In 2014, federal grants for bioscience in Oregon rose after a 2013 slump, according to the Oregon Bioscience Association’s 2014-15 Annual Report.
Grant funding rose 6 percent last year from sources including the National Institutes of Health, Small Business Technology Transfer Program, Small Business Innovation Research program, Department of Defense and National Science Foundation.
The NIH awards for Oregon last year amounted to nearly $304 million, according to Oregon Bio. The peak was in 2009, when $336 million was distributed.
Oregon Bio found 673 grants were awarded to 42 firms last year. But if Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research is included, then the number rises to 695 grants totaling $320 million last year.
Here’s a further breakdown:
- The National Cancer Institute gave 62 awards, totaling more than $39 million.
- There were 43 SBIR and STTR awards, totaling $18.8 million.
- The DOD granted almost $3 million.
- The National Science Foundation awarded $60.3 million in grants starting last year.
Oregon Health & Science University gets the lion’s share of NIH awards, at $211.2 million.
In terms of non-academic recipients, Aronora Inc. in Portland got one of the most sizable awards, with four grants totaling $3.7 million. Legacy Emanuel Medical Center received $3.2 million. TomegaVax and Sedia Biosciences Corp. were among the other local recipients who got more than $1 million.
Aronora is developing safer blood thinning and clot busting drugs for treating heart attack and stroke. TomegaVax is developing an HIV vaccine and Sedia is developing an easy-to-use HIV test for developing countries.
We’ll be publishing a list of the top 25 NIH recipients in this Friday’s weekly edition.
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Elizabeth Hayes
Staff Reporter
Portland Business Journal