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

SBIR Program in Danger of Dissolution

By a process of stealth evasion of detection, a sentence was inserted by yet unknown congress persons, SBIR & STTR were expressly stricken from the NIH portion of the stimulus bill just signed into law by President Obama, effectively removing almost $250 million in SBIR/STTR award funding that is badly needed by hundreds or even thousands of companies.

There has been a sentiment among academic colleagues that removing the SBIR/STTR programs will give 2.5% more money to university labs. That is probably a shared view by most professors; exceptions may include those who also function as PIs on STTR projects (STTR was created to allow for such cases) or consultants on SBIR projects through companies they often co-founded. For graduate students and postdocs, who may agree with such view because they too want more grant money to the labs, it is also important to know that a majority of the students and postdocs will work for SBIR supported or eligible companies. Biotech industry has never been a labor-intensive industry and therefore, even more than the 80% of general US population who are employed by small businesses, workers in this industry are likely to have a small business as their job provider. And there is nothing wrong with that—small companies are still the engine for innovation and model for efficiency and flexibility.

On March 20, just a few weeks from now, the SBIR program may stop to exist if a law that created it is not renewed. There are strong head winds for its renewal from special interest groups that want the money to be spent on large companies or venture-backed companies, because they are in need of cash infusion these days. SBIR is at risk. Considering the thousands upon thousands of layoff by the big pharma players in just the last few weeks, it is not difficult to understand their difficulties. The question is how effective the money can be used to provide jobs and create new areas for development.

If you want to have your voice heard, you can look up your congress representative or senators to tell them what you think. If you are going to do it, do it now.

1. Call your Senators, both their local and DC offices.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
2. Call your Representative, both their local and DC offices.
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
3. Go to their web sites and use the email or webmail links to send them your message.

Tags: biotech, economy engine, economy recovery, government contracts, government grants, grants, jobs, NIH, research funding, SBIR, SBIR at risk, small business, small business innovative research, stimulus, STTR