The NIH has awarded up to $15.6 million in grants over five years to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and the University of Colorado, Denver (UCD) to conduct research with mucolytic agents discovered by Parion Sciences, a Durham, N.C.-based company focused on pulmonary and ocular diseases, and to enable Investigational New Drug applications for Parion's molecules.

The first year of funding awarded for the Centers for Advanced Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics in Lung Disease (CADET) grant awards ($7.7 million total) include $1.46 million to UNC-CH to conduct preclinical research on Parion's mucolytic program in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. The second CADET grant was awarded to UCD for $1.52 million in the first year ($7.9 million total) in support of preclinical research on Parion's mucolytic program in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

The two grants will be utilized over a total of five years with a renewal after the first two years and annual reviews.