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It feels like just yesterday that Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), visited member company Novavax with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan—but it was September 2020.
As the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the company’s COVID vaccine for emergency use, we’re remembering that visit to the company Gov. Hogan said had “one of the most promising” COVID-19 vaccine candidates in the world.”
Watch the press conference at Novavax, with Gov. Hogan, Dr. McMurry-Heath, and Novavax CEO Stanley C. Erck:
Novavax is one of many exciting companies in Maryland’s biotech hub
Novavax is based in Gaithersburg, Maryland—a state that’s home to 500 biotechnology companies including the first to map the human genome, the first to develop a rapid test for Ebola, and the first to get a blood test for colon cancer approved by the FDA.
Early in the COVID pandemic, Maryland played an “outsized role in the worldwide hunt for a coronavirus vaccine,” with around 40 companies working to research and manufacture COVID-19 solutions, said Gov. Hogan during his visit to Novavax.
“Novavax is a shining example of that unprecedented industry response, that galvanized intellectual capacity, and the ability to put the power of science to healing the world,” said BIO President and CEO Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath. “We at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization couldn’t be prouder of how our companies, our scientists, our entrepreneurs, have really mobilized to change the world.”
