In 2024, the value of biopharma nonprofit deals is tracking slightly higher than the previous year, but still significantly lower than the value seen in prior years. Meanwhile, grants to biopharma firms have dropped by more than 50% compared to last year’s monthly average. The U.S. Department of Defense emerged as the leading grant issuer to biopharma firms, and also saw the highest-value nonprofit deal in the sector.

Nanite Inc. has been awarded a $1.8 million grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to design and optimize polymeric delivery vehicles to deliver DNA-encoded therapeutics.

Geneventiv Therapeutics Inc. has been awarded a Direct to Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for approximately $2.5 million from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support development of a universal gene therapy for hemophilia A or B with or without inhibitors.

Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. has been awarded a grant from CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) to support initial preclinical activities on the antibiotics program recently acquired from Spexis.

The Department of Defense (DoD) office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) has awarded funding to Biosplice Therapeutics Inc.’s collaboration with The Roskamp Institute aimed at developing novel therapies for traumatic brain injury (TBI).

CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) has announced an award of $1.06 million to the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) to develop a new class of small-molecule inhibitors of bacterial sliding clamp (DnaN), a pivotal component of DNA replication machinery, which is a clinically unproven but promising novel mechanism for targeting bacteria.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has awarded a 3-year grant totaling approximately $4.1 million to the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital to fund completion of preclinical studies, manufacturing and preparation of an IND application for a first-in-human trial to advance adeno-associated virus (AAV)-ATP7A gene therapy for the treatment of Menkes disease.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) has received a multiyear $6 million award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to develop innovative stem cell approaches to treat children and adolescents with recurrent solid tumors. The CIRM funding will support further CHLA research into harnessing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.