Biotechies around the country are feeling a lot of love toward the Internal Revenue Service today. And the impact is being felt in Washington state’s biotech cluster, as 83 local biotech companies were awarded grants worth a combined $34 million, in one of the little-known postscripts to the new healthcare reform law that was enacted last spring.
This program, called the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Grants, was part of an overall tax credit and grant program set up by the IRS to support research project spending during 2009 and 2010. The total budget for the program was supposed to be $1 billion in credits and grants.
I’ve been getting barraged with press releases from companies crowing about these little grants, which are worth about $245,000 per project, although the amount can be prorated for projects that last more or less than one year. Rather than report on all these announcements in piecemeal fashion, I thought I would just publish the list here, and provide a link back to the IRS site, which has more detail on what the project money is going to be used to support. Washington state has five companies that received more than $1 million—Adaptive TCR, AVI Biopharma, Omeros, Proteotech, and Trubion Pharmaceuticals.
“It’s a nice shot in the arm as we try and tie up additional financing for our three programs, and will allow us to hire additional people to work on our hearing loss R&D programs,” says Jonathan Kil, CEO of Seattle-based Sound Pharmaceuticals, whose company was awarded $733,000 in grants.
Without further ado, here are Washington-based companies that got grants, in alphabetical order, followed by how much they are getting. For a full list of the grant winners in each state, check the IRS site by clicking here.
Accium Biosciences $244,479
Adaptive TCR $1,047,954
Advanced Medical Isotope $488,958
Agave Pharma $244,479
Alder Biopharmaceuticals $244,479
Allozyne $488,958
Animex Therapeutics $244,479
Amnis $244,479
