Oral Diseases and Disorders Research – SBIR/STTR

NIDCR’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs support a broad portfolio of translational and clinical research across dental, oral, and craniofacial (DOC) sciences. NIDCR areas of programmatic interest encompass DOC tissue mineralization and developmental anomalies; head and neck cancers; oral microbiology, including HIV/AIDS; orofacial pain and temporomandibular joint disorders; and salivary gland and rheumatic diseases. The portfolio also includes preclinical and translational research to advance precision medicine, computational and data science, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, and the development of biomaterials and devices and immunomodulatory oral science, with the goal of accelerating translation, regulatory readiness, and clinical adoption of DOC-specific innovations. In addition, NIDCR supports patient-oriented, population, and community-based research aimed at improving DOC health across the nation. This includes biomedical and behavioral clinical trials, DOC health and epidemiology, and studies of fundamental biological processes.

SBIR and STTR grants can be awarded only to domestic small business concerns that meet the following criteria: 1) Is organized for profit, with a place of business located in the United States, which operates primarily within the United States or which makes a significant contribution to the United States economy through payment of taxes or use of American products, materials or labor; 2) Is in the legal form of an individual proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, joint venture, association, trust or cooperative, except where the form is a joint venture, there must be less than 50 percent participation by foreign business entities in the joint venture; 3) Be a concern which is more than 50% directly owned and controlled by one or more individuals (who are citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States), other business concerns (each of which is more than 50% directly owned and controlled by individuals who are citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States), or any combination of these; no single venture capital operating company, hedge fund, or private equity firm may own more than 50% of the concern, 4) Has, including its affiliates, not more than 500 employees, and 5) meets the other regulatory requirements found in 13 C.F.R. Part 121. For STTR awards, the small business must "partner" with a research institution in a cooperative research and development project. In both Phase I and Phase II for both SBIR and STTR, the research must be performed in the U.S. and its possessions. To be eligible for funding, all grant applications must be evaluated for scientific merit and program relevance by a scientific peer review group and the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council.

All accepted SBIR/STTR applications are evaluated for scientific and technical merit by an appropriate initial review group and by the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council (NADCRC). All applications receiving a priority score compete for available SBIR/STTR set-aside funds on the basis of scientific and technical merit and commercial potential of the proposed research, program relevance, and program balance among the areas of research.