Tag Archives: SBIR

CFB Director Testifies Before Joint Congressional Hearing

Posted on by
Reply

On Thursday May 4, 2017 Center for Biotechnology Director Dr. Clinton Rubin was fortunate to testify at a joint congressional hearing on “Improving the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs”. Dr. Rubin was present to discuss the NIH-REACH Program – which is the program that supported the creation of the Long Island Bioscience Hub.

Dr. Rubin spoke about the importance of initiatives like REACH which promote the development of “Phase 0” proof-of concept centers embedded within university communities. The activities of these centers are critical in promoting under-realized innovations out of academic labs and into the hands of patients as Universities often face significant challenges when it comes to commercializing translational research. He talk about the fact that in a very short amount of time, the three hubs created by the REACH program have already seen major impacts at our institution, fostering new intellectual property, increasing credibility with the investor community, promoting a shift in the academic culture, attracting new licensing opportunities, and most importantly, catalyzing the formation of new companies – some of which have successfully secured SBIR funding.

Programs like REACH fuel the growth of the small business community around university centers, and drives science towards successful new treatments for disease.

The committee hearing is available to view at this link. Dr. Rubin’s comments begin at 2:53:06

CFB Director Clint Rubin and Director of Operations Diane Fabel at a joint congressional hearing on May 4, 2017.

Center For Biotechnology Awarded $500k U.S. Department of Commerce Grant

Posted on by
Reply

The i6 Challenge award sets aim on enhancing Long Island Bioscience Ecosystem

The Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University has announced that is has received a three-year, $500,000 U.S. Department of Commerce i6 Challenge Investment. The award will support the Center for Biotechnology’s (CFB) efforts to bolster the regional bioscience ecosystem by supporting a formal mentorship program, as well as a critical NIH-focused SBIR/STTR training and application development program which will assist in capital formation and launching new companies.

The Center for Biotechnology is among 35 organizations — including nonprofits, institutions of higher education, and entrepreneurship-focused organizations — from 19 states that will receive nearly $15 million to create and expand cluster-focused, proof-of-concept and commercialization programs, and early-stage seed capital funds through the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program. The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE), housed within the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), leads the Regional Innovation Strategies Program to spur innovation capacity-building activities in regions across the nation.

“Long Island’s innovation economy is rooted in cutting-edge basic and applied science and engineering, fostered by top-tier research institutions, a highly educated population, and a depth, breadth and scope of intellectual capital.” said Dr. Clinton T. Rubin, Director, Center for Biotechnology. Dr. Rubin continued, “This award and the initiatives it will support add to the growing, concentrated efforts the Center for Biotechnology, the Long Island Bioscience Hub and the hub’s partner institutions are making to grow the high technology innovations born in our region into fully realized ventures.”

The Center for Biotechnology (CFB) at Stony Brook University is an Empire State Development Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) Center for Advanced Technology. Established in 1983, the CFB’s efforts are focused on accelerating the development of biomedical technologies in order to have a positive impact on human health and society. The CFB is also the lead administrative institution for the Long Island Bioscience Hub (LIBH) an NIH-designated Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) established with a National Institutes of Health grant in 2015. The initiatives under the i6 Challenge award will complement the efforts of the LIBH, a partnership between the Center for Biotechnology, Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, to commercialize biomedical innovations emerging from the partner institutions.

Download a PDF of the press release here.

Related Articles:
Schumer: Biz-Development Funds Big Deal For SBU – Innovate Long Island
Stony Brook Biotech Center Wins $500,000 to Foster Companies – Newsday

Vitatex Awarded NCI Contract

Posted on by

Vitatex, a Stony Brook-based biotechnology company located in the Long Island High Technology Incubator, has announced that it was awarded an SBIR Phase I/II Fast Track contract in September 2015 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for its Vita-Cap™ CTC Capture and Preservation tubes. A modification to exercise the option for a two-year SBIR Phase II of the contract was executed on June 8, 2016.

Vitatex Inc. provides proprietary invasive circulating tumor cell (iCTC) enrichment technology and products to develop revolutionary cancer genetic and cell tests. These “liquid biopsies” focus on next generation sequencing (NGS) detection, gene expression profiling and flow cytometry and have recently been adopted by the clinical laboratory community to characterize cancer cells and/or their RNA/DNA in blood samples non-invasively and serially, and to acquire genetic alternations and drug resistance information, which have the potential to replace tests run on surgical biopsies.

Clinical metastasis of solid tumors is linked to blood-borne dissemination of viable tumor cells in the circulation and clinical instrumentation is now available to isolate, enumerate, culture, generate metastatic mouse models and perform molecular analyses on these circulating tumor cells (CTCs). However, CTCs are fragile and tend to degrade within a few days when collected in standard blood collection tubes.

“The functional CTC preparation tube is designed to collect, enrich and preserve the viability/functionality of cancer cells in blood all within a closed system” said Wen-Tien Chen, PhD., Chief Scientific Officer of Vitatex. “The goal is to define conditions of Vitatex CTC preparation tubes for capturing and preserving cancer cells in the blood of patients with breast, ovarian and other types for up to 96 hours of transit.”

Specific terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Codagenix Receives Phase I SBIR Grant for Swine Influenza Virus Vaccine

Posted on by
Reply

Codagenix, a CFB client company, has announced that it has been awarded a $99,710 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to commence the development of an influenza vaccine for swine. Codagenix will apply its next-generation platform technology to construct a vaccine against influenza viruses that infect swine, which, according to the USDA’s 2014 Census of Agriculture is a $22.5 billion industry here in the United States. Read more here.

logo

Next HHS SBIR/STTR Application Deadline 9/6 – Get Started Today

Posted on by
Reply

September 6 is the next HHS SBIR/STTR standard deadline. Talk to an HHS SBIR/STTR program manager today for advice: http://bit.ly/SBIR_IC_Contacts

The next HHS SBIR/STTR application deadline is less than two months away on Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 5 pm local time. (Note – the standard deadline falls on September 5, a federal holiday, so the revised deadline is September 6).

Make sure you are registered! The 5-step registration process may take 6 – 8 weeks, so it is important to start now. All registrations must be completed prior to the application being submitted, and the System for Awards Management (SAM) registration must be updated annually. Learn more about the five required registrations, here.

Don’t be shy – speak to an HHS SBIR/STTR Program Manager! It is critical for success that applicants speak to a program manager before submitting! You should send the program manager a non-confidential abstract or executive summary of your research topic, including a description of your technology, which may include your specific aims. After you connect via email, you and the program manager may decide to set up a call to discuss your application in more detail. For questions about who to contact, please email sbir@od.nih.gov.

ASSIST vs. Downloadable Forms – You may submit your application using ASSIST or the Downloadable Forms method, starting on March 5, 2016. Please select the “Apply Online Using ASSIST” button, or the “Apply Using Downloadable Forms” button within the SBIR/STTR solicitation. View the ASSIST webinar materials here.

Be sure to use the Annotated SF424 SBIR/STTR Form Set in conjunction with the SF424 R&R SBIR/STTR Application Guide (FORMS-D) to guide you step-by-step through the application process. Applicants also find the Top 5 Most Common eRA Commons Errors and the SBIR Sample Application from NIAID helpful. All resources can be found on our Resources page.

Remember – The standard due dates occur on September 5, January 5, and April 5. The standard due dates apply to all SBIR/STTR solicitations that follow the Standard Due Dates, including the SBIR/STTR Omnibus solicitations and the Commercialization Readiness Pilot Program solicitations. You can find all solicitations here.