A Manchester biopharmaceutical startup has won a three-year, $3 million federal science innovation grant to refine a commercial process for freeze drying biomolecules so they can be stored or administered into the body as a powder.
Engineered Biopharmaceuticals is one of nine research projects totaling $22 million being funded by the federal Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Among other things, NIST promotes U.S. leadership in innovative manufacturing technology and processes.
Founder Carl Sahi of Coventry says his goal is to scale up a viable production process for rendering protein-based drugs into a stable inhalant to combat such diseases as measles, genital warts and cardiovascular ailments.
Under terms of the grant, Engineered Biopharmaceuticals must match the investment. Sahi says an unnamed private investor has pledged matching funds.
Sahi said a more detailed announcement about the investor and where development of the freeze-drying process will take place at a later date.
Sahi, 54, is a veteran biotech entrepreneur who, while a technician in the state Medical Examiner’s Office in the 1980s, patented a safety hyperdermic needle that prevent accidental sticks among blood collectors and caregivers.
The public company he co-founded, Bio-Plexus Inc., formerly of Tolland, marketed its self-blunting Punctur-Guard needles to hospitals and clinics globally.
Sahi, who left Bio-Plexus in 2000, several years before it was sold, said most new drugs in development today are rooted in protein molecules, which tend to be more fragile than other biocompounds.
“There really needs to be a change in the way the drugs are basically stored so they can have a longer shelf life,’’ said Sahi, who works as a consultant to various drugmakers.
Extending drugs’ shelf life, as well as the means to administer them to patients, over the long term lowers the drugs’ cost, Sahi said.
