Event Type : Pathways Newsletter

EMD Millipore Corporation is accepting applications for the 2026 North American Advance Biotech Grant Program, an initiative designed to support emerging biopharmaceutical and biotechnology startups advancing toward commercialization. The program provides grant recipients with access to products, services, and expert consultation to help accelerate biomanufacturing and therapeutic development efforts.

This opportunity is intended for biotechnology companies located in or conducting substantial business in the United States or Canada. One selected winner will receive the Program Winner Prize, valued at $238,400. Two finalists will each receive $20k in credit, and semi-finalists won’t walk away empty-handed either. There’s NO IP sharing required to apply and 𝐧𝐨 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 from winners or finalists.

Applications are due by Thursday April 30th , 2026. To begin your application, click here.

The OUP is hosting an even “Legal Needs of Early-Stage Startups out of Academia” webinar for founders launching their first startups from academic settings.  This online session provides practical guidance on the key legal considerations for early-stage ventures. Registration is required, and attendees will receive a confirmation email with joining instructions.

The session will cover four core areas:

• Incorporation
  • Choosing the appropriate entity type and jurisdiction
  • Allocating founding equity
  • Hiring employees (offers, agreements, stock options)
• Intellectual Property (IP)
  • Identifying which IP to pursue
  • Timing and costs of patent filings
  • Navigating obligations to your university
  • Working with patent attorneys effectively
• License Agreements
  • Understanding tech transfer processes
  • Structuring and negotiating licenses from academic institutions
  • Best practices for smooth licensing
• Fundraising
  • Legal considerations for pitch decks
  • Role of legal advisors during early-stage fundraising

Scheduled for Thursday, April 30, 2026, at 1:00 PM ET. Click here to register.

Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies (CAPCaT) is accepting applications for the 2026 Innovation Award Competition, which supports the development and validation of point-of-care technologies for heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders.

The program will fund up to four projects with awards of up to $100,000 over 12 months, with a focus on technologies that enable care outside traditional clinical settings, including remote monitoring, hospital-at-home models, and community-based care. Priority areas also include AI-enabled tools, wearable devices, diagnostics, and solutions addressing healthcare workforce gaps and rural health access.

The application is due May 1st. To begin your application and learn more here.

NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) invites participants to submit Small Satellite (SmallSat) mission concepts that use adaptive sensing and onboard processing to enhance regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry, or related land resilience efforts.

The challenge emphasizes designing solutions that operate within SmallSat power, compute, and bandwidth constraints, focusing on orchestrating existing land observation algorithms into an efficient, responsive onboard intelligence system. Both hardware- and software-oriented approaches, or hybrids, are encouraged. The goal is to advance computational and systems methods for adaptive sensing, not to develop new agricultural or forestry science.

Submissions must be completed by May 4, 2026. To learn more, visit the challenge website here.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and March of Dimes are hosting Maternal Health Innovation: From Idea to Impact, a five-part virtual event series focused on advancing solutions to maternal mortality and morbidity.

The series will highlight key resources for translational researchers and early-stage companies, covering topics such as fundraising, regulatory pathways, reimbursement, non-dilutive funding, and business strategy. Participants will also gain insight into current gaps in maternal healthcare and opportunities for innovation.

The series begins on May 6, 2026 at 12:00 p.m ET, with subsequent sessions held biweekly. To register for the first session, click here.