BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics & Policy

NIH selects three more projects for BrIDGs program

December 5, 2012 2:16 AM UTC

NIH selected three projects for 2012 to receive no-cost access to NIH development contractor resources under its Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs) program. The program aims to help projects from academic institutions, not-for-profits and SBIR/STTR-eligible businesses that have a "demonstrated efficacy in a disease model" but lack private resources or have "hit a roadblock and need additional expertise" to reach the clinic.

The projects include tumor penetrating microparticles from Optimum Therapeutics LLC (San Diego, Calif.) to treat peritoneal cancers, and assays to detect antibodies against ACP-501, a recombinant human lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) from AlphaCore Pharma LLC (Ann Arbor, Mich.) in Phase I testing to treat atherosclerosis. The third selected project is a reticulon 4 receptor ( RTN4R; NGR) decoy that binds reticulon 4 ( RTN4; NOGO-A; NOGO) and two other NGR ligands known to prevent the process of regrowth, in development by Axerion Therapeutics Inc. (New Haven, Conn.) to treat spinal cord injury (see BioCentury, Sept. 27, 2010). ...