NIH gives catalyst award, funds to Kalamazoo company

When the region’s economic development organization, Southwest Michigan First, worked to get Pfizer scientists to stay in the community in 2003, in envisioned success for companies like Proteos.

Proteos partners with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as with universities and government agencies, to explore new protein therapeutic products. Founded in 2003 by a team of seven ex-Pfizer scientists, the company currently has a staff of 14. 

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $169,643 to the Kalamazoo-based Proteos, a contract research organization. The money is a small business catalyst award given out by the NIH under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

The NIH invited grant applications from small businesses to step-up innovation through high-risk, high-reward research and development. Applicants had to demonstrate they had commercial potential and are relevant to the mission of the NIH. 

NIH says the Small Business Catalyst Award supports “entrepreneurs of exceptional creativity, drawn from scientific and technological environments beyond NIH, who propose pioneering and possibly transformative approaches to addressing major biomedical or behavioral challenges with the potential for downstream commercial development.”

Proteos provides consultation strategies covering all aspects of protein expression, production and purification, It offers research into high quality proteins and peptides. The company also does protein sequencing and assay development and application of given protocols as part of quality assurance. It also develops protein products, including recombinant human renin.

 “We are pleased that companies, like Proteos, call West Michigan home,” says Ron Kitchens, Chief Executive Officer of Southwest Michigan First.

Writer: Kathy Jennings

Source: Clark Smith, Ph.D.,  Chief Executive Officer Proteos, Inc.