Stem Pharm received a $2.5 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the company announced recently.

According to a release, the funds will support the project titled “Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery Using a Human Organoid Model of Neuroinflammation” and advance Stem Pharm’s proprietary human neuroimmune organoid technology into therapeutic screening.

“This award represents an important transition for Stem Pharm from developing and validating a novel human model of Alzheimer’s disease to using that platform to discover potential therapeutics,” Stem Pharm CEO Dr. Steven Visuri said in a statement. “With this Phase II funding, we can now apply that capability at meaningful scale to identify new therapeutic opportunities.”