Alveolus Bio Receives NIH SBIR FastTrack Grant to Advance Inhaled Biotherapeutic Development

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Alveolus Bio announced today that they have received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) FastTrack grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The SBIR program funds research and development work at small businesses to support early-stage growth. FastTrack grants fund Phase I and Phase II work over the course of three years.

This ~$2.5 million FastTrack grant entitled “An Inhaled Microbiome-Targeted Biotherapeutic for Treatment of COPD’’ will support Alveolus’s work on their lead program for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Alveolus Bio is one of the very few Alabama-based therapeutics companies ever to have received a FastTrack award from NIH.

“We are thrilled to have received this competitive funding award to support the development of our lead asset for COPD. This is key validation of our science, both current and planned, from the NIH,” said Dr. C. Vivek Lal, Founder of Alveolus Bio. Alveolus has also recently received favorable FDA feedback on the inhalation of live biotherapeutics. “These funds will support first of its kind inhaled biotherapeutics development at our company laboratories in collaboration with labs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In addition, we are in the middle of raising a Series A equity financing round to advance our assets into clinical trials,” Lal added. The initial technology behind the assets at Alveolus Bio were created at and exclusively licensed from Dr. Lal’s lab at UAB.

“This is a prime time to partner with Alveolus as our new modality and route of administration are a game changing combination,” said Gaurav Mehta, COO of Alveolus Bio. “We are also open to strategic partnerships and other forms of business development to advance our novel inhaled drug platform across new applications and therapeutic axes.”

About Alveolus Bio
Alveolus Bio is a platform company with a team of scientists, physicians, and innovators pioneering breakthrough FDA-approved therapeutic assets for lung diseases. Our pipeline includes preclinical phase live biotherapeutics for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD), Pulmonary fibrosis, Lung Injury Secondary to Viral Illness, Neutrophilic Asthma, and earlier-stage programs, including Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, and Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Alveolus Bio has offices in Birmingham, AL and Cambridge, MA.

Contact:
Gaurav Mehta, MBA
COO
gaurav@alveolusbio.com

C. Vivek Lal, MD, FAAP
Founder & CEO
vivek@alveolusbio.com

Website: alveolusbio.com.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alveolus-bio/

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SOURCE Alveolus Bio, Inc