Secrets of NIH SBIR and STTR grant applications

By Gregory Milman, Ph.D.
Director of the Office for Innovation and Special Programs in NIAID

Slides from Dr. Milman's presentation are available in pdf form here.

When the going (funding) gets tough, the tough go shopping (for grants and contracts). As NIH success rates enter single digits and venture capital funding diminishes, academic investigators and small companies collaborate to obtain federal small business funds (SBIR and STTR). Hear the secrets of the $700 million NIH SBIR and STTR programs. You can read Dr. Milman’s “Advice on NIH SBIR and STTR Presentations” for a preview. But, you really should hear it straight from the horse's mouth! This could be time well-spent if it helps you obtain research funds.

Click here to register for this event. It will be held from 2-4 pm on January 13 in Byers Auditorium, Genentech Hall, on the UCSF Mission Bay campus. Reception to follow in the atrium.

On January 13th, you can learn about:

• Real NIH funding limits
• How to decide between SBIR or STTR programs
• Success rates for NIH applications
• Strategies for producing winning proposals
• How to write for NIH review criteria
• Tips for better proposals
• When to expect funding
• Budget and fee
• How academic investigators can tap into these funds
  
  

SBIR/STTR Award Winners Panel:

• Michael Schwartz, Program Director, Fluxion Biosciences
• Robert Nakamura, CSO, Advanced Genetic Systems
• Dan Erlanson, Cofounder, Carmot Therapeutics
  

Gregory Milman
Gregory Milman, Ph.D., is director of the Office for Innovation and Special Programs in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He manages the $100 million NIAID small business programs and is acclaimed for his advice on NIH grant preparation and research funding.

Dr. Milman was assistant professor of biochemistry at UC Berkeley from 1970-1976, associate professor of biochemistry and immunology at Johns Hopkins University from 1976-1988, and visiting professor in Honors at the University of Maryland College Park from 1997-2000. In 1985, he obtained NIH SBIR funding to start a biotechnology company focusing on viral diagnostics. From 1988-1999, Dr. Milman managed the NIAID $70 million basic AIDS research program. He established the NIH Centers for AIDS Research (CFARs) and the NIH AIDS Reagent Program. From 1997 to 2000, Dr. Milman organized the NIH Bioengineering Consortium (BECON) and acted as its first Executive Secretary. In 2000, Dr. Milman was on the NIH staff in President Clinton's White House Office of Science Policy.

Dr. Milman has served on the board of directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization Council of Biotechnology Centers, the Maryland Governor's Commission on the Development of Advanced Technology Business, and the Advisory Board for the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Program (ATP).

Michael Schwartz
Michael is an experienced biomedical technology professional having served in management and product development capacities. He currently serves as program director at Fluxion Biosciences, a bioanalytical instrumentation company he co-founded. Prior to Fluxion, he was at Advanced Stent Technologies, where he led the development of a novel coronary stent from inception through clinical trials, when the company was acquired by Boston Scientific. Michael has also held development positions at Converge Medical and BioCardia. Michael received his M.S. in biomedical engineering from Columbia University and B.S. in bioengineering from UC Berkeley.

Robert Nakamura
Dr. Nakamura is founder and CSO of Advanced Genetic Systems (AGS), a drug discovery company focused on developing novel antiviral therapeutics. On a modest budget of 2 million dollars from NIH SBIR/STTR grants, he has led development of a proprietary high-throughput drug-screening platform and carried out a small molecule screen against a new target class in HIV. Currently, with an STTR grant AGS is carrying out pre-clinical development of anti-HIV lead compounds through a medicinal chemistry program in collaboration with UCSF. Dr. Nakamura received his B.A. in molecular biology from UC Berkeley, his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Northwestern University, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF.

Daniel Erlanson
Dr. Erlanson is the co-founder of Carmot Therapeutics, Inc., a small-molecule drug discovery company. Prior to Carmot, Dr. Erlanson spent a decade developing fragment-based drug discovery technologies at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, where he worked since the company’s inception. Before joining Sunesis, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow with James A. Wells at Genentech. Dr. Erlanson earned his PhD in chemistry from Harvard University in the laboratory of Gregory L. Verdine and his BA in chemistry from Carleton College. As well as co-editing the first book on fragment-based drug discovery, Dr. Erlanson is an inventor on more than a dozen issued patents and published patent applications and an author of more than two dozen scientific publications. He recently won an SBIR award from the NSF to apply Carmot’s drug-discovery approach to transform a peptide into a non-peptidic small molecule drug lead for an important protein-protein interaction.

Organized by BayBio and sponsored by Morgan Lewis.