JANUARY 2021

Posted By Caron Trumbo, Thursday, January 28, 2021
Updated: Friday, January 29, 2021

Members and Friends,

Happy New Year! We here at Virginia Bio are excited to enter 2021 with renewed anticipation that this year will, no matter what, be an improvement over 2020! As we look forward to working with our partners across the Commonwealth to execute the Virginia Bio-Connect program, we ask that you stay engaged and continue to provide your ideas on improving our ecosystem. More information is yet to come about Virginia Bio-Connect’s resources and programs as they are implemented.

Virginia Bio Board of Directors Changes.

At the December 10, 2020 Annual Meeting of the Membership, the Membership voted John Hart to his first three-year term as a Director, starting January 1, 2021. John is the founder of Hart Consulting Group and brings 35 years of experience in the medical device and broader life science industry. We thank John for his support and willingness to serve!

Also effective January 1, the following Directors have agreed to continue service to the Association. We thank them for their continued dedication to the Virginia Bio:

• Carrie Roth, COO, Activation Capital (3rd term)
• Jeff Pompeo, CEO, Caretaker Medical (2nd term)
• Eric Paradise, Sr. Director at AstraZenneca (2nd term)
• Kyp Sirinakis, Managing Partner, Epiderix Capital (2nd term)

Finally, two of our Directors recently concluded their Board service on December 30, 2020. A hearty thank you to Tom Frantz, Chairman Emeritus at Williams Mullen, who is retiring and leaving the Board. We welcome Tom’s law partner and recently appointed Virginia Bio Director, John Paris, Chair of Williams Mullens’ Private Equity Practice and Vice Chair, Emerging Technologies. And a hearty thank you to Bill Stilley, CEO of ADial Pharmaceuticals, who served his maximum three terms. He will continue to serve Virginia Bio as a member of the Advisory Council. 

Funding/Incubation Opportunity with JLABS@Washington DC!

We are excited to support our partner JLABS’ Blue Knight initiative, which is directed to biotech companies innovating in the area of proactive and protective health solutions. The Blue Knight initiative is a partnership between Johnson & Johnson Innovation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The collaboration is dedicated to anticipating potential health security threats, activating the global innovation community and amplifying scientific and technological advancements with the aim to prepare for and respond to the rapidly evolving global health environment. The program’s goal is to stimulate innovation and incubation of technologies and medical countermeasures to improve health security and our nation's response to medical threats and emerging infectious diseases.

Companies selected for the program will have residency opportunities at the JLABS facility in Washington, DC and are eligible to receive access to JLABS resources and programming along with dedicated mentorships from Johnson & Johnson and BARDA as well. To apply to the Blue Knight program, please click here.

Virginia Bio Advocacy for the Industry: 2021 Virginia General Assembly.

The 30-day GA 2021 Session began on January 13, and it has been fast and furious. Virginia Bio, along with several other key stakeholders, are monitoring several pieces of legislation, prime among them being House Bill 2007, Prescription Drug Price Transparency (Dels. Sickles, Suhas and Subramanyam) . Among other things, the bill “[r]equires every health carrier, pharmacy benefits manager, wholesale drug distributer, and drug manufacturer to report information about prescription drug prices to the Department of Health and requires the Department to make such information available on its website.” The bill is now before House Appropriations. For more details on this on other legislation affecting our industry, please tune in on February 11 for our Policy Luncheon, featuring our government relations team from Hancock Daniel, and representatives from PhRMA and BIO.

Upcoming Events:

Please click here to see the most current date changes for all of Virginia Bio’s and our industry’s events. Here is a brief summary of upcoming events, as of this writing:

• February 11, 2021: Virginia State Policy Luncheon (Virtual) featuring Hancock Daniel, PhRMA and BIO
• February 16-18, 2021: BIO CEO & Investor Digital Conference
• February 18, 2021: BioCapital Life Sciences Virtual Career Fair

Your Ideas. Virginia Bio wants to hear from you! Contact us at questions@vabio.org your ideas, comments, suggestions and advice regarding how Virginia Bio can best support you and our biotechnology ecosystem.

Please stay safe, and let us know how we can help you. Thank you for all that you do to make Virginia’s life science ecosystem stronger!

-John

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