SBIR reauthorization passes Senate

SBIR/STTR funding passes Senate; House vote could come next week

A House vote is awaited after the Senate passed a BIO priority: reauthorization of federal seed funding programs that have launched thousands of biotech innovations. Potential applicants should expect a brief call for proposals.

State of play: The Senate on March 3 voted unanimously to reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs after funding lapsed in October. Reauthorization is also popular in the House, where a vote could come during the week of March 16-20.

What SBIR/STTR programs do: Provide federal grants so small firms can develop innovations to the point where they can attract commercial investment. Since their beginning in 1982 and 1992 respectively, SBIR and STTR have provided more than $77 billion in funding to 33,000 businesses.

Big for biotech: Driving 12% of all FDA-approved drugs, SBIR/STTR grants are essential to funding innovations from small biotechs. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) operates the second biggest SBIR/STTR programs after the Department of Defense.

BIO’s view: "For years, Congress has reauthorized the SBIR program with bipartisan support due to its proven track record of helping innovators,” said NewYorkBIO CEO Jennifer Hawks Bland, who leads the Council of State Bioscience Association's SBIR working group. “Here in New York, SBIR powers a life sciences sector that includes 117,000 bioscience jobs. For the sake of our (national) innovation economy and the patients who depend on continued progress, we urge Congress to get this done.”

On your mark, get set: If programs are reauthorized, the deadline for applications could be imminent. Biotechs who might apply for SBIR/STTR grants should be ready.

Read more from BIO: The Power of Small and Mid-Sized Biotechs.

BIO’s BIG Summit brings big ideas to Miami

The inaugural BIO Investment and Growth (BIG) Summit brought a flurry of partnering activity and some big ideas to Miami last week.

Why it matters: The BIG Summit allowed the biotech industry “to generate ideas so that we can move forward together to ensure that we continue to have strong capital formation in American biotech and that we continue to have that strong American biotech ecosystem,” said Kelly M. Seagraves, BIO’s Vice President of National Security & International Affairs.

M&A edging up: M&A and licensing deals increased in 2025, and the trend looks likely to continue in 2026, according to an analyst.

M&A drives access: Small biotechs can use mergers to achieve their ultimate goal—increasing access to their discoveries, said panelist Sharon Mates, former CEO at Intra-Cellular Therapies: “When you have an interested party, what is the best route? What’s the best for patients?” Read more on Bio.News.

Navigating changes in international trade: China has seen an explosion of innovation and out-licensing, and is developing speedier clinical trials, another panel noted. Meanwhile U.S. biotechs face threats from proposals like Most Favored Nation pricing and tariffs. There are solutions but a great innovation is essential, panelists said. Read more on Bio.News.

Busy partnering: Partnering is the lifeblood of biotech, and there was plenty of it happening in Miami. Around 450 biotech firms, investors and other potential partners registered in the patented BIO Partnering™ system, which facilitated in-person meetings during the summit and more conversations afterward.

What Else to Read

Nearly half of Americans say insurance company access policies delayed, denied, or altered care. While most of the dialogue on health system reform focuses on cost, there is a growing awareness that Americans aren’t getting what they pay for. Insurance company utilization management tactics, such as prior authorization and step therapy, drown patients and providers in paperwork, requiring care to be delayed or changed. New polling data from KFF shows these policies have a direct, negative impact on patients. Read more on Bio.News.

Shifting approval authority for first-in-human clinical trials from the FDA to institutional review boards would keep the U.S. competitive with China, Jacob Becraft, Strand Therapeutics CEO writes in The Washington Post. Becraft says China offers faster clinical trials by using review boards instead of a central body. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should allow boards, in hospitals or regional medical centers, to approve some clinical trials, especially “small first-in-human trials involving a few dozen patients who have exhausted other options,” Becraft writes. “Forfeiting this stage of innovation to China threatens American science and national security.” Read more here.

Independent Autism Coordinating Committee (I-ACC) forms to provide autism information. The I-ACC will “bring together accomplished scientific experts and stakeholders with research expertise, with the goal of accelerating scientific discovery, improving care, and positively impacting the lives of people with autism. It will create a research agenda for autism that reflects the rapid progress and growing promise of autism science,” said an announcement of its formation. The I-ACC expressed concerns about changes at the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), with “21 new public IACC members many of whom propound the false narrative that childhood vaccines cause autism.” Read more here.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials sent to battle measles in South Carolina. Spartanburg County, SC, where there have been about roughly 990 measles cases since the latest outbreak began in October, had one school with a 21% vaccination rate, The New York Times reports. The U.S. has 1,281 measles cases—already more than half of last year’s 2,281 cases, which was the highest annual number in more than three decades—with 93% of cases impacting people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status, CDC said on March 5. Vaccination stops measles, and had eliminated the disease in the U.S., BIO explains in its Why We Vaccinate campaign. Read more here.

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