Daré Bioscience said on Monday it received a $908,000 award from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to advance preclinical work on DARE-PTB2, an investigational therapy for idiopathic preterm birth.
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a division of the NIH, issued the notice of award under grant number R44HD113465. The funding will cover initial pharmacokinetic, safety and toxicity studies, with an additional $1.3 million recommended for future-year support to complete the research phase. Daré previously secured a $400,000 NIH grant in July 2023 to fund proof-of-concept target validation studies in collaboration with the University of South Florida.
Preterm birth, defined as delivery before 37 weeks of pregnancy, remains a leading cause of infant morbidity and mortality globally. No FDA-approved therapeutics currently exist to reduce the risk of preterm birth, the company said. DARE-PTB2 is an early-stage program under development to address this unmet medical need.
Sabrina Martucci Johnson, president and CEO of Daré Bioscience, said the new award provides non-dilutive funding critical to advancing DARE-PTB2. The NIH and NICHD have supported the program since its preclinical validation phase, she added.
