NCBiotech Awards $1.8 Million in Grants, Loans in Latest Quarter

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded 28 grants, loans and fellowships totaling $1.8 million in the first quarter of its 2017-2018 fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

The awards will support life science research, technology commercialization and entrepreneurship throughout North Carolina and help universities and companies attract additional funding from other sources.

Also during the quarter, 19 companies that received prior loans from the Biotech Center gained $38 million in follow-on funding from other sources. Five companies raised about $10.4 million in venture capital, and 16 companies received $27.6 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Small Business Research Loans

Three companies received Small Business Research Loans totaling $650,000. These loans support business inception and research critical to the development of products, processes, or tools with clear commercial potential.

Advanced Chemotherapy Technologies of Research Triangle Park was awarded $250,000 to prepare for a first-in-human clinical trial of its novel device for infusing chemotherapies directly into poorly vascularized pancreatic tumors. 

Deep Blue Medical Advances, of Durham, qualified for $250,000 to support development of a surgical mesh that addresses significant clinical problems in hernia repair and existing product limitations.

EncepHeal Therapeutics of Winston-Salem received $150,000 for preclinical studies of cocaine addiction aimed at identifying a promising drug candidate.   

Biotechnology Event Sponsorships

Five universities, one community college and six nonprofit organization received 19 Biotechnology Event Sponsorships totaling $33,300. This program provides grants of up to $3,000 to support events, symposia, conferences or meetings that stimulate life science activity and growth.

Gene Therapy Fellowships

NCBiotech also awarded six inaugural Pfizer-NCBiotech Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships in Gene Therapy totaling $1,142,040. Pfizer partnered with NCBiotech on these two-year fellowships, to support the training of postdoctoral scientists who are conducting gene therapy-related research at North Carolina universities. The names of the inaugural class of Fellows will be announced soon.