NON-DILUTIVE GRANT SUPPORT
RMS has been highly successful in obtaining grant funding from US Government sources through their Small Business initiatives, especially impressive given the very limited funding environment. RMS has received five NIH-SBIR grants, which are awarded by peer-review and evaluated by dozens of experts in the field in order to obtain funding for only the highest priority and advanced projects.
• NIH (NIDDK)-Phase 1 SBIR awarded Sept 2014 ($225k): Human induced pluripotent stem cell- derived beta-cells for drug and toxicity testing.
• NIH/NIDDK Phase II SBIR awarded Sept 2015 ($1.5M): Follow-on proposal to our awarded NIH- SBIR Phase I application with the goal to optimize cell lines and scale up RMS ILCs platforms.
• NIH/NIDDK Phase 1 SBIR awarded July 2016: ($225k) Title: “Diabetes drug screening platforms using patient pancreatic islet-like cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells”. Focus: MODY patient cell lines.
• NIH/NIDDK Phase I SBIR awarded Sept 2016 ($225k): Development of a rapid and inexpensive luciferase-based high throughput screening assay to identify compounds that alter pancreatic β cell function.
• NIH/NIDDK Phase I SBIR awarded Sept 2016 ($225k): Engineered pancreatic endocrine cells that report beta cell toxicity for use in high throughput screening applications
• WI SBIR Advance awarded in 2017 ($75k) Phase II matching grant to assist in commercialization
RMS has several planned applications for upcoming submissions to NIH requests for proposals (RFAs) and open project solicitations that occur three times per year. In addition to the NIH, RMS has been in extensive discussions with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) for grant funding and will be going through its testing program in 2019 for consideration for grant money and/or investment funding. JDRF has previously provided several million dollars in funding historically to Dr. Odorico in his academic lab. RMS plans to continue to aggressively pursue and apply for multiple non-dilutive sources of capital from both Government and private sources.
In mid-2019, RMS engaged directly with a number of key United States Senate leaders from both parties and demonstrated the major impact that diabetes has on the country, both from a healthcare standpoint as well as the billions of dollars spent treating the disease and its complications on an annual basis. As a result of these discussions, a planned $30M grant will be made available through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) via a Senate bill for RMS to apply for. The language in the proposal directs the NIH to provide funding to ethical
(non-embryonic) stem cell usage for targeting the diabetes research tool and therapeutic markets.