Mercator MedSystems Receives Grant from Department of Treasury - Third Federal Grant this Year
QTDP grant advances Mercator's hypertension program
SAN LEANDRO, Calif., November 1, 2010 — Mercator MedSystems, Inc., announced today that it has been awarded the maximum grant amount for a Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project from the Department of the Treasury. The nearly $250,000 grant is for a project to reduce hypertension by delivering drugs to the nerves that surround arteries that lead to the kidneys. If these nerves are hyperactive, it can lead to systemic hypertension; however, focusing treatment on these nerves could reduce blood pressure and even erase the need to treat patients with blood pressure medication.
"We are proud of our accomplishments in this field of interventional hypertension therapy," said Kirk Seward, PhD, Mercator's president and chief technology officer. "This grant will help us to propel our research forward as we work to improve the lives of millions of patients with dangerously high blood pressure."
The QTDP program was enacted as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The program was meant in part to stimulate new therapies to treat areas of unmet medical needs or to prevent, detect or treat chronic or acute diseases and conditions, and to reduce the long-term growth of health care costs in the United States.
This grant is in addition to two grants that Mercator received from the National Institutes of Health in the last year. These two grants, aimed at battling the outcomes of lung cancer and peripheral artery disease, have provided Mercator with more than $435,000 in research and development funds since August 2009.
About Mercator MedSystems, Inc.
Mercator MedSystems, Inc., based in San Leandro, Calif., is a privately held medical technology company focused on commercializing catheter-guided, microfluid infusion systems for site-specific delivery of therapeutic agents for applications in hypertension, cardiovascular disease, oncology and regenerative medicine.
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