Notice Number: NOT-DA-15-041

Key Dates
Release Date: January 27, 2015

Issued by
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice is to alert the field to program priorities relevant to the SBIR and STTR program of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The SBIR/STTR program is intended to meet, among others, the following goals: strengthen the role of small business in meeting Federal research or research and development (R/R&D) needs; increase the commercial application of Federally-supported research results; and improve the return on investment from Federally-funded research.

In this Notice, NIDA emphasizes its need to discover, develop and clinically evaluate medications to treat substance use disorders (SUDs).

Specifically, this Notice underscores the high programmatic priority given to research that seeks to achieve this goal in the following ways:

1. Drug discovery and development-enabling activities.
   
   Development of innovative technologies, methods or tools, including but not limited to:
• Innovative in vitro, in situ, or in vivo tools for the analysis of the central nervous system, normal and/or diseased.
• Technologies, including molecular imaging, gene expression profiling, and genotyping and sequencing approaches designed to better inform the diagnosis and treatment of substance use disorders (SUD).
• Tools to simplify drug design and preclinical development for SUD.

2. Drug discovery and development activities.
   
   Application of emerging and existing technologies and platforms to SUD drug development. Medical products with potential to minimize drug seeking, compulsive behavior, and/or addictive processes are strongly encouraged. Examples might include, but are not limited to:
• Chemistry / pharmaceutical drug development
• Preclinical and/or clinical drug development
• Technologies or Formulations to improve medication delivery
• New systems for patient adherence monitoring at the point of care in clinical trials
• Development of biomarkers related to treatment outcomes

NIDA SBIR funding decisions are based on combination of factors. In addition to 1) programmatic priorities described in this Notice, NIDA considers 2) the potential for commercialization, 3) portfolio balance ( to determine whether the similar projects have already be funded search NIH Reporter http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm), 4) for Phase II applications, the results of Phase I and the commercial potential and scientific/technical merit of the Phase II application, 5) the quality of the previous performance of the applicant in SBIR program, including evidence of Phase III activities, 6) the peer review scores and critiques, 7) availability of funds. Very strong applications outside of the areas of current strategic interest could be funded at the levels of statutory guidelines (not to exceed $150,000 for Phase I and $1,000,000 for Phase II, in total costs, including direct costs, indirect costs and fee).

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Elena Koustova, PhD, MBA
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Telephone: 301-496-8768
Email: NIDASBIR@mail.nih.gov