Past BioBuzz Award Winners: Where are they now? 2022
As nominations for our 2023 Annual Awards roll in, we’re taking a look at the previous BioBuzz Award winners to see where they are now. Here’s a look at 2022’s.
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John Holaday BioHealth Leadership Award: Dr. Kurt Newman – President & CEO, Children’s National Hospital
Dr. Kurt Newman was a true leader in healthcare during his time as the CEO of Children’s National Hospital, leading to him winning both this award and Washington Business Journal’s CEO of the Year in 2021. Newman continued this excellence until his retirement at the end of June 2023, leaving Children’s as a Top 5 ranked hospital nationally in 2022-2023. This ranking came after six straight years on the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Children Hospitals honor roll under the leadership of Newman.
Community Builder Award: Venture Café Philadelphia
Innovation plays a huge part in pushing forward the life science community, and Venture Café Philadelphia has been connecting innovators to further innovation in their local ecosystem and nationwide. Since winning this award, Venture Café has continued its mission to promote innovation by holding networking events such as their Thursday Gathering, a weekly meeting connecting local innovators and pushing forward the community. Senior Director of Experience and Digitial Transformation Jen Rajchel also explains that they have been taking“deep dives into life science and health care trends” during their Future of Care and Future of Therapeutics, creating “collisions and energizing connections that highlight Greater Philadelphia’s strength and potential.”
BioBuzz Media Award: “The Cure Chronicles” Video Series – American Gene Technologies®
We talked about all the progress AGT has made in the last few years, so here we’ll just talk about their series The Cure Chronicles, in which AGT CEO Jeff Galvin speaks with doctors and individuals involved with the HIV community about their experiences. AGT continues to share the stories of people living with HIV to this day, including episodes with The Voice and American Idol contestant Jamar Rogers and best-selling author Kecia Johnson.
Workforce Champion of the Year Award: The Biomedical Technician Training Program (BTT Program)
This program offers training and hands-on experience for biomedical technicians and research assistants, strengthening the biomedical technician workforce in Philadelphia. The Wistar Institute has continued to build this workforce, expanding the program to several community colleges in the surrounding area, including Montgomery County Community College in Maryland and Camden County College in New Jersey. They have also added an accelerated version of the program to give individuals at different stages in their education and careers the opportunity to complete the program and gain valuable experience in an in-demand industry.
Breakthrough Life Science Company of the Year Award: Vaccitech
A UK-based company spun out of the University of Oxford, Vaccitech broke out in the BHCR in late 2021 with its acquisition of Avidea Technologies, making Germantown its headquarters in North America.
Since this acquisition, Vaccitech has been able to continue the development of the SNAPvax technology, a multi-antigen and immunomodulator co-delivery platform with applications in cancer and autoimmune diseases. Vaccitech has multiple drugs in the clinical trials pipeline, including therapeutics for HPV, HBV, prostate cancer, HPV cancer, and Celiac disease. Recently, positive data has come from their clinical trials on the effectiveness and safety of their HBV and HPV therapeutics.
The company most recently announced a its name change to Barinthus Biotherapeutics plc to represent the evolution and expansion of its focus beyond vaccines. “Today the company is focused on the development of novel T cell immunotherapeutic candidates, which evolved out of that initial vaccine research,” said Bill Enright, Chief Executive Officer of Barinthus Biotherapeutics, in a statement. “We believe that guiding the capabilities of T cells using our proprietary platform technologies provides broader developmental opportunities with a huge potential to eventually impact patients’ lives. We are excited to continue into the next chapter of the company’s story – as Barinthus Biotherapeutics.”
Employer of the Year Award: Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM)
CBM has only continued to grow after its massive year in 2022, when they hired approximately 200 people in just the first quarter, despite the biotech bear market, leading to their win in this category. The gene and cell therapy company recently became a part of the SK pharmteco family of companies, which is a subsidiary of SK, one of the largest companies in South Korea. “SK pharmteco’s mission is to save lives” explained Audrey Greenberg, Co-founder of CBM, in a statement to BioBuzz. “Interest in CBM began after recognizing that Cell and Gene Therapy is the solution to transition from therapies that just manage disease to therapies that cure disease.”
Greenberg believes that by combining these two companies they can create a company with “a global footprint,” providing “an expanded portfolio of products and solutions” that is “on the most cutting-edge technologies at the frontiers of medicine.”
2023 BioBuzz Awards Nominations are Now Open
Nominations for the 4th Annual BioBuzz Awards in the BioHealth Capital Region and the inaugural Awards for the Greater Philadelphia Region are now open. Nominate here.
