Budget Cuts, Mismanagement Muddle SBIR Grants

February 21, 2008

A five-year-old boy playing with matches sets his pajamas on fire causing second or third degree burns over half of his body. Twenty years ago, the injuries would likely have been fatal. But today, patients with burns over as much as 90 percent of their bodies typically recover.

Many of two million people who suffer these injuries each year owe their survival to a trauma surgeon and a mechanical engineer, who developed an artificial skin at Integra LifeSciences Corp., a small biotech company in New Jersey. Of significance, their research was supported by a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It’s a matter of debate whether the company’s Integra Matrix Wound Dressing would be available today — or developed at all — without early stage funding from the government.

But the clock is winding down on this program, which the Small Business Administration (SBA) administers through various federal agencies. Without congressional reauthorization, the 1982 law that created SBIR grants will expire in seven months, and there is no guarantee that Congress will act by then. It’s already facing a legislative logjam created, in part, by partisan politicking and a preoccupation with the looming presidential election.

By Keith Girard

Full Story: http://www.allbusiness.com/government/elections-politics-politics-political-parties/6795536-1.html