Two local firms get federal health care grants
As released in the Gazette's Biz Blog by Wayne Heilman November 4th 2010
Two Colorado Springs biotechnology firms, Aqueous Biomedical and Pyxant Labs, were awarded $324,469.56 in grants under a new program created by the health care reform law enacted in March.
The two companies were among 62 companies in Colorado who were awarded $23 million for 102 projects and 2,923 companies who were awarded $1 billion for 4,606 projects in tax credits and grants. Companies can receive tax credits or grants covering half of the cost of biomedical research in either last year or this year, and were only available to companies with fewer than 250 employees.
Aqueous Biomedical received $225,736.52 to get its shunt for treatment of glaucoma into clinical trials next year, said Mike Wilcox, the company’s president. Pyxant received $98,733.04 for developing a new way of testing for drug applications, said Maurice Gaubatz, Pyxant’s president.