On April 3rd, 2020, DLA Piper and BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) presented an overview of the key provisions for BioHealth Capital Region Life Sciences companies in the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act stimulus package via webinar.

The hour-long review and discussion was recorded and is NOW AVAILABLE to access online.

Sean M. Kirk, Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Technical Operations at Emergent BioSolutions joins Rich Bendis to discuss the COVID-19 Health Crisis, Emergent’s Capabilities in Manufacturing in the BioHealth Capital Region and Beyond

Mr. Kirk joined Emergent BioSolutions in 2003 and has served as executive vice president, manufacturing and technical operations since April 2019. Prior to this position, Mr. Kirk has held various senior leadership roles including senior vice president, manufacturing operations and contract development and manufacturing operations (CDMO) business unit lead from April 2017 to March 2019, senior vice president, biodefense operations from November 2015 to March 2017, senior vice president, biosciences operations from February 2014 to November 2015 and senior vice president, biodefense vaccines and therapeutics development from March 2012 to February 2014. Mr. Kirk also served in multiple roles of increasing responsibility at Emergent’s manufacturing operations site in Lansing, Michigan.

Technology has proved useful in every single aspect of our lives, but it particularly deserves credit in the healthcare industry. We’ve seen a massive evolution in medical technology over the years, much of which has proven vital in saving lives, enabling new breakthroughs to be made, and simplifying the jobs of healthcare professionals.

As an entrepreneur advisor, I am surprised at how often I hear the same or very similar proposals of an incremental innovation to an existing process, versus a really new or breakthrough solution. If you are seriously looking to start the next billion-dollar startup, you need to get beyond the realm of enhancing a current solution. Investors are looking for breakthrough solutions to fund.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The novel coronavirus pandemic is a global crisis, a national emergency and a local nightmare. But while a great deal of the focus in the U.S. has been on the federal government’s response, widely criticized as slow and halting, the picture on the ground remains very different in different parts of the country.

Image: https://time.com

—Every day, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. grows. On March 26, the country passed China to rise to the top of the list of most reported cases of the novel coronavirus in the world, and the spread of the illness shows little sign of abatement.

Three weeks ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and Mastercard  announced the launch of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a $125 million fund to address the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the Gates foundation announced three additional partners: the U.K. government, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the singer Madonna. 

The Gates Foundation described the three new partners as donors, but did not disclose the size of their donations or their level of involvement in the project.

In the third week of February, as the covid-19 epidemic was still flaring in China, I arrived in Kolkata, India. I woke up to a sweltering morning—the black kites outside my hotel room were circling upward, lifted by the warmin

Image: https://www.newyorker.com

The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, is working with Johnson & Johnson to find and produce a vaccine in a gargantuan deal for the new agency.

One of America’s biggest companies has teamed up with one of the country’s least-known federal agencies to make doses of a coronavirus vaccine. Lots of them. The deal underscores the important role that the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, plays behind the scenes in protecting Americans—and everyone, really—from pandemics.

Hello, everyone!

Henry Blodget here. I'm the CEO and Editorial Director at Insider. I'm also an occasional columnist and host.

We're going to start publishing an email called "Insider Today."  I'll write it with the help of many of our excellent journalists. This is the first "beta" edition. Thank you in advance for reading. 

Our editorial mission at Insider is to inform and inspire. Our goal with "Insider Today" will be to provide you with information and insight about the big stories of the day, along with some inspiration. We'll draw on the work of our Insider journalists and others around the industry. 

You should understand that the key to success is to get out of your comfort zone, to work hard for what you want and at the end, you should ultimately achieve your goal. You should not wait for your goals or on your dreams. The longer you wait, the harder someone else works on them and succeeds. For this reason, less thinking, more working. You should know that an entrepreneur cannot sleep all day, nor can he give up. Giving up is not an option. Hard work is required whether your business is big or small. Taking a step once may prove to be fruitful for the rest of your lifetime. Everything from research to sleepless nights are required to make your business successful.

According to Gallup surveys, job satisfaction for employees is at an all-time low. Only 13 percent of workers are fully engaged in their job. The sad part is that is seems to be getting worse, rather than better. One obvious alternative is to become an entrepreneur. As a mentor to many aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m often asked what it takes to switch and get real satisfaction from this lifestyle.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

On Monday, President Trump announced that the US had tested over a million patient samples for coronavirus, by far more than any other country in the world. Though the horrendously slow rollout of testing has already set America back in its effort to stop the spread of covid-19, testing is still vital. To beat the virus and stop its spread, says the World Health Organization, we need to identify those who are infected and isolate them, as well as those at risk (who ought to be self-isolating too, whether they are symptomatic or asymptomatic). We also need to figure out which communities can expect to see a rise in coronavirus cases, and where to allocate resources in anticipation of rising hospitalizations.

Image: In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Lemonaid and Scanwell are working together to develop and distribute a test for at-home use.Scanwell

On Tuesday night, the Treasury Department released new information about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and economic injury disaster loans (EIDL). 

Here are some of the new points and clarifications that business owners should be aware of, according to Ami Kassar, an expert on small-business loans and founder of lending advisory firm MultiFunding.

Strava executive chairman Mark Gainey and his co-founder Mike Horvath came up with the idea for Stava in the mid-1990s, but weren’t able to make their vision a reality until 2009, when mobile and GPS technology reached an inflection point. In the meantime, they built Kana Communications into a business that earned a valuation of more than $10 billion. When they returned to the “virtual lockerroom” idea that became Strava, they made a crucial decision: They would focus their go-to-market strategy on passionate road cyclists, and build a fierce loyalty with that group before expanding to other sports categories. Gainey explains four core aspect of Strava’s “inch wide, mile deep” approach to engaging early customers.

Image: https://ecorner.stanford.edu

Existing COVID-19 tests have a terrible user experience. You have to wait in line, sometimes for hours, to get one. If you’re getting tested, you probably already feel quite ill. And then you may have to wait hours, even days, for results.

Several companies are working on improved tests. Abbott Labs developed a five-minute screener for clinics that works on-site without sending samples to a lab. Cue Health is working on a 25-minute nasal swab test. And now, the Los Angeles-based company Scanwell Health is developing an at-home test kit for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Image: courtesy Scanwell Health

The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus has sent governments, markets, and communities worldwide on a fervid search for answers—how long, how many, how much? Investors, too, are seeking facts about, among other things, how the global pandemic is affecting business operations, what companies are doing to protect employees and suppliers, what companies’ recovery plans entail, and whether companies have enough liquidity to withstand the pandemic. The markets are volatile, so companies’ responses to these queries could carry considerable weight with critical intrinsic investors and materially affect companies’ recovery plans and capitalization. To address investors’ immediate concerns and reset their expectations, CFOs and other senior business leaders should be prepared to answer the following questions.

Suspended near the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea off France and Italy, 126 football-sized glass spheres are already using the ocean itself as an instrument to search for signals from dark matter, supernovae and neutron star collisions. These are the first of many such globes deployed for a project called the Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT.

Image: Researchers are in the process of deploying modules for a new pair of underwater telescopes (visualized here). Credit: KM3NET

The Food and Drug Administration has granted an emergency use authorization to a drug for treating Covid-19, although there is little evidence so far to demonstrate that it works.

In a letter Saturday to Rick Bright, director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, FDA chief scientist Denise Hinton wrote that the agency had granted Bright’s request for an EUA for oral formulations of hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate, two closely related malaria drugs that have been tested as treatments for Covid-19.

Image: A pharmacy employee in Paris holds up a box of chloroquine

Far too many organizations miss golden opportunities to bring onboard best possible talent for the tasks at hand — and those of the future. When it’s time to recruit, hire, and onboard, the most common approaches are routine and rote, prone to misjudgment and error. The process is costly and, in the end, unfruitful.