Biohealth Innovation
That next blockbuster drug? It all begins with a hypothesis: GlaxoSmithKline just announced the winners of its second Discovery Fast Track Challenge – a competition that teams up American and European academia with GSK researchers to speed up their search for new therapeutics.
David Chalker, 50, has excruciating pain in his hip. He’s an Army veteran and because of the pain, he had to leave his job as a machinist, which left him in a great deal of debt and unable to pay for health insurance. He, his wife, and his three daughters needed to move in with his in-laws as a result.
The stampede is back on among venture capital firms to raise new money and close more funds, after years of standing pat following the recession and years of sluggish recovery.
Small businesses are a major driver of high-technology innovation and economic growth in the United States, generating significant employment, new markets, and high-growth industries.1 In this era of globalization, optimizing the ability of small businesses to develop and commercialize new products is essential for U.S. competitiveness and national security. Developing better incentives to spur innovative ideas, technologies, and products—and ultimately to bring them to market—is thus a central policy challenge.
An experimental vaccine to prevent Ebola virus disease was well-tolerated and produced immune system responses in all 20 healthy adults who received it in a Phase 1 clinical trial conducted by researchers from the National Institutes of Health. The candidate vaccine, which was co-developed by the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), was tested at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The interim results are reported online in advance of print in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Immunotherapy is at the forefront of cancer care; however, most cancers evolve the ability to dodge the body’s defenses.
Maryland startup BeneVir is developing immunotherapy viruses that rid the body of two types of tumor cells – those that cause cancer and the ones that make it recurrent.
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:
Program Announcements
In 2015, hospitals will – and should – make more advanced use of "third platform" technologies based on mobile tools, social channels, data analytics and the cloud, according to a recent report from IDC Health Insights.
With healthcare costs unsustainable, but these new technologies now ubiquitous, IDC officials say hospital CIOs will increasingly be turning to new tools – especially as consumers expect healthcare to be as responsive to their wants and needs as other industries.
The color of your urine could be telling you something about your health condition. Yes, your standard yellow is where you want to be, but the different shades of the rainbow make an appearance on occasion.
Angel investors are often rich individuals who provide startups with capital for their start-up costs. The term comes from Broadway, where it was originally used to describe the wealthy individuals who provided money for theatrical productions.
Any small business or venture capital company interested in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding opportunities should pay close attention to the Small Business Administration's (SBA) recent request for public comments, by January 6, 2015, on data rights and Phase III funding, and a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report identifying the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as the two agencies presently accepting applications from majority-owned portfolio companies.
Lacrosse sticks, construction models and surgical tools — these are all things Baltimore companies are making with the help of 3-D printing.
Three-dimensional printing was invented decades ago but has really taken off in the last few years. Printers are more affordable (you can get one for your desktop for the price of a MacBook Pro). And printing material has advanced significantly, to include more durable plastics, metal and more.
British drugmaker AstraZeneca plans to spend $200 million over the next three years, expanding its manufacturing facility in Frederick, Md., and hiring an additional 300 workers at the site, executives said.
The decision further cements Gaithersburg-based MedImmune, an AstraZeneca company, as the crown jewel of Maryland’s life sciences industry.
Nestled in a quiet industrial park in Redmond, Washington, not too far from the Microsoft headquarters, is a small biotech start-up with both an interesting technology they are bringing to market, as well as a capital partner that suggests some ways in which global biotech research, venture capital and commercialization are going to change.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC), a nationwide network of federal laboratories that cultivates best-practice strategies for advancing technology transfer (T2) from the laboratory to the marketplace, today announced the launch of FLCBusiness, an interactive business resource tool.
As the sound of pile driver at the Edward St. John’s Learning and Teaching Center construction site boomed across Campus Drive, officials broke ground Friday morning on another project: a bioengineering building aimed at forwarding research in a relatively new field.
Britain's GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) has asked its shareholders to vote at a meeting on Dec. 18 on its proposed major deal with Switzerland's Novartis (NOVN.VX), which will see the two pharmaceutical group trade more than $20 billion of assets.
Digital technologies such as electronic medical records, mobile devices, and analytics offer the potential to transform health care. Whether it’s a patient using her smartphone to better manage her diabetes, a provider monitoring a patient for arrhythmia remotely, or an electronic health-record system alerting a clinician of a potential drug allergy, digital technologies can create meaningful value for patients and practitioners alike. Yet there are significant barriers to the development and adoption of such technologies that academic medical centers are uniquely positioned to overcome.
Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH, director of the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), and Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, announced today the start of a clinical trial in Baltimore to evaluate different dosage levels of a promising experimental Ebola vaccine developed by the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK
British drugmaker AstraZeneca is doubling down on Maryland, spending $200 million to expand its Frederick manufacturing facility a year after shifting hundreds of out-of-state jobs to Montgomery County.
There are presently massive shifts occurring in the competitive global landscape of health, and particularly in the life sciences. As we approach 2015, it is imperative that leaders in the health space understand the trends and shifts happening around them, not only in the US, but also in international markets, cities and service lines.
Drug giant AstraZeneca will expand its biologics manufacturing center in Frederick and add hundreds of jobs to its operations there.
The drug giant will spend more than $200 million to increase production capacity. MedImmune, AstraZeneca's biologics research and development arm, has more than 120 drugs in its research pipeline, including more than 30 in clinical development. AstraZeneca says the expansion will support its research.
Local companies, along with County Executive Leggett, are exploring incredible international business opportunities in the Indian market as part of the County's business mission to India November 13 through 22. Read the press release to learn more.
Few businesses owned by venture capital firms have been awarded Small Business Innovation Research awards since this program was opened to them two years ago.
Through the SBIR program, 11 federal agencies spend at least 2.8 percent of their outside research budgets with small businesses. Only two of these agencies — the National Institutes of Health and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy — have allowed VC-owned businesses to compete for SBIR awards, according to a new Government Accountability Office study.
The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association for life science and technology, today announced that it will honor former Lockheed Martin Corporation Chairman and CEO Norman Augustine, MedImmune, Inc. Founder Dr. Wayne Hockmeyer and University System of Maryland Chancellor William Kirwan with its 2015 Lifetime Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented during TCM’s Lifetime Achievement Gala, February 19, 2015.
That was the theme when medical thought leaders converged on New York City recently for the Faster Cures Center of the Milken Institute’s “Partnering for Cures” conference where Fox News’ own Dr. Manny Alvarez was a panel moderator.
Health tech incubator MATTER has secured $4.4 million to build the next generation of health IT, medical device, diagnostics and biopharma companies in Chicago. The funding was led by twenty two local companies mostly focused in the tech and healthcare sectors complementing the initial $2.5M grant and $1.5M loan provided by the State of Illinois. This brings MATTER’s total funding to more than $8M to build a viable health tech hub in Chicago.
Surgery is an art form for Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Amir Dorafshar, who on a November morning spent four hours smoothing the point out of a child's skull.
The procedure, needed to allow the 18-month old's brain to grow properly and avoid developmental disorders, requires taking apart the skull in pieces, then putting it back together.
Unlock your molecule’s potential with the help of EMD Millipore’s Emerging Biotech Grant Program
At EMD Millipore, it’s our goal to help advance lifesaving drugs to market. We understand the challenges that emerging biotech companies face in their quest to quickly push the next generation of drugs to market. We want to help you succeed.
Baltimore biotech firm Noxilizer Inc. is expanding its footprint at the University of Maryland BioPark to meet growing demand from clients.
Noxilizer developed a medical sterilization system that uses nitrogen dioxide, a faster alternative to traditional methods. The company added about 5,000 square feet to its sterilization space to accommodate a growing interest in its contract sterilization services. The company's sterilization lab now takes up about 16,00 square feet — the entire basement at 801 W. Baltimore Street.
In perhaps yet another sign of the expanding role of retail healthcare, CVS Health said it is opening a new Digital Innovation Hub on Boston that will serve as a central hub for the Rhode Island-based pharmacy’s digital health team.
Deloitte recently released its 2014 Technology Fast 500 Rankings, and biotech companies ranked third-quickest in growth following software and internet firms. The biotech industry, over all, grew 940 percent this year – the lowest it’s been, actually, in the past decade. Last year, for instance, the it grew 2,723 percent, in 2012 it was 3,734 – the lowest since this year was in 2005, when growth was at 1,420 percent.
Protagen AG announced that it has entered into a long-term collaboration agreement with QIAGEN targeting the development of novel protein-based companion diagnostics for autoimmune disorders. Under the terms of the agreement, QIAGEN will gain access to the proprietary SeroTag® technology platform of Protagen, which enables the discovery and validation of novel protein-based marker panels. Such markers hold great promise for the development into companion diagnostics to guide treatment decisions in various autoimmune disorders. Financial details of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Two University System of Maryland schools are turning investor.
University of Maryland, Baltimore, and University of Maryland, College Park plan to invest up to $500,000 each in Maryland-based startups that use technology licensed from the universities.
University of Maryland UM Ventures and Harpoon Medical, Inc., announced today that the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has invested $100,000 in Harpoon Medical. This is the first equity investment UM Ventures has made in a company and completes Harpoon Medical's $3.6 million Series A financing. The investment also coincides with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision to grant a patent for the innovative beating heart mitral valve repair technology Harpoon Medical licensed from UMB. The team in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine developed the licensed technology.