The U.K.’s main research funding agency is looking to put more public money into proof of concept and pre-seed funding of putative university spinouts, to make them more investible and improve relations between academics and investors. The move by UK Research and Innovation, which in 2026 will allocate £9.22 billion (US$12.58 billion) of taxpayer money across all fields of research, is in response to a government edict that the agency prioritizes outputs over inputs.
Ahead Therapeutics SL has been awarded an Industry Discovery and Development Partnership (IDDP) grant from Breakthrough T1D to support progression of the company’s proprietary Mimi-Top (mimicking tolerogenic particles) platform.
Bexorg Inc. has been awarded a research grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) through the Targets to Therapies initiative to identify translational biomarkers for TRPML1-targeted therapies.
Fannin Partners LLC has been awarded a $300,000 phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI) to advance a first-in-class, non-VEGF-targeted therapeutic for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in patients not responding to anti-VEGF therapies.
Pramana Pharmaceuticals Inc. has been awarded $1 million from the Alzheimer’s Association to support IND-enabling development of PRM-914, the company’s once-daily oral small-molecule therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease. The funding will support final toxicology and translational studies required to advance PRM-914 into first-in-human evaluation.
Oniria Therapeutics SL, Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and Institut Català d’Investigació Química (ICIQ) have partnered to advance ONR-001 for the treatment of colorectal cancer and to prepare it for clinical trials.
The ALS Association has announced the recipients of its 2025 Hoffman ALS Clinical Trial Awards. These research grants, worth up to $1 million each, support early-phase trials that generate critical data to accelerate the development of new amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) treatments.
Crossbridge Bio Inc. has been awarded a $15 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to support completion of IND-enabling activities and advancement of CBB-120 into first-in-human studies.
Scineuro Pharmaceuticals Holdings Ltd. has received a $5 million research grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to accelerate the preclinical development of the company’s novel LRRK2-targeted antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) program, SNP-614, for Parkinson’s disease.
Revir Therapeutics Inc. has announced progress in its HTT-PMS1 genetic medicine program for Huntington’s disease with the identification of a lead compound and the award of a $4.6 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).