NC Biotech Center awards more than $1.4M in grants, loans
Summary
Coprata of Durham received $100,000 to support market access and reimbursement strategy planning, and a pilot program that will provide patient feedback on a prototype of its automated stool-sampling toilet. The company is focused on a non-invasive method of canine cancer screening using the highly sensitive olfactory system of the worm C. elegans to detect volatile organic compounds in dog urine.Twenty-five bioscience companies that previously received loans from the Biotech Center raised $256 million in follow-on funding from other sources in the first quarter, according to research by the Biotech Centers Life Science Intelligence staff.Accounting for most of that total was Greensboros Piedmont Animal Health, which was sold in July to Dechra Pharmaceuticals of Northwich, England, for $210 million in cash. UNC Asheville received $23,359 to construct a library of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria strains with controllable expression of functionally important genes of interest for pathogenesis and drug-discovery researchers. It provides local high school graduates the opportunity to train at the NC Pharmaceutical Services Network at Pitt Community College (PSN@PCC) and interview for careers at Thermo Fisher Scientific. The expansion of the program will strengthen Thermo Fisher Scientifics talent pipeline and community engagement in Pitt County as the company plans to add 290 jobs to its manufacturing facility in Greenville.