Pantherics Inc., a Milwaukee startup that is developing an innovative anti-inflammatory drug, recently received about $255,000 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The funding will help the company “validate an optimal oral formulation” for its PI301 drug, which could be used to control asthma and other inflammatory conditions without traditional inhalers, according to a press release. That step is necessary before moving into human clinical testing.
PI301 was discovered by researchers at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery and Columbia University in New York, the release said. Pantherics was launched to commercialize novel drugs invented at UWM and was registered as an official company in 2017.
“PI301 is an exciting new approach to control inflammation without the adverse effects of steroids and other common anti-inflammatory drugs,” said Pantherics chief scientific officer Alexander Arnold in the release. “A key innovation is the development of PI301 for asthma, where a single oral drug could be used to control two disease hallmarks, lung inflammation and bronchospasm, without the use of common inhalers.”
The $255,841 grant came from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a government initiative that supports promising research and gives companies an incentive to profit from commercialization, the release said.
“The NIH/SBIR funding gives us important scientific and commercial validation and support to advance our lead therapeutic candidate to first in human testing,” said Pantherics president Douglas Stafford in the release.
Pantherics also received roughly $225,000 from the NIH in 2019 to enable pre-clinical studies for MIDD0301, which is another name for PI301, according to the UWM website. The company also merged with Bio33 Degrees Inc. of San Diego in 2019 to expand its development resources.
