Liquidia Technologies
today announced its founder, Dr. Joseph DeSimone, has received the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's Pioneer Award. Pioneer Awards are
designed to support individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose
pioneering - and possibly transforming - approaches to major challenges
in biomedical and behavioral research.
“It is a great honor to be a recipient of this year's NIH Director's
Pioneer Award,” said Dr. Joseph DeSimone, Chancellor's Eminent Professor
of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and William
R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at NC State University.
“We are very eager to expand the exploration of novel delivery approaches
for biologic treatments, as the safe and effective delivery of biologics will
pave the way for a new frontier in medicine.”
The award will be used to advance PRINT® technology - a novel method
for producing highly precise nanocarriers - for the delivery of promising
biological therapeutics to desired locations in the body. Unlike traditional
delivery approaches, PRINT particles known as Engineered Drug Therapies™
can be designed with highly specific sizes, shapes, and chemistries to facilitate
safe and effective delivery of small molecules and delicate biologics such as
proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids (e.g. siRNA). DeSimone and colleagues
founded Liquidia Technologies in 2004 to commercialize PRINT technology. The
company is currently advancing a vaccine product toward a Phase 1 clinical trial.
“We congratulate Dr. DeSimone on this outstanding award,” said
Neal Fowler, CEO of Liquidia Technologies. “The efforts of Professor DeSimone
and his research team are leading to discoveries of novel and effective delivery
methods to prevent and treat a wide range of diseases.”
The NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program is a prestigious component of
the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The grant offers recipients $500,000 per
year for five years to advance their research, and is among the largest sponsorships
offered by the NIH to individual investigators. To be selected for the award,
researchers must advance “pioneering” ideas that have the potential
to produce an unusually high impact on a broad area of biomedical or behavioral
research.
Liquidia Technologies is a privately-held nanotechnology company that develops
and manufactures precisely engineered particles for improved delivery of biological
and small molecule therapeutics. The company is currently advancing products
within the fields of vaccines, nucleic acid delivery, and inhaled therapeutics
to address critical unmet needs in the treatment of human disease. The company
was founded in 2004 and is located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.