SBIR Phase II Bridge Award

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) has developed an innovative funding opportunity called the SBIR Phase II Bridge Award, which is designed to support the next stage of development for previously funded NIH-wide SBIR Phase II projects in the areas of cancer therapies, diagnostics, and cancer imaging technologies. The purpose of this award is to address the funding gap known as the “Valley of Death” between the end of the SBIR Phase II award and the subsequent round of financing needed to advance a product or service toward commercialization.

To achieve this goal, the Bridge Award funding opportunity more than triples the amount of funding available to applicants through the NCI SBIR Program and incentivizes the development of partnerships between NIH’s SBIR Phase II awardees and third-party investors and/or strategic partners.

Budgets up to $1 million in total costs per year and project periods up to three years (a total of $3 million over three years) may be requested from the NCI. Development efforts may include preclinical R&D, which is needed for regulatory filings (e.g., IND or IDE) and/or clinical trials. This funding opportunity is open to current and recently expired NIH SBIR Phase II projects.

Click here to learn more about the SBIR Phase II Bridge Award

Awardees:

The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) has announced the awarding of its first two Phase II Bridge Awards. The first two companies to receive the Phase II Bridge Awards are:

• Lpath Therapeutics, Inc., a San Diego-based company focused on lipidomics-based therapeutics. Lpath will utilize the funding from the award, along with matching third-party partner funds, to advance its lead product candidate ASONEP™, a potentially first-in-class anti-cancer agent which binds to and inhibits the bioactive lipid Sphingosine-1-Phosphate (S1P), a multifunctional mediator that can become dysfunctional and contribute directly to the pathophysiology of cancer.
• OptoSonics, a North Carolina-based company focused on developing molecular imaging instrumentation used in the fields of molecular biology, oncology, drug discovery, diagnostics, and therapeutic medicine. OptoSonics will utilize this funding, along with matching third-party partner funds, to advance a photoacoustic computed-tomography (PCT) scanner for conducting preclinical molecular imaging. By utilizing high throughput and excellent image resolution, the PCT scanner has the potential to accelerate the development of preclinical cancer drug development while lowering associated costs.