Julie Lenzer, Chief Innovation Officer, The University of Maryland, joins Rich Bendis on BioTalk to discuss Ventures, Collaborations and growing the Quantum footprint in the BioHealth Capital Region.

Listen now via Apple https://apple.co/3on1a9C, Google https://bit.ly/3ovfj4M, Spotify https://spoti.fi/2Qn44hY, and TuneIn https://bit.ly/3w3Au0i.

Julie Lenzer is the Chief Innovation Officer at the University of Maryland and Acting Director for the newly-launched Quantum Startup Foundry. In these roles, she is charged with fostering and deploying innovation to drive economic and social impact from both university-affiliated and community based innovators. She currently oversees UM Ventures, the university’s tech transfer office, the Maryland Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Maryland International Incubator (MI2), the Mixed/Augmented/Virtual Reality Innovation Center (MAVRIC), as well as university engagement with the Discovery District (UMD’s 150 acre research park). An active angel investor, she is also on the investment committee of the $10M Maryland Momentum Fund.

Breakthrough discoveries and unprecedented capital funding have heightened the dynamic nature of the life sciences industry. This surge of resources should fuel a new level of growth in research & development (R&D) and accelerate the demand for quality manufacturing space.

With additional trends like onshoring of manufacturing production, localized manufacturing and surging demand from emerging biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies alike, there is intense interest from the life science and real estate industries in facilities that are suitable for these good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements.

In delivering vaccines, pharmaceutical companies aided by monumental government investments have given humanity a miraculous shot at liberation from the worst pandemic in a century.

But wealthy countries have captured an overwhelming share of the benefit. Only 0.3 percent of the vaccine doses administered globally have been given in the 29 poorest countries, home to about 9 percent of the world’s population.

Image: Health workers waiting to enter a vaccination center at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, last week.Credit...Gulshan Khan for The New York Times

Private equity and venture capital professionals in the US are a step closer to being taxed at a much higher rate on their income.

Democratic senators earlier this week introduced a new bill that aims to close the carried interest loophole, setting the stage for top earners to see their tax rates on investment gains roughly double.

The most successful entrepreneurs and executives I have seen are savvy business people first, and experts in their field second. This may seem counter-intuitive to technologists, especially in an era when technology seems to be driving the world. Yet the sad truth is that a technology not focused on a real problem is not a business, and will probably fail in the marketplace.

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The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Analog Devices, Inc. have announced the launch of the Ocean and Climate Innovation Accelerator (OCIA) consortium.

The consortium will focus on understating the role the ocean plays in managing and fighting climate change. Analog Devices will invest US$3 million (~2.48 million Euros) in the project over the next three years.

The world economy’s operating system is being rewritten. In this exclusive excerpt from the new book No Ordinary Disruption, its authors explain the trends reshaping the world and why leaders must adjust to a new reality.

The coronavirus pandemic has drawn more attention to the role of obesity in our nation’s health. More than 40 percent of adults in the United States qualify as obese, and an elevated body mass index has been shown to be a major risk factor for developing severe symptoms of covid-19.

Image: There are many myths about obesity, including that exercise is the best treatment. (Photo for The Washington Post by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)

“Our general experience with all tax credits, whether it is investor tax credits or research and development tax credits, is that states in general don’t focus enough time on who ends up benefitting from those credits and what the fiscal impact is for the state and what the economic impact is for the state’s economy.”

The increase in data and processing speed have made Artificial Intelligence (AI) have the highest growth in history . And it is that the main base of this is the data, since it is nourished by them and uses them to obtain information from the environment, analyze it and act with it accordingly.

When I was young, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Most of my school friends wanted to be doctors, lawyers or firefighters. Not me: I was driven from childhood toward entrepreneurship. I sold lollipops from my backpack when I was in grade school; being a serial entrepreneur was a gift from an early age. 

A working paper by UCL SoM’s Sidika Tunç Candoğan, Bilal Gokpinar, Ersin Körpeoğlu and their co-authors from the Rotterdam School of Management and UCLA Anderson School of Management exploring the non-financial benefits of crowdfunding and its ability to facilitate product development examines the level of product development required for a successful crowdfunding campaign, was featured in the Financial Times.

Our latest survey, analyzing the terms of 259 venture financings closed in the first quarter of 2021 by companies headquartered in Silicon Valley, shows valuation results continued their momentum from the fourth quarter of 2020 and reached historical highs.

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe their initial idea and inspiration requires the most important creative thinking. Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the initial idea is the easy part, and it’s the later implementation, and the competitive business marketing that are the real creative challenges.

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On May 10, the World Health Organization added a new virus to its list of covid-19 variants of global concern. The variant, B.1.617, is being blamed for the runaway infections in India. It is the fourth addition to a list that also includes variants first identified in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil. “There is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on covid-19, at a briefing. 

Even before the pandemic, millions of days of vacation time went unused in the United States. As it did with so many things, the pandemic only exacerbated the problem.

Most of us are eager for a change of scenery, and research shows that taking vacations is important for a variety of reasons. Rest and time away increases resilience, which makes people better able to deal with the inevitable setbacks at work. It provides perspective that can help people see new solutions to problems, and it gives people a chance to pursue other life goals, like spending time with family and seeing the world.

The thirst for good investment opportunities in the life sciences continues to grow. Two new venture capital funds, part of well-established venture capital firms in Europe and the U.S., closed on new funds to invest in early-stage life science companies.

With marketing seeing an elevated role in the industry, marketers have had to learn plenty of new hard skills to stand out in their field. But that does not mean they should lose focus of the soft skills that also make them great marketers. Throughout our Innovators series, we asked exemplary marketers from Stitch Fix, Twitch, Google, BARK, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, McDonald’s, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Public.com, Hulu, and Delta Air Lines what key skills are crucial for every marketer.

Image: https://www.adweek.com

Family firms, especially established ones, often hinge on a story. History is a kind of intangible asset that is unique to these firms, like Hermès. When we buy an Hermès scarf, it’s not only the silk material and bold pattern that draw us in, we are also buying a story and a brand integrated into French culture. For family firms like Hermès, it’s important to have a family member in the top job because the name of the family is integral in story building.

Image: https://knowledge.insead.edu

If you are a passionate technologist, it’s easy to forget that marketing is required to sell even the most compelling solution, to cut through the information overload everyone sees today on the internet. If customers don’t know you exist, you can’t solve their problem, they won’t buy. Getting customer attention often takes more innovation today than solving the tough technical problems.

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