Bio Grants

The Flinn Foundation provides grants to Arizona universities, nonprofit research institutions, health systems, and others to strengthen the state’s bioscience and biomedical-research infrastructure.

In addition to providing bioscience grants to Arizona institutions that advance collaborative research, the Foundation operates a Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program that each year provides personalized benefits and funding, through a nonprofit partner, to competitively selected early-stage Arizona bioscience firms.

By promoting research, entrepreneurship, and partnerships across the state’s bioscience ecosystem, the Flinn Foundation’s bioscience grantmaking program aims to advance the research and commercialization goals of Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap.

Major Foundation grants in recent years have funded research to address the problem of chronic rhinosinusitis; develop a medical-nutrition education program for health-care providers; improve providers’ capacity to use pharmacogenetic testing to guide safe and effective prescribing of medicines; and develop a framework for health-care providers to respond to antimicrobial resistance.

The Flinn Foundation Seed Grants to Promote Translational Research Program, which awards $100,000 grants annually to universities, nonprofit research institutes, and hospitals, is designed to translate innovations and discoveries into patient care more quickly. Bringing together academic scientists and clinicians, the program’s collaborative projects have focused on brain injuries, ALS, melanoma, colorectal and bladder cancer, West Nile virus, asthma, autism, antivenom, Barrett’s Esophagus, and many other areas of clinical importance.

The seed-grants program, which comprises about one-third of the Foundation’s research funds, has awarded 73 seed grants totaling about $8.5 million since 2013. The initiative enables organizations to ultimately better compete for larger grants from funders like the National Institutes of Health or build partnerships to facilitate commercialization.

Since 2014, the Flinn Foundation has selected 66 Arizona bioscience firms to participate in the Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program through a competitive process; its nonprofit partners have provided nearly $2 million in funding support to participating firms. Up to two startups are awarded non-dilutive funding support of up to $100,000 and all 10 finalist companies are offered exclusive opportunities to engage with the state’s bioscience, academic, and policy leaders.