officer in March and it’s his department that is most closely watched by the life sciences startup community: It has the money to potentially help lead young biotech companies through the Valley of Death.
So far this cycle, Goodman said the agency has awarded 21 product development grants totaling $206 million, including $10.8 million to Houston-based companies such as DNAtrix, which is developing its drug candidate, DNX-2401, in a phase Ib trial for recurrent glioblastoma. “We want to emphasize early-stage funding gaps,” he said.
Goodman said the agency is now considering issuing requests for proposals with specific targets, such as “tools and techniques.” He described such a grant candidate as a research tool or instrumentation that would provide new ways to do research to fight cancer.
Goodman also said the agency needs to emphasize Texas talent and opportunities, and that relocation is a less efficient strategy for economic development. (CPRIT offers money to non-Texas biotech firms if they relocate to the state.)
Roberts opened his remarks emphasizing that the agency has moved beyond the scandal that resulted in the agency’s retooling.
To illustrate how robust the vetting of applications had become, Roberts said guidelines went from 30 pages to 110 pages. “We weren’t really reformed,” he added. “We just codified the processes we were already doing, as well as adding in [suggestions] from the state auditor’s report” in January 2013. (The Texas State Auditor’s Office reviewed CPRIT’s processes and presented the agency’s officers with 51 reform suggestions, which have all been accepted, Roberts said.)
Roberts also addressed criticism that the agency’s peer review committee—the individuals who vet each grant application—are now not composed of individuals within Texas’ life sciences community.
The peer review committee is composed of 140 “non-Texans who have made it,” internationally renowned scientific scholars. Roberts said. “They are not at an inflection point—they are not the manager of Shakey’s Pizza Parlor.”
