Kansas Bioscience Drug Development Program

The Kansas Bioscience Drug Development Program supports relatively late-stage drug development projects that have a clear focus on commercialization (as opposed to early-stage research). The program funds only projects to advance products that are close to a regulatory filing.

Kansas universities with pharmaceutical research programs are eligible to apply. Because the state has strong assets in drug research and development, projects that involve collaborations to combine those assets in new ways likely to drive innovation will be strongly preferred. Projects that promote interactions among academic institutions, other nonprofit enterprises, and industry will be preferred, as will projects that attract collaborators from outside Kansas who bring expertise or other resources not now available in Kansas or from whom the KBA’s investment will leverage additional project funding.

Key Evaluation Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on these criteria:

  1. The project team represents existing, well-established programs with international prominence.
  2. The project addresses an unmet medical need and involves a commercially viable product.
  3. The core technology competencies of the project represent scientific excellence that is internationally competitive.
  4. The project will employ novel concepts, approaches, or methods.
  5. The conceptual framework, design, methods, and analyses are adequately developed, well integrated, and appropriate to the aims of the project.
  6. There is evidence of strong institutional support of the applicant and its collaborator organizations to access necessary resources.
  7. The researchers are appropriately trained and well suited to carry out the work associated with the core technology competencies of the project.
  8. The project is based on integrated, interdisciplinary, and collaborative activities designed to enhance the value of its technology outputs.
  9. The research project has a reasonable likelihood of resulting, in the comparatively near term, in the commercial launch of a new drug.

Individual awards under this program shall not exceed $500,000 a year nor have durations longer than two years.

Kansas Bioscience Drug Development Program application

“We have some very exciting life sciences companies in various stages of development here in our region, and with support from the Kansas Bioscience Authority, we have a much better opportunity to be successful and to grow and retain them here.”

- Sam Campbell, Co-founder, CritiTech