LEXINGTON, KY - Lexington-based Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., has been awarded $100,000 from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development's SBIR-STTR Matching Funds Program. The program was created to support the commonwealth's high-tech companies.
Transposagen is a leader in the development of unique rat models that can mimic human diseases and are used for drug discovery and development research. The production of animal models is a $1.2 billion annual market.
The award from the Cabinet supplements a $295,614 grant to Transposagen from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which performs extensive external peer reviews using experts from academia and industry to assess the scientific merit, technical merit, and commercial application of proposed technologies.
If specific goals of this most recent grant are achieved, the company could receive additional research dollars from the NIH. Transposagen, which had previously received $1 million in Kentucky matching funds for an earlier NIH award, has already created six new high-paying jobs in Kentucky and will be hiring additional employees this year.
The grant program is the first in the United States to specifically match both Phase 1 and Phase 2 federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants. To date, the program has made 64 awards to 42 high-tech companies in the state for over $14 million and has resulted in several firms relocating to Kentucky, including Transposagen, which moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (www.transposagenbio.com).
Kentucky will match up to $100,000 for SBIR-STTR Phase 1 federal awards and up to $500,000 for federal Phase 2 awards. The opportunity for recipients of Phase 1 and Phase 2 federal SBIR and STTR awards to earn additional funds from Kentucky has drawn interest from high-tech firms nationwide.
A new solicitation period for SBIR-STTR matching funds is expected to begin this summer. For more information, visit www.ThinkKentucky.com/dci.