Spica Therapeutics NV has been awarded a 2-year €1.0 million (US$1.2 million) grant from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) to accelerate the development of the company’s lead anti-CD163 depleting monoclonal antibody program in oncology, advancing it toward early IND-enabling studies.

Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) has awarded $1.1 million to Phiogen Inc. to evaluate PHI-BI-01, the company’s dual-action therapeutic designed to treat and prevent extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) bloodstream infections.

French vaccines specialist Osivax SAS has been awarded $19.5 million by the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to fund work on its universal influenza A vaccine.

Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) has awarded Baxiva AG $3 million to develop its multivalent glycoconjugate vaccine.

Trethera Corp. has been awarded a $3 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to support evaluation of Trethera’s lead candidate, TRE-515, for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus).

Lysoway Therapeutics Inc. announced that it has received a research grant of $2.93 million from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. The funding will support the preclinical development of Lysoway’s highly brain-penetrant small molecule mucolipin TRP Cation channel 1 (MCOLN1/TRPML1) agonist.

Congruence Therapeutics Inc. has received a research grant of $5 million from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) to advance its GCase-targeting small molecules for GBA1 Parkinson’s disease. Mutations of the GBA1 gene, encoding the enzyme GCase, represent the single largest genetic risk factor for Parkinson’s disease.

Mindimmune Therapeutics Inc. has been awarded a grant by Rhode Island Life Science Hub to accelerate preclinical development work on MITI-101 for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The award will accelerate development work needed to start first-in-human studies.

Rakuten Medical Inc.’s RM-0256 has been selected for funding by Japan’s Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED).

Biopharma’s nonprofit deal and grant activity continues to settle into a post-pandemic rhythm, with both showing a sustained decline from the elevated levels seen during and even after the COVID-19 era.