Business

The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, struggling to recover from economic hardship brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, made several cuts to staff and student services ahead of the fall semester in an effort to become financially sound again. While many public colleges and universities in Maryland have rebounded and are poised to even exceed pre-pandemic enrollment and revenue numbers, the recovery at MICA hasn’t been as strong as expected, president Samuel Hoi told The Baltimore Banner. Total enrollment for degree-earners, once typically about 2,100, has leveled at about 1,900, Hoi said.

BayFirst Financial Corp. will close three Maryland loan production offices as the company moves to shut down its nationwide residential mortgage lending business. As a result, 20 employees will be laid off, according to a public filing on Maryland’s Work Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) log, which says the layoffs will be effective Nov. 25. The St. Petersburg, Florida-based bank announced in September that it would shutter its residential mortgage lending business after a cool-off in the housing market that began at the start of the year.

Montgomery County’s growing life sciences industry is getting a boost from collaborative efforts between businesses, higher education institutions, nonprofits and government agencies. Life sciences is a top industry in the county. The Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) reports the county’s more than 300 bio companies attracted nearly $8 billion in investments in 2020. At the end of July 2022, Indeed’s job search site listed nearly 750 biotechnology job openings in the…

A University of Maryland, Baltimore County professor hopes to rapidly speed up the drug approval process, making it easier for drugs to get to market and help patients. In August, Chengpeng Chen earned a five-year, $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create a new way to model how drugs will impact human organs, starting with the liver. The device would shorten the time it takes to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval by providing a more accurate view of how drugs impact the human body than current testing methods.

A Baltimore firm has acquired a vacant parcel in Largo next to Metro with plans to develop a multifamily building, bringing the area one step closer to the mixed-used downtown Prince George’s has envisioned, and incentivized with tax perks, to take shape there. An affiliate of Klein Enterprises, a developer and real estate services company, bought the vacant 5.1-acre lot at 9420 Grand Blvd., adjacent to the Largo Town Center Metro Station, from an affiliate of D.C.-based PNGS Management Co. The $13 million deal closed Sept. 14, according to property records.

The Northeastern Maryland Technology Council has added attorney Kaitlin Corey to its board of directors as board secretary and member of its four-person executive committee. Corey is a partner at Goodell, DeVries, Leech & Dann, LLP, Baltimore, with a focus on protecting intellectual property including copyrights and trademarks, false advertising, and negotiating business transactions and agreements.

McCormick & Co. Inc. plans to cut $100 million in costs in the coming months as the spice giant begins to see demand and supply chain issues return to more normal levels. CEO Lawrence Kurzius said the cost-cutting initiative is part of Hunt Valley-based McCormick’s plan to better support customer demand and return inventory to pre-pandemic levels. That includes investing in areas of its business that have seen sustained high demand since the pandemic and right-sizing other areas that have seen a drop-off as the world has returned to more pre-pandemic modes. Kurzius discussed the cost-cutting plan during a call with analysts Thursday after the company posted its fiscal third quarter earnings, which saw McCormick (NYSE:MKC) grow sales by 3% and its profit increase nearly 5% year over year.

Baltimore-area leaders on Friday unveiled grants totaling $47.7 million to help build a series of wetlands in the Middle Branch waterways as the first part of a massive overhaul that has the potential to remake South Baltimore’s shoreline. The Middle Branch Resiliency initiative includes $32 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to help build natural bulkheads in the Patapsco River to help prevent flooding as water levels rise due to climate change. The FEMA grant is part of a $1 billion federal infrastructure law passed this year by Congress. “The funds are another example of the work we are doing to protect the Chesapeake Bay and make our communities more resilient to the effects of climate change,” said U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, in a statement.