September 22, 2026

Actuated Medical, Inc. of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, has been named the winner of the 2026 BioHealth Capital Region Crab Trap Competition, following a live pitch on September 16 during BioHealth Capital Region Week at U.S. Pharmacopeia in Rockville, Maryland.

Maureen L. Mulvihill, Ph.D., President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Actuated Medical, presented the company’s NeuralGlider® platform, a precision brain access and deep brain therapy delivery technology designed to improve the placement of increasingly small and sophisticated neurological devices and therapies.

The company’s pitch focused on a growing challenge in neurotechnology. As brain therapies use smaller probes and cannulas, accurately reaching the intended target can become more difficult. Actuated Medical is developing NeuralGlider for applications including DBS and SEEG electrode placement, brain-computer interfaces, next-generation brain implants, and longer-term CNS biologics and gene therapy delivery.

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), Montgomery County's innovation intermediary, is seeking an experienced life science business analyst to support the NIH SEED Office. The analyst will deliver market landscape, technology, and business intelligence research that helps NIH-funded companies advance product development, corporate strategy, and private investment, working alongside SEED's Entrepreneurs-in-Residence on commercialization activities across all therapy areas and modalities.

Day to day, the analyst will run competitive, intellectual property, and product-development landscape analyses of early-stage NIH-funded companies using BHI's commercial data sources, GlobalData and PitchBook, alongside NIH grant data from RePORTER and QVR. Deliverables range from company background packages that support pitch coaching to commercialization-event tracking, emerging-indication trend overviews, clinical-development landscapes, and multi-region market-opportunity analyses, plus ownership of a regularly refreshed portfolio dashboard reporting metrics and outcomes to SEED and BHI leadership. BHI is looking for a bachelor's degree at minimum (master's or PhD preferred) and at least 10 years of experience as a financial, market, or business intelligence analyst in the life science or biomedical industry.

According to MCEDC's report "Four Montgomery County Companies Raised Over $117 Million In August," four Montgomery County companies raised a combined $117.66 million in venture funding during August, with life sciences accounting for the bulk of the total. Two Gaithersburg biotechs led that showing. Georgiamune, a clinical-stage company developing cancer and autoimmune treatments with nearly 30 employees, closed $92.69 million across Series B1 and B2 rounds, valuing the company at $296.31 million pre-money. The round was led by Prevail Private Capital and Mubadala Capital, with other investors participating. Cerium Pharmaceuticals, a four-person firm focused on medicines for rare pediatric and other rare diseases, raised $750,001.

As the MCEDC piece notes, two other county companies outside life sciences also drew investor interest. Rockville-based Jesse & Ben's, which makes healthier frozen French fries sold at Sprouts, Whole Foods, Target, and Costco, closed a $15 million Series A after an oversubscribed round. The company grew more than 1,100% in 2025 and expects another 300% to 400% growth in 2026. Bethesda-based Ensurise, which supports independent insurance agencies across the Mid-Atlantic with tools for growth, transactions, and succession planning, raised $9.22 million.

Together, the four rounds detailed in the original article point to Montgomery County's continued draw for both established life sciences investors and food and insurance tech backers, with biotech funding once again the largest single share of the month's total.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched the fourth NIA Start-Up Challenge and Accelerator, offering early-stage innovators a combination of funding, entrepreneurial training, mentorship, and networking to help advance new technologies focused on aging and older adults.

The 2027 Challenge will award up to $994,000 in total cash prizes while providing selected entrepreneurs with hands-on support to move research-driven ideas toward commercialization.

The Challenge is seeking innovative tools, technologies, and interventions that address aging-related diseases and conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. NIA is also looking for solutions that promote healthy aging, help older adults age in the place of their choice, improve care delivery, and reduce the burden on caregivers.

The program is designed in particular for individuals and teams that are new to entrepreneurship or are still at an early stage of building a company.

Selected finalists will each receive a $24,000 cash prize and participate in a five-month entrepreneurial accelerator featuring mentorship, education, networking, and business development support.

Participants will also receive guidance on navigating NIH funding opportunities, including NIA’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, commonly known as SBIR and STTR.

GAITHERSBURG, MD., Sept. 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Remedy Plan Therapeutics (“Remedy Plan”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapies that target fundamental metabolic vulnerabilities in disease, today announced clinical progress for lead asset RPT1G, a first-in-class hyperbolic NAMPT inhibitor, and provided corporate updates. In the Phase 1 dose escalation trial evaluating RPT1G in relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (R/R AML) and higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (HR-MDS), patients enrolled in Cohort 1 have successfully completed the first full 28-day treatment cycle, and the company has now initiated enrollment in Cohort 2. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted Remedy Plan’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for RPT1G for the treatment of solid tumors.

RPT1G targets NAMPT, an enzyme involved in cellular metabolism and energy production. Prior approaches to NAMPT inhibition have been limited by toxicity. RPT1G is designed to modulate NAMPT activity through a hyperbolic inhibition mechanism, with the goal of enabling therapeutic activity while maintaining tolerability.

COLUMBIA, Md. (September 15, 2026) — TEDCO, Maryland's economic engine for technology companies, announced a $25,000 investment in Sirius Biotech Ventures, a company specializing in the discovery and development of novel medications, through its 

Concept Capital Program.

"This support from TEDCO validates our innovative approach to tackling resistance to KRAS-targeted therapies," said Frantz Jean-François, PhD, CEO of Sirius Biotech Ventures. "With this funding, we can accelerate our discovery program and identify promising combination therapies designed to extend the durability of clinical response to KRAS inhibitors."

Based in Frederick, Md., Sirius Biotech Ventures aims to build a platform that integrates high-content phenotypic and functional profiling with mass spectrometry to improve the efficiency of drug discovery. The discovery-stage oncology company is developing companion small-molecule drug candidates designed to overcome resistance to KRAS inhibitors and extend the duration of clinical response. By combining clinically relevant models of KRAS inhibitor resistance with data-driven profiling and diverse natural-product chemistry, Sirius aims to identify validated KRAS combination assets suitable for licensing within 18–24 months.

In this episode of BioTalk with Rich Bendis, Ralf Huss, MD, PhD, Managing Director and CEO of BioM Biotech Cluster Development GmbH and spokesperson for the Bavarian Biotechnology Cluster, joins the conversation to discuss Bavaria’s biotechnology ecosystem and BioM’s role in moving science toward commercialization.

Ralf introduces BioM, the organization supporting biotech development in Munich and Bavaria for nearly 30 years, and shares how the cluster helps founders move from research ideas to company formation. The conversation touches on mentoring, boot camps, investor connections, entrepreneur-in-residence support, startup training, and physical incubation.



Rich and Ralf also discuss the MAxL incubator, the m4 Award, and BioM’s work with more than 250 startups. Ralf shares his perspective on what early-stage teams need most, why strong science alone is not enough, and how business leadership, IP, financing, market need, and the right commercialization path all play a role.

IonQ and the Association of University Research Parks are hosting an invite-only reception on Thursday, September 24, 2026, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at GrillMarx in College Park, Maryland, located in the lobby of The Hotel at 7777 Baltimore Avenue. The evening runs alongside Quantum World Congress but stands on its own. Conference registration is not required, so anyone in the research park, innovation district, or quantum technology community can attend. Doors open at 6:00 PM with check-in, followed by two hours of open networking.

The reception marks the launch of the AURP Quantum Tech Caucus, a new community for AURP members working inside quantum research hubs and across quantum and adjacent technologies throughout North America. The caucus gives research parks a shared forum as quantum moves from lab work toward commercial deployment, and the reception is the first chance for members to meet in person. Space is limited and attendance is by invitation.

Joy Polefrone, PhD, has joined US Pharmacopeia (USP) as Director of the Resiliency Center, leading efforts to strengthen the resilience of the medicine supply chain. “USP is an exceptional organization whose values reflect my own and in my first week of on-boarding this truth was deeply and clearly reinforced. This next chapter for me builds on years of work in co-creating an ecosystem for a resilient medicine supply within the Commonwealth,” Polefrone said, referring to her prior work in Virginia’s pharmaceutical manufacturing ecosystem.

About Joy Polefrone

Polefrone brings more than two decades of experience spanning scientific research, business strategy, and organizational leadership to the role. She joins USP from the Alliance for Building Better Medicine, a 55-partner coalition overseeing Virginia’s Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (APM) Tech Hub, where she served as Regional Innovation Officer since 2023, driving collaboration and strategy across the hub’s more than 50 consortium members and serving as primary point of contact to the U.S. Economic Development Administration. She will continue to serve the Alliance as a Board Member. Polefrone previously served as the Alliance’s founding Executive Director, helping secure its designation as an EDA Tech Hub along with an NSF Engines Development Award and an America Achieves Education to Employment grant.

GERMANTOWN, Md., Sept. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Precigen, Inc. (Nasdaq: PGEN), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the advancement of innovative precision medicines to improve the lives of patients, today announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted platform technology designation to the AdenoVerse® immunotherapeutic platform, which is used in the company's first commercial product, PAPZIMEOS®. The designation reflects the adaptability and potential of the platform to address a broad range of indications, including HPV-positive malignancies such as head and neck, cervical, anal, vulvar and vaginal cancers, as well as other diseases that may be targeted by future AdenoVerse-based product candidates.

FDA platform technology designation creates a pathway to leverage data generated for the development of PAPZIMEOS to potentially accelerate development of future AdenoVerse programs by utilizing existing manufacturing and preclinical knowledge to support future marketing applications and reduce duplication of development work. Platform technology designation provides opportunities for early FDA engagement, the ability to receive timely advice by having additional engagement with the FDA during development, and consideration of prior FDA manufacturing inspections for future applications.

TEDCO’s 12th Entrepreneur Expo will bring together entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders, universities, and resource partners from across Maryland on October 27, 2026, at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor.

The full-day event will feature workshops, roundtable discussions, keynote conversations, live pitches, networking, and an exhibitor showcase. Sessions will focus on practical topics such as fundraising, investor expectations, startup financials, AI, leadership, and building a business in Maryland.

With more than 1,100 attendees at last year’s Expo, the event has become one of the state’s largest gatherings for the entrepreneurial and innovation community, offering attendees a chance to make new connections, discover resources, and hear directly from founders, investors, and business leaders.

VirginiaBio is reimagining its premier annual conference for 2026. Women Building Bio is moving to an evening format this year, so attendees can keep their daytime schedules intact and still join a few focused hours of insight, networking, and connection. Save the date for Thursday, October 29th at the Sheraton Suites Old Town Alexandria.

Full programming details are still being finalized and will be announced soon. In the meantime, mark your calendar and watch for updates on speakers and session topics. More information is available on the VirginiaBio event page.

FREDERICK, Md., Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kemp Proteins, LLC is expanding its cell line development and recombinant protein production capabilities through a strategic partnership with NeuImmune and its proprietary glycoengineered CHO (geCHO) BioDesign platform, bringing greater control over protein glycosylation to Kemp's gene-to-protein development workflow.

Precision Glycoengineering for Complex Proteins

Glycosylation, the attachment of sugar structures to proteins, is a critical post-translational modification that can significantly influence protein efficacy, activity, stability, formulation, half-life, safety, immunogenicity, and other characteristics important to biologic development. Yet conventional recombinant protein expression frequently produces heterogeneous glycoforms that are largely determined by the production cell, making it difficult to systematically evaluate how alternative glycosylation patterns affect protein performance.

NeuImmune's geCHO BioDesign platform was developed to address this challenge by combining a panel of 28 geCHO cell lines built from a GMP-ready CHO-S parental cell line. The cells have been genome-edited and phenotype-confirmed to provide a broad range of N-glycan structures, including high-mannose, mono-, bi-, tri-, and tetra-antennary, fucosylated, afucosylated, as well as different sialylation profiles. Resulting protein variants can then be evaluated for attributes such as activity, stability, and half-life to help identify glycoforms associated with the required function and performance.

ROCKVILLE, Md., Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- OncoC4 Inc., a late clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel medicines for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, today announced that the U.S. FDA has granted Fast Track Designation to its PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody cesalatamig (also known as AI-081) for the treatment of patients with NSCLC whose disease has progressed following concurrent or sequential PD-(L)1-targeted immunotherapy and platinum-based chemotherapy.

"This designation reflects the clinical safety and efficacy signals we have seen in our global Phase 1/2 trials, BiPAVE-001 US and BiPAVE-001 China," said Dr. Yang Liu, Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of OncoC4. "We are rapidly advancing to registrational phase 3 development in PD-(L)1-refractory or resistant NSCLC and other indications".

The global BiPAVE-001 Phase 1/2 trials are designed to evaluate the safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetics of cesalatamig in patients with advanced cancer. Part A is Phase 1 dose escalation and expansion study. Part B is the Phase 2 dose optimization studies consisting of multiple cohorts evaluating the safety and clinical activities of cesalatamig either as monotherapy or in combination therapy with standard of care or novel agents. The trials are being conducted at more than 50 clinical sites across the United States and China, with majority of the patients enrolled from the United States.