Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a member of the Colorado BioScience Association, on July 23 announced the opening of its new headquarters, manufacturing and research facility in Englewood, Colo. It’s designed to manufacture and package 10 million doses per year.

“This advanced, labor-efficient, pharmaceutical drug manufacturing facility will be fully operational this summer, right on schedule, to produce the first batches of AmpionTM necessary to accommodate the company's BLA application to treat osteoarthritis-of-the-knee,” said Michael Macaluso, Ampio's CEO.

FDA approval for manufacturing to proceed came one week later on July 30.

Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems (IRIS), a tenant of the Gulf Coast Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in Pensacola, announced Aug. 8 it will receive a $450,000 grant awarded through the University of West Florida on behalf of the State of Florida.

"We are excited to choose Pensacola and the State of Florida to headquarter IRIS and expand our efforts to end preventable blindness," said IRIS CEO Jason Crawford. "We are creating jobs for people on a mission to improve access for early detection of disease, increase quality outcomes and reduce the overall cost of care. The State of Florida is taking the lead by showing the rest of the country how innovative technologies can improve the national healthcare system."

The grant is part of the Industry Recruitment Retention Expansion Fund program created by Florida Governor Rick Scott and the State Legislature and is administered by the University of West Florida's Office of Economic Development & Engagement to aid the disproportionately affected counties of Northwest Florida in their economic recovery from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. The CIE business incubator is a partnership between the Greater Pensacola Chamber and Pensacola State College

The personal finance social network WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2014's States with the Best & Worst Health ROI:

Another wallet-monikered organization, NerdWallet, recently conducted a study to find the best places for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) graduates to find high-wage jobs. “The one common denominator of these cities is the commitment the communities have made to a strong STEM educational infrastructure,” said the San Francisco-based firm:

• San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
• Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
• Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
• Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
• San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA
• Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX
• Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH
• Raleigh-Cary, NC
• Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO
• Dayton, OH

NerdWallet recently performed a separate analysis ranking states on the per-capita costs associated with obesity.

Not far away, Liberty Property Trust in late July announced that DrugDev has signed a lease agreement for 31,000 square feet of Class A office space at 1170 Devon Park Drive in Wayne, Pa. The 88,000-sq.-ft., three-story building (pictured below), which will serve as the US headquarters for DrugDev, recently underwent a $2.5-million renovation. DrugDev, currently headquartered in London and Audubon, Pa., provides technology-enabled solutions to help clinical study sponsors, CROs and investigative sites do more trials together.

“This area has seen a significant amount of public and private investment recently, including road improvements, the recently opened Chester Valley Trail, the continued development of the Village at Valley Forge and the construction and/or renovation of several office buildings. That investment, combined with the formation of the King of Prussia Business Improvement District, has made this section of the 202 corridor very attractive to high-profile tenants like DrugDev,” said Bruce Hartlein, vice president leasing and development, Liberty Property Trust.”

“Our new United States headquarters provides a significant upgrade to support DrugDev and our ongoing growth,” said Ibraheem Mahmood, CEO of DrugDev. “While our current location has served us well, we are excited to have secured a facility which features quality amenities that are important to employees as we continue to expand our business operations. The building offers an excellent blend of what we need and what we want, and we look forward to many productive years of improving how global clinical trials are conducted from our new home in King of Prussia, Pa.”

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear today announced early this month that iHealth Solutions LLC, which provides technology and other services for medical records as well as medical billing and claims processing services, will establish its headquarters in downtown Louisville. The company plans to create 70 new jobs and invest $1.7 million in the project, as it relocates from Virginia. In addition to its US operations, the company also has more than 50 employees in India.

“Louisville may be situated 738 miles from Wall Street, but it is at the heart of an active hub for health care,” said Venkat Sharma, CEO of iHealth. “We are excited about setting up our headquarters in Louisville and growing the company nationally – offering technology-enabled services to physician practices as well as to hospitals across the United States.”

The National Institutes of Health has launched the NIH 3D Print Exchange, a public website that enables users to share, download and edit 3D print files related to health and science. These files can be used, for example, to print custom laboratory equipment and models of bacteria and human anatomy.

"3D printing is a potential game changer for medical research," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "At NIH, we have seen an incredible return on investment; pennies' worth of plastic have helped investigators address important scientific questions while saving time and money. We hope that the 3D Print Exchange will expand interest and participation in this new and exciting field among scientists, educators and students."

See a video introducing the NIH 3D Print Exchange.