathway program developed by IBM.

Gov. Larry Hogan signed a bill into law on Tuesday that provides framework and funding for P-TECH in the state. The Pathways in Technology Early College High School program follows a model of partnering with companies to provide students with STEM skills so they are immediately ready for a job. Starting the program in 9th grade, the students receive a high school diploma, associate’s degree and additional workforce training.

Emergent BioSolutions has filed a supplemental Biologics License Application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to scale up production of its anthrax vaccine BioThrax. BioThrax is the only FDA-approved anthrax vaccine for humans. It's primarily produced for and purchased by the U.S. military, and has been in distribution since the 1970s.

If academic discoveries turn out to be wrong, one drug company wants its money back.

That’s the tough-minded proposal floated today by the chief medical officer of Merck & Co., one of the world’s 10 largest drug companies, as a way to fix the “reproducibility crisis,” or how many, if not most, published scientific reports turn out to be incorrect.

May 8-11, 2016 - Grand Hyatt Washington DC in Washington, DC

Health Datapalooza is the gathering place for people and organizations creating knowledge from data and pioneering innovations that drive health policy and practice, and generate market value. Conceived as part of a public/private movement to liberate and use health data, the Datapalooza continues its tradition of engaging patient and consumer voices, and bringing national and international leaders from the C-levels of business and government together for engaging discussions.

We're excited to invite you to join us for the 2016 Health Datapalooza – the meeting that brings data to life in ways that matter in health and health care. This year's meeting finds us even closer to the reality of using data, analytics, and technology to re-define how we deliver and pay for health care. Come hear how data sharing, use, and transparency fuels innovative applications and business models that are building momentum towards a vibrant health information economy that drives high value health care.

Presented by the Tech Council of Maryland, Bio+Tech16 reflects the changing landscape where life sciences and technology converge by bringing together more than 500 professionals in both fields so that they may meet and forge new partnerships that will lead to great new discoveries. Bio+Tech16 is the first event of its kind in the Mid-Atlantic region that brings together the life science and technology sectors to meet and leverage the talents of the other to grow their organizations and their industry.

A simple blood test to detect early signs of cancer. A noninvasive way to screen pregnancies for common genetic conditions. An app store for your genetic information. Illumina, a San Diego-based gene-sequencing hardware and software behemoth with a market capitalization of $22 billion, is working on all these initiatives—and more.

University tech transfer offices play a central role in the biotech ecosystem, as the successful commercialization of an academic discovery is the aspiration of many young startups. Navigating–and optimizing–this tech transfer process is therefore critical to the health of the biotech sector.

Incubators aren’t just for startups and entrepreneurs with a business idea. A new film incubator at Johns Hopkins University will look to cultivate new ideas for producing films and give a voice to local filmmakers and visual artists. The program, called the Bold Voices, New Paradigms Incubator, is part of the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film and Media Studies, which was launched by a $1 million grant from the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation.

Hello Tomorrow is a global non-profit headquartered in Paris that aims to accelerate science & tech innovation by empowering startups with cash prizes and connections with investors and industrials. It was created in 2011 by Xavier Duportet & Arnaud de la Tour. Hello Tomorrow is supported by the French public and private sectors, but remains an independent organization governed by entrepreneurs.

Novartis (NOVN.S) is discussing options with banks for selling its near $14 billion (9.7 billion pounds) stake in rival Roche (ROG.S), potentially providing cash for new deals, though a sale is not imminent, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Merely 5 percent of healthcare organizations worldwide are “operating at the highest level of digital health innovation proficiency and expertise,” according to a report from digital health consulting firm Enspektos. That means the vast majority have yet to scale and share their innovations, even within their own walls.

Dr. Jay Bradner, a decorated cancer researcher from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, turned heads last year when he accepted a top job at Novartis, one of the world’s largest drug makers. Academics jump to industry all the time, but Bradner made his name with a move pharma almost never makes: When he discovered a potentially cancer-fighting molecule, he just gave it away.

University of Maryland will break ground Saturday on a new computer science building made possible by a $31 million donation from a student-turned-technology entrepreneur.

Currently live on SBIR.gov , are FY 2016 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant and contract funding opportunities from NSF, DOD, and HHS.

If you’re an innovator, entrepreneur, researcher, or small technology firm, looking to engage in high-tech growth entrepreneurship and seeking non-dilutive funding opportunities to facilitate your necessary R&D prototype development, then SBIR.gov should be one of your first reference points of interest.

While speakers at the first day of Smithsonian magazine’s fourth annual “Future is Here” festival shared their thoughts on subjects as diverse as computer programming, the Zika virus, human space exploration, the future of the internet and the state of global fisheries, they all shared a common thread: there’s hope. Never give up—even if you have to wait a long time.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Our annual Industry Awards Celebration recognizes the leaders and innovators in the technology and life science communities from Maryland and the surrounding regions. The evening brings over 900 technology, life science, government, academia, and supporting businesses together at one place, at one time for Maryland's best night of networking.

AstraZeneca has received Food And Drug Administration approval for one product, and entered into a deal to sell the U.S. rights to another. The FDA granted marketing approval to Bevespi Aerosphere, a maintenance treatment of airflow obstruction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

American University is launching a new Center for Innovation in the Capital on Wednesday, part of its ongoing efforts to position itself as a source for business intelligence in Greater Washington.

1776 is launching a new campus in Dubai.

The D.C.-based startup incubator and seed fund signed an agreement to open an outpost at the Dubai Museum of the Future Foundation, a new organization formed to promote innovation in the United Arab Emirates.

One of the first things a new developer in healthcare quickly realizes is integrating and launching your application on top of medical data can be a total nightmare and often a showstopper. There are hundreds of electronic medical record (EMR) vendors and every implementation has a different “flavor” of a handful of competing standards.

MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, today announced that it has achieved a significant scientific milestone by publishing three manuscripts in Nature Immunology that advance the understanding of the immune system and highlight underlying mechanisms in two little-understood disease areas -- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). These include:

Baltimore-based Sisu Global Health has announced $200,000 in funding from the Abell Foundation to further progress of its medical device created to be used in the developing world.

US-based medical devices firm Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) Monday said it will introduce a malaria detection method developed by Israel’s Sight Diagnostics Ltd (SightDX) in India, which will make a diagnosis in just in four minutes.

Universities traditionally measure their impact on entrepreneurship locally. At last month’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC), Bill Aulet from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reminded us that in a world where national boundaries are porous to both innovation and knowledge creation, assessing our impact globally can be a strong driver of collective performance improvement.

Please join us at http://greaterbaltimore.adobeconnect.com/springupdate/ on April 28 at 3:00 PM for a discussion of the region's successes. The Central Maryland region has a strong foundation to support a BioHealth innovation ecosystem. The region is teeming with talent, world-renowned research universities, and a growing number of large firms. However, Central Maryland is catching up to its peers in terms of startup creation. The EAGB and BioHealth Innovation have partnered to publish the Central Maryland BioHealth Innovation Index, a report that benchmarks the region among the country's top markets and identifies strengths and opportunities for continued economic growth.

Who: Sona Shah, 26, and Teresa Cauvel, 23, both of whom recently received master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from Columbia University. Shah previously worked as an engineer for the pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Co.

For the second consecutive year, President Jay A. Perman, MD, addressed the Regional BioTech Forum to discuss advances in research and commercialization by the University of Maryland, Baltimore and its partners in academia and the private sector.

Throughout the year, we publish new Lists on the top companies, executives and deals in the Washington region based on our research. This week’s Lists included the region’s biggest venture capital deals in 2015, ranked by deal value, and the region’s largest venture capital firms and largest private equity firms, both ranked by assets under management. Here are three things of note about the venture capital lending in our region.

Join us on April 27 from 4 to 7 p.m. to watch Montgomery College student entrepreneurs compete in our second annual Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition!

Modeled after ABC's Shark Tank, this year we are excited to have five student finalist teams who will be present their service or product to a panel of judges for the potential to win a portion of more than $5,000 in total seed money! This prize money will give these MC students the chance to expand or initiate their very own business.

AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, have chosen Cambridge as the base for a pioneering new genomics research centre.

Over the last five years, electronic health records (EHRs) have been widely implemented in the United States, and health care systems now have access to vast amounts of data. While they are beginning to apply “big data” techniques to predict individual outcomes like post-operative complications and diabetes risk, big data remains largely a buzzword, not a reality, in the routine delivery of health care. Health systems are still learning how to broadly apply such analytics, outside of case examples, to improve patient outcomes while reducing spending.