12 UK Affiliated Companies Receive More Than $5 Million In SBIR and STTR Awards

LEXINGTON, KY (Jan. 5, 2010) — Federal funding agencies including NIH and NSF awarded $4 million in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program funding during 2009 to the following central Kentucky high-tech companies affiliated with UK. In addition, many of the companies received a total $1 million in Kentucky matching funds.

These companies have licenses with UK for technology based on research from the colleges of agriculture, dentistry, engineering, and pharmacy, and the Center for Applied Energy Research; ParaTechs Corp. (two NIH Phase I awards), Synergetic Technologies (NSF Phase I), Oraceuticals (NIH Phase I), Four Tigers (NIH Phase I), AllTranz (NIH Phase I), Adaptive Intelligent Systems (Navy Phase II), Topasol (NSF Phase II), and NuForm Materials (NSF Phase II).

SBIRs and STTRs were also awarded to 3H and Transposagen (NIH Phase I & II), both technology based companies located in the UK ASTeCC campus incubator, and ATI Inc. (DOD Phase I) and Advanced Dynamics (NASA Phase I and Army Phase II) located at UK's Coldstream Research Campus .

The Office of Technology in the U.S. Small Business Administration administers the SBIR and STTR programs. According to the SBA Web site, through these two competitive programs, SBA ensures that the nation's small, high-tech, innovative businesses are a significant part of the federal government's research and development efforts. Eleven federal departments participate in the SBIR program; five departments participate in the STTR program awarding $2 billion to small high-tech businesses.

The Kentucky SBIR-STTR Matching Funds Program began in November 2006 and is funded by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development Department of Commercialization and Innovation. Kentucky is the first state in the nation to match both Phase I and Phase II grants. The matching funds program is administered by the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation.