Grants
Labs Win Grants to Develop Next Generation Sequencing Diagnostics
GenomeQuest Inc. has awarded six grants totaling more than $120,000 in software and services to help six laboratories facilitate the transition from multiple Sanger-based gene tests to consolidated next generation sequencing (NGS) based tests. "As a clinician, I am intrigued by the potential benefits of NGS for the long-term and the practical benefits in the near-term,” said Dr. Roberta Pagon, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Principle Investigator of...
Phthisis Diagnostics Wins $500K in Grant Awards
Charlottesville-based Phthisis Diagnostics Inc.  has been awarded over half a million dollars in a combination of grants from the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Phthisis will receive a Commercialization Program grant of $499,477 and a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Matching Funds award for $49,400 (total of $548,877) through the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF).   Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced that the company was one...
Seventh Sense Biosystems Receives $3M Grant
Seventh Sense Biosystems Inc. has been awarded a $3.28 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant is part of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative to seek out innovative ideas for diagnostics in the developing world. Seventh Sense’s proprietary Touch Activated Phlebotomy (TAP) technology platform is one of more than twenty Grand Challenges point-of-care diagnostics grants announced today. This Grand Challenges program aims to create technologies and...
UT Southwestern, Parkland Partner for $6.3M NCI Grant to Improve Colorectal Cancer Screening
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has selected UT Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Health & Hospital System as a national site to improve screening for colorectal cancer, the nation's No. 3 cancer killer. The five-year, $6.3 million NCI grant establishes the Parkland-UT Southwestern PROSPR Center as part of a three-site network for colorectal cancer screening. The UT Southwestern-Parkland partnership, which hopes to reach more than 32,000 Dallas County residents age 50 and older,...
Wound Test Could Save Healthcare Costs
Scientists in Cardiff are developing a simple but effective test to predict whether chronic wounds will respond to conventional treatment, which could save the NHS tens of millions of pounds annually. Two leading academics at Cardiff University’s School of Medicine have developed a test to predict how well a wound is likely to respond to conventional treatment and optimize the treatment accordingly. Professor Keith Harding, Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine/Wound Healing and Professor...
Firefly BioWorks Announces Award of $2M NIH Grant
Firefly BioWorks Inc. was awarded a $2M Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute for microRNA profiling. MicroRNAs are an emerging class of biomarkers that are proving to be important indicators for early diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. The company will use the award to expand production capacity and validate its microRNA assay against the current state of the art. The goal of the Phase II studies is to develop a product providing a...
Immunetics Receives $500K from Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to Commercialize Test for Bacterial Contamination in Platelet Transfusions
Immunetics Inc. has been awarded a $500,000 Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Small Business Matching Grant (SBMG) to commercialize its BacTx rapid test for detecting bacterial contamination in platelets. "Rapidly detecting bacteria in platelet units presents a major challenge. Some current testing methods are ineffective because of low sensitivity. Others are overly difficult or time-consuming to perform close to transfusion," said Dr. Andrew Levin, president and scientific director...
Immunetics Awarded $2.4M NIH Grant for Clinical Trials of New Chagas Test
Immunetics Inc. has been awarded a $2.4 million, 3-year Phase II SBIR grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of NIH, to support clinical trials of the company's new confirmatory test for Chagas’ disease. Existing screening tests that detect antibodies to the parasite are frequently inaccurate. A complex method called radioimmunoprecipitation (RIPA) is sometimes used to confirm screening test results, but is beyond the reach of most laboratories....
MDxHealth Receives $1.1M European Grant to Progress Bladder Cancer Program
MDxHealth SA announced that together with partner NovioGendix BV, a molecular diagnostics company spun out from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUNMC), the Netherlands, has received a $1.1 million grant from Eurotrans-Bio to progress its bladder cancer program. Eurotrans-Bio is a European Commission initiative to foster cross border research and development between companies and academia working in the biotech industry. “This grant provides MDxHealth and NovioGendix with the...
Exact Sciences Awarded Federal Grant to Support Cancer Screening Product Development
Exact Sciences Corp. has been awarded a $244,500 therapeutic discovery grant from the Internal Revenue Service to aid the company in its development of Cologuard, an sDNA screening test aimed at detecting both colorectal cancers and pre-cancers. The Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project was enacted as part of the healthcare reform legislation passed earlier this year. In order to qualify under the program's guidelines, Exact Sciences had to show reasonable potential to produce a new therapy...