Congress gave small biotech businesses cause for celebration by approving a bill to extend the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology transfer programs by another fourteen years. The programs were due to 'sunset' in September of this year but a Senate committee has now raised funding levels for these grants to $150,000 for phase 1 grants and $1 million for phase 2 grants. In addition, a new SBIR bridge-grant program from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) offers up to $3 million in funding to boost small companies from phase 2 to successful commercialization. This transition has been referred to as the 'valley of death' because many companies fail from a lack of cash flow after they have graduated from the phase 2 grant, but not yet achieved commercial profitability. The bridge funds will help companies like NovaRx of San Diego, who developed their cell-based vaccine for lung cancer under an SBIR fast-track phase 1/2 grant, to move forward with commercialization of their product. Says Habib Fakhrai, president of NovaRx, “The results of the trial were so stellar, so good, that we were able to use those results to procure further funding...Without that SBIR grant, it would have been extremely difficult.” The NCI will require bridge-grant applicants to raise matching funds from private investors—a tough test for a new company, but one that the NCI believes will separate the wheat from the chaff. Small venture capital firms would also be eligible for funding under the new agreement.