A recently formed Chicago biotech company has been awarded a $2 million small-business grant from the National Cancer Institute that will help move it from the lab into clinical trials.
Saros Therapeutics, a company that uses technology developed at the University of Michigan, is reengineering an approach to innate immune activation to enhance a patient's response to cancer immunotherapy.
Dr. Matt Martin, president of Saros Therapeutics, said the Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant will be used to advance the company's STING (Stimulator of Interferon Genes) agonist program that can be used to improve the body's immune response against tumors. (An agonist is a substance that binds to a receptor to produce a biological response.)
"We've talked with large biotech investors, and one of the key considerations and risks that they identify in translating these technologies out of academic settings and ultimately to a clinical stage is being able to make the material in the same way, in a process that can be done in larger scales to take it to clinical scale," Martin said.
Researcher-initiated projects can receive small business funding resources and support for developing cancer technology from the National Cancer Institute. Contracts are awarded to projects with strong potential for commercial success.
Currently a remote company, Martin has plans to open a lab with an incubator in Chicago following the grant.
