God bless Uncle Sam!
Minnesota medical device and biotech companies won about $24 million in tax credits and grants from the Qualified Therapeutic Discovery program. The $1 billion initiative born from federal healthcare reform law seeks to boost companies working on therapies that save money.
MedCity News first reported the seeds of Minnesota’s haul when it learned Tuesday that Pursuit Vascular Inc. was a grant winner — $244,000 over two years.
All in all, more than 80 Minnesota companies received money, most of them opting for grants with only three companies choosing tax credits.
The winners ranged from the usual suspects (Orasi Medical, EnteroMedics and AUM Cardiovascular) to the less familiar (Antares Medical, Tumor Biology Investment Group, and GeneSegues Inc.).
For the full list of grant winners, click here, and for tax credit recipients, click here.
This is great news for Minnesota! LifeScience Alley worked with BIO and PhRMA to win inclusion of this program in the health reform legislation and we will be advocating for continued funding of this program in future years. We will also seek to broaden the defition of a qualyfing technology to make sure that medical device companies are fully included.