Boston Mountain Biotech Awarded $225K NSF Grant
by January 4, 2016 12:00 am 146 views
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Boston Mountain Biotech LLC of Fayetteville recently received a $225,000 Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Technology Transfer program.
The program funds research partnerships between small businesses and nonprofit research institutions, according to a press release from the University of Arkansas, where the BMB’s patented Lotus technology was originally developed.
The technology simplifies the production of pharmaceutical proteins used in drugs that treat a variety of diseases and health conditions.
It does this through a series of custom E.coli bacterial strains used to separate proteins from background contamination. Making it easier to target proteins saves time and money on the front-end process of making a pharmaceutical.
“It can cost half a billion to $1 billion in 10 years for pharmaceutical manufacturers to deliver a protein therapeutic from a lab to the manufacturing stage,” BMB CEO Ellen Brune said, according to the release. “Our company uses genetic engineering to make the purification process more efficient. We’re trying to help large pharmaceutical companies get their drugs to market cheaper and faster.”
Under the NSF grant, BMB will collaborate with a research group at North Carolina State University led by Chase Beisel, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, according to the press release.
As a UA graduate student, Brune founded BMB in 2011. She earned a doctorate in chemical engineering with a focus in bioprocessing in 2013.