to develop an artificial lung

Martine Rothblatt, CEO of Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics, was one at Friday’s public hearing in College Park who favored Miller’s merger proposal. Rothblatt said a merger would give his company an easier time working with UMB and College Park researchers to develop an artificial lung the company is working on, and could save the company years producing one.

For Rothblatt, the scenario seemed clear — work with two “partially capable” partners, or one fully capable partner, he said.

“We can work with two partially capable partners in Baltimore and one in College Park,” Rothblatt said. “I think the job will eventually get done, but it will take longer.

That translates into 10s of thousands of lives.”
Proponents think a merger would form a top-10 research university and could drive additional research dollars to the state.