News Summary

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 27, 2007

JHU names interim provost

Donald Steinwachs, a 34-year veteran of the Johns Hopkins University faculty and a longtime department chair and participant in university-wide initiatives, will serve as the interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, President William R. Brody announced. Steinwachs has begun already to work with outgoing Provost Steven Knapp and will take over the university's second- ranking administrative position on Aug. 1, when Knapp becomes president of The George Washington University, Brody said. Steinwachs has said he is not a candidate for the permanent provost position.

Out of the Blue

Blue Square Energy Inc., of North East, a developer and manufacturer of silicon solar cells, said it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive an approximately $3 million grant, which it will use to develop and manufacture high- performance, thin-film, crystalline silicon solar cells, as part of the department's $60 million Solar America Initiative. The initiative is aimed at increasing the use of solar power across the country.

Sucampo executives honored

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bethesda, said its founders, Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Sachiko Kuno, were awarded the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Life Sciences category for Greater Washington. The award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic, growing businesses. Sucampo, a biopharmaceutical company, specializes in developing compounds from its proprietary functional fatty acid technology platform.

BioVeris transaction completed

BioVeris Corp.'s shareholders voted Monday to approve the company's $600 million acquisition by Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG. Roche, the world's biggest maker of diagnostic tests, agreed to pay $21.50 a share in cash -- a total of $600 million -- to acquire Gaithersburg-based BioVeris, a manufacturer of diagnostic equipment. As a result, BioVeris' stock has been delisted from the Nasdaq Global Market. BioVeris Chief Executive Officer Samuel Wohlstadter, 64, stands to gain $113.2 million from the transaction.

Frederick Bank stock buyback

Frederick County Bancorp Inc., of Frederick, parent company of Frederick County Bank, said its board of directors authorized the expenditure of not more than $4.5 million to repurchase up to 146,000 shares of its common stock, or 10 percent of the approximately 1.46 million shares outstanding. Repurchases may be made in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions, and may be started or suspended at any time without prior notice, at management's discretion.

Space mysteries to be studied

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it has created a new office to study in more detail some of the universe's most exotic phenomena: dark energy, black holes and cosmic microwave background radiation. The new Einstein Probes Office will facilitate NASA's future medium-class science missions to investigate profound cosmic mysteries. The office will be housed in the Beyond Einstein Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

Hopkins' patent rights upheld

Arrow International Inc. and the Johns Hopkins University won a jury verdict that medical-device maker Datascope Corp. infringed on three patents for a system to remove blood clots in access grafts for hemodialysis patients. A federal jury in Baltimore on June 15 found Datascope's device used technology owned by Johns Hopkins and licensed to Arrow. The panel awarded about $690,000 in damages, court papers show. That amounts to an 18 percent royalty on Datascope's sales of devices found to infringe the patents, Reading, Pa.-based Arrow said in a statement on Tuesday.

Challenge to Bartlett seen

Democrat Andrew Duck, an Iraq War veteran and former Army intelligence officer from Brunswick, said Monday he is preparing for another run at the 6th District congressional seat held by eight- term Republican Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett. In an e-mail sent to news media and supporters, Duck said he is seeking campaign contributions "to defeat Roscoe Bartlett and turn our country around." Bartlett, who represents Western Maryland, was re-elected in November in one of the closest races of his career. He got 59 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Duck and 3 percent for Green Party candidate Robert Kozak.

Strictly business in Hagerstown

Hagerstown Business College, a private school with campuses in Hagerstown and Frederick, said it will begin classes for two new bachelor's degree programs, in business administration and information technology, on July 16. The Maryland Higher Education Commission approved the new programs in March over objections from the University System of Maryland, which has a campus in Hagerstown. Hagerstown Business College is part of New York-based Kaplan Higher Education Corp., which is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.

Task for Quality Associates

Quality Associates Inc., of Columbia, a provider of document management, imaging and archiving services, said it has been awarded a contract for work with the NASA Federal Credit Union, a nonprofit financial cooperative based in Upper Marlboro. Quality Associates will convert receipts, deposit slips and other paperwork relating to daily banking transactions into an electronic document management system, allowing digital images to be searched, retrieved and archived by authorized credit union staff.