National Institutes of Health Archives - Page 2 of 2

Plakous lands $1.7m from NIH to develop newborn treatment

Plakous Therapeutics announced that it received more than $1.7 million in a research grant from he Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Phase I-II fast-track small business innovation research (SBIR) grant, worth up to $1.725 million, is slated to help Plakous develop novel therapies for preventing the necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) disease in premature babies. The grant is set to supplement Plakous’ currently open $4 million seed round.

Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Plakous develops the Protego-PD system to prevent NEC by accelerating intestinal maturation of premature infants. Protego-PD is an orally delivered acellular biotherapeutic developed from post-delivery placentas.

The company’s chief scientific officer Seth Tomblyn will be the principal investigator for the three-year project funded by the grant, according to a news release.

“This …

Partnership will study use of existing drugs for COVID-19 and and more

A new collaboration funded by in part by $1.1 million from the FDA is working on finding new uses for existing drugs for areas of high unmet medical need — with a pilot project focused on treatments for COVID-19.

The Critical Path Institute (C-Path) this week announced the launch of the CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory (CDRC). The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is also supporting the public-private partnership, which aims to create a network connecting major treatment centers, academic institutions and researchers, private practitioners, government facilities and health care professionals around the world.

CDRC will focus on capturing relevant real-world clinical outcome data through the FDA-NCATS CURE ID web platform and mobile app. CURE ID is designed to serve as a centralized source of reliable, curated, clinician-submitted information.

“The CURE ID platform enabl…

Battelle under fire for decontamination system performance

Contaminated shipment of personal protective equipment delivered for Battelle CCDS decontamination system (Image from Battelle)

Major media outlets are questioning the ability of the Battelle Critical Care Decontamination System (CCDS) to safely reprocess used N95 respirators up to 20 times, as the company has claimed.

The FDA granted the nonprofit tech development company an emergency use authorization in March for its vaporized hydrogen peroxide system to decontaminate N95 respirators used by healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nurses and nurses’ organizations have complained that respirators reprocessed by Battelle’s system began to fail after far fewer than the 20 cycles the company claims is safe, according to reports by NBC and the Boston Globe.

In April, National Institutes of Health scientists said N95 respirators can be decontaminated effectively and maintain…