Meeting with Congresswoman Susan Davis’ Staff on Small Business Grants

Allele Biotech’s CEO Jiwu Wang participated in a meeting between a local biotech business organization “SBIR San Diego” and a representative of local Congresswoman Susan Davis. We had the opportunity to explain our positions on government funding for small business, particularly in the biotech area. We want to see that the SBIR law be extended in its form that is most aligned with its original intention of helping small business innovative research that would not have been otherwise possible.

As one of the participating SBIR members who told each company’s own “story”, Dr. Wang described that Allele Biotech was founded by 5 SBIR grants in 99 when he was still a postdoc at UCSD. Dr. The grants helped the company make its first product and deal by securing patent positions in one of most important research fields in the last decade, RNAi, and out-licensing the rights to Promega. Allele Biotech has since developed its own marketing and sales force, reinvested in formulating viral based RNAi with state-of-the-art fluorescent markers. Allele is currently waiting to start a phase II SBIR project for the NCI on cancer diagnostics.

Coinciding with President Obama’s announcement of federal programs to help small business today, the meeting had an overtone reflecting the general mood about economy’s direction in the nation. Like many research-oriented biotech companies, Allele’s scientists plan to apply for the Stimulus funds through the NIH’s Challenge Grants, in the areas of induced stem cells (iPS) and cancer stem calls (CSCs), which are Allele’s next new product line focus.

Tags: biotech, Challenge Grants, innovative research, NIH grants, San Diego, sba, SBIR, small business, stimulus package, Susan Davis