2012
Center for Innovation in Biomaterials and Orthopaedic Research (CiBOR), Wichita
CIBOR, one of four centers of innovation funded by the Kansas Bioscience Authority was awarded $3 million (a $2 million grant from the KBA and $1 million directly allocated by the Kansas legislature to Wichita State University). The centers are industry-led research and development enterprises focused on core technology areas that can lead to high commercial payoff in new products and processes. CIBOR is a catalyst for collaboration among Kansas institutions and companies with proven expertise in proprietary areas of orthopaedic medical practice, aerospace composite materials research and manufacturing, and biocompatibility of new materials in the body. This grant is for CIBOR’s fiscal 2012 operations and programs.
(10/31/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Jobs: One; CIBOR plans for 10 new jobs by 2015; capital expenditures: $599,000; Research funding: $975,000.
Ceva Animal Health, LLC , Lenexa
When Ceva’s parent company acquired New Jersey-based Summit VetPharm, Ceva faced a decision whether to remain in Kansas or to move its headquarters to New Jersey, an attractive option because of Summit VetPharm’s facilities and access to international talent. Partly because of a grant of $550,000 from the KBA, Ceva chose not to move to New Jersey but instead to restructure its global business and further anchor itself in Kansas. Ceva Animal Health oversees all commercial activities in North America for the parent company, Ceva Santé Animale, and is its U.S. headquarters
(10/31/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Jobs: Ten retained, 20 created over a three-year period, all with an average salary of approximately $100,000; capital expenditures: $60,000; establishment in Kansas of U.S. headquarters for one of the world’s leading animal health companies.
Heartland Plant Innovations , Manhattan
The KBA awarded $2,527,590 (divided equally into a grant and a loan) to Heartland Plant Innovations, one of four centers of innovation funded by the Kansas Bioscience Authority. The centers are industry-led research and development enterprises focused on core technology areas that can lead to high commercial payoff in new products and processes. This investment is for the expansion of HPI’s advanced plant breeding services into a new facility that the Kansas Wheat Commission is building. HPI will pay a royalty to the KBA under certain conditions, which will allow the KBA to share in HPI’s potential upside.
(10/31/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Jobs: 10 net new jobs over five years with an average salary of $45,000; Capital expenditures: Approximately $6.2 million by the Kansas Wheat Commission; equity investments: $440,000
JCB Labs , Wichita
The KBA awarded $225,000 to JCB Labs, a compounding pharmacy specializing in the preparation of custom injectable pain medications, ophthalmic products, and other sterile products. The eight-year-old company serves ambulatory surgery centers, dialysis centers, and hospitals. Its revenues have grown by 30 percent a year. To accommodate continued aggressive growth driven in part by drug shortages around the country, JCB needs to quadruple its production capacity; this grant will help JCB move to a larger building in Wichita.
(10/31/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Jobs: 15, with an average salary of $60,000, over three years.
Megastarter, LLC (dba MS Biotec), Wamego
When cattle accustomed to a high-fiber grazing diet are sent to feedlots and switched to a high-starch, grain-based diet, their digestive tracts often lack the proper microorganisms to accommodate the feedlot diet. Cattle making the switch often experience a buildup of lactic acid and acidosis that can lead to low and erratic feeding, diarrhea, bloat, depression, laminitis, and, in severe cases, death. MS Biotec’s product, called Lactipro, combats this destructive digestive condition. Lactipro is a live microorganism that can be administered to feedlot cattle to accelerate their acclimation to the feedlot diet.
The KBA awarded $205,000 to allow MS Biotec to undertake research to: develop an assay that will differentiate the patented strain of microorganism in Lactipro from wild strains or strains that competitors might introduce;improve manufacturing efficiency and product stability to maintain competitive advantages for production and distribution; facilitate development of new products; devise new applications to increase product use.
(10/31/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Additional funding by equity owners, which will help MS Biotec optimize the shelf life and dose requirements of Lactipro and position Lactipro for sale in additional markets, thereby helping prepare the company to build revenue and secure market share.
Rising Star - The University of Kansas, Lawrence
The KBA awarded $650,000 to the University of Kansas This grant matches funds from the university to provide a retention package for John Tunge, PhD, an associate professor of chemistry and adjunct professor of medicinal chemistry who has been heavily recruited by other institutions. The university identifies Tunge as one of its top researchers in drug discovery, development, and delivery. Tunge’s research focuses on synthesizing chemical libraries derived from or inspired by natural products and organic compounds; development of new potential inhibitors of cancerous mutations; and, in research collaborations with KU’s Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, the development of catalysts useful in biorefining.
(10/31/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Jobs: The grant will serve to help KU retain Tunge in his current position; research funding: $2.8 million over 10 years; capital expenditures: $175,000
POCI - GreenTree BioCompliance , Olathe
The KBA awarded $19,875 to enable GreenTree Bio-Compliance to test its assumptions about the market for CROWorks, software designed to ensure that small- to medium-sized clinical research organizations meet the regulatory compliance standards of good laboratory practice and good manufacturing practice, allowing the company to build and maintain the trust and confidence of client companies.
Clinical research organizations are an important part of the Kansas City regional economy: There are about 70 such firms in the area employing 9,000 people and generating $1 billion in annual revenue. CROWorks could help fuel this sector of the economy, and the concentration of clinical research organizations in the area gives GreenTree an extensive local network for developing and testing the software before a worldwide launch.
(8/22/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Like all proof-of-concept investments, this project will advance a technology that may become important to a Kansas-based, early-stage company and will demonstrate whether the project warrants further investment from the bioscience authority and other investors.
POCI - Oncimmune , DeSoto
The KBA awarded $58,600 to Oncimmune, an early-stage Kansas company developing tools for early detection of solid tumor cancers. The company has a proprietary autoantibody platform that enables the detection of cancers as early as five years before they are evident with current accepted imaging methods. Oncimmune launched its first test, Early CDT-Lung, nationally in June 2010; it is offered by more than 700 physicians across the U.S. and has aided in the detection of early-stage cancers in high-risk patients. This grant will help Oncimmune to define where in the clinical decision flow the Early CDT-Lung test best fits.
(8/11/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Like all proof-of-concept investments, this project will advance a technology that may become important to a Kansas-based, early-stage company and will demonstrate whether the project warrants further investment from the bioscience authority and other investors.
Argenta Limited, Lawrence
The KBA awarded $400,000 to Argenta Limited, a New Zealand-based company that does contract research and manufacturing for animal health pharmaceutical companies. Argenta currently has one subsidiary based in the U.S., AlcheraBio, in New Jersey. AlcheraBio provides clinical and regulatory contract services to support animal health companies in their development efforts. This grant will assist the company in de-risking the establishment of a U.S. presence through a formulation R&D laboratory in Lawrence, Kansas that will bring a unique and much-needed resource to the region to support the animal health industry.
(7/25/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: 36 Kansas jobs with average salary of $72,556 and $400,000 in capital investment.
Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Lawrence
The KBA awarded $1,583,122 to Deciphera Pharmaceuticals ,a drug discovery and development company focused on designing, optimizing, and introducing “best-in-class” small molecule switch inhibitors of protein kinases for use as cancer drugs. The voucher will help Deciphera work with Xenotech, Xenometrics, and KCAS — all Kansas companies — to advance four of its drug development programs through preclinical studies and to the point of filing for investigational new drug status with the Food and Drug Administration in 2012. This project is a direct result of an earlier R&D voucher grant that helped advanced the same development programs through lead optimization.
(7/25/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: The key outcome of this grant will be information that will allow Deciphera to move a drug product or products closer to commercialization. Deciphera is paying, at minimum, the same amount as the KBA for the development programs and trials.
Heartland Plant Innovations, Manhattan
The KBA awarded $2,291,000 to Heartland Plant Innovations, one of four centers of innovation funded by the bioscience authority. The centers are industry-led research and development enterprises focused on core technology areas that can lead to high commercial payoff in new products and processes. This grant is for HPI’s fiscal 2012 operations and programs, including support for staff and consultants and for the center’s core business in the Advanced Plant Breeding Services and university collaborations.
(7/25/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: $8 million in capital expenditures, $440,000 in equity and $3.3 million in research dollars.
Novita Therapeutics, Olathe
The KBA awarded $600,000 to Novita Therapeutics, a medical device and biotechnology company developing novel treatments for important unmet vascular, renal, and gastrointestinal medical needs. The equity investment will assist the development of a novel implantable cardiovascular device intended to treat a chronic condition affecting more than 200,000 patients in the U.S. The device will provide a new treatment option that will reduce morbidity and mortality while also reducing the cost of care. Novita intends to spin out this device and related technology as part of a new company, Flow Forward Medical, in 2012.
(7/25/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: $10 million in equity investment
Rising Star - University of Kansas, Kansas City, Kan.
The KBA awarded $1,084,450 to the University of Kansas. This grant will match funds from the University of Kansas to allow the KU Cancer Center to recruit Raymond Perez, MD, as director of phase I clinical trials, a position the National Cancer Institute has said KU must fill before its September 2011 application for NCI designation. Perez also will be a tenured, endowed professor in the department of internal medicine and co-leader of cancer center’s drug discovery and delivery and experimental therapeutics program. He previously was an associate professor of medicine and of pharmacology and toxicology at the Dartmouth medical school and co-director of the phase I clinical trials program in the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center.
(7/25/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: Five full-time jobs, $66,250 in capital expenditures, $4.3 million over ten years (minimum) in research dollars (both federal research grants and industry contracts).
POCI - Green Dot Holdings, LLC, Cottonwood Falls, Kan.
The KBA awarded $140,000 to Green Dot Holdings, a Cottonwood Falls-based company that develops, commercializes, manufactures, and distributes proprietary biodegradable and compostable biopolymer resins for use in plastics as a substitute for non-biodegradable petroleum based polymers. This grant will support a research collaboration with the Kansas Polymer Research Center at Pittsburg State University to determine the structure and properties of the company’s proprietary bioplastic and evaluate the use of alternative feedstocks.
(7/13/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: The project will allow Green Dot to confirm the biodegradation characteristics of its polymer and validate its business development strategies.
POCI - Phlogistix, Lenexa
The KBA awarded $98,890 to Phlogistix, an early-stage neurobiotherapeutics company based in Lenexa, Kansas. The company develops biotherapeutics that modulate and target inflammation in neuropsychiatric disorders. Phlogistix’s initial efforts concern research and development of a recombinant protein that plays a role in controlling systemic inflammation associated with sepsis and with “sterile” inflammation. The proof-of-concept grant will enable the company to conduct preclinical treatment trials with the protein and an analog of the protein in a model of controlled cortical impact traumatic brain injury.
(7/13/2011).
Expected or Realized Outcomes: 1.5 full-time jobs over the course of the project. The company will seek from KU specific expertise in this and related preclinical studies, which will count as either direct costs or in-kind contributions.