Taking Care of Business: Funding Drug Discovery through the SBIR/STTR Programs
Sunday April 03, 2022
2:00 pm
-
3:30 pm
Central Time (CT)
111 AB
BEH
CVP
DDD
DMDD
MP
TCP
Chair :
Stephanie Davis
National Institutes of Health
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Tech Transfer (STTR) programs are congressionally-mandated programs that allow federal agencies to fund promising technologies that fulfill their missions. SBIR/STTR grants through the NIH and NSF are a valuable resource to academic pharmacologists and early-stage entrepreneurs looking to bring their new therapeutics to the market. This panel will feature NIH and NSF program staff, SBIR/STTR awardees, and reviewers who have served on SBIR/STTR study sections and provide information for pharmacologists who are interested in pursuing these opportunities.
Speakers
Stephanie Davis
- National Institutes of Health
Funding the Development of Therapeutics through the NIH SBIR/STTR Program
Dr. Davis will be giving an overview of the NIH SBIR/STTR programs and providing various examples of programs that the NIH has created to support early-stage therapeutics companies. She will be covering topics such as the difference between SBIR and STTR grants, program eligibility, the types of activities supported by each phase of the program, and how investigators can appropriately prepare for grant submission.
Mary-Ann Bjornsti
- University of Alabama at Birmingham
Overseeing the Process of Small Business Grant Review
As the Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UAB, Dr. Bjornsti has successfully obtained many research project grants focused on the identification of new cancer therapeutics.
However, she has also served as Chair of a Special Emphasis Panel focused on the review of SBIR/STTR grants from companies developing anticancer drugs. Dr. Bjornsti will provide an overview of her experience overseeing this review process and explaining some of the most frequent pitfalls that she has seen new investigators fall into when submitting an SBIR or STTR grant for the first time.
Elizabeth Sharlow
- University of Virginia/KeViRx
Shining Light on the Dark Side
As a university faculty member Dr. Sharlow started KeViRx, Inc., a biotechnology company which obtained NIH SBIR funding. She will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities one has being involved in a biotechnology start up while also holding an academic faculty appointment.
Harshini Neelakantan
- Ridgeline Therapeutics
Lessons Learned from Successes and Failures of SBIR/STTR Grants
Dr. Neelakantan is the Executive Director of Research and Development at Ridgeline Therapeutics, an emerging biotech company that has successfully raised substantial funding (~$8 M) through non-dilutive (including SBIR/STTR) grant mechanisms. From her experience as the Principal Investigator for the NIH-funded Phase 1 and Phase 2 SBIR/STTR grants and the Department of Defense-funded drug development grant, Dr. Neelakantan will share insights on potential success strategies and errors to avoid for obtaining a SBIR/STTR award.