Velazquez Caves Under Pressure -- SBIR Extended

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We did it! Hundreds of calls and letters produced an overwhelming level of bipartisan peer pressure that even the most stubborn Committee Chair couldn't stand up against.

A special issue of Rick Shindell's Insider, written from the scene of the almost crime, reports on some of the details:

HOUSE PASSES SBIR/STTR/CPP EXTENSION THROUGH JANUARY 31, 2011

Borrowing the title of a song from My Fair Lady, "You Did It!" There was thunder on Capitol Hill today as hundreds of you responded to an emergency call to action (from many people and organizations) to save the SBIR program from lapsing, and that you did it!

Around 7:00pm this evening, Nydia Velazquez under pressure from her peers and the House leadership, accepted the Senate's SBIR and SBA extender bill, she and moved to suspend the rules to pass S.3839 without amendments. That has now happened and the SBIR program will be extended through January 31, 2011, pending signature of the President (virtually automatic), who supports the bill.

This is the 9th continuing resolution for SBIR, which in and of itself is an outrage, but perhaps Velazquez & Day are now wounded and certainly embarrassed, having been rolled over by the House leadership twice in as many weeks. The Senate has worked strenuously in bipartisan fashion to construct a compromise that Nydia & Day would accept, but they showed little interest.

We will provide a postmortem of this escapade in a future issue to show how close we came to a programmatic lapse. Your voices played a major role in getting the support to overrule Velazquez.

Nowhere were the cries for passing S.3839 stronger than from the great state of Massachusetts. Not only are they the second largest SBIR award winning state, but also the most organized. To that end, two of their congressionals played major roles in this victory, Ed Markey (D-MA) and Niki Tsongas (D-MA). Tsongas wrote a powerful "Dear Colleague" letter (signed by supporters) that truly made a difference. There are many more heros and we'll cover that next week.

So, we can stop holding our collective breath for a little while, but there's much to do. Rick continues:

WHAT'S NEXT

This fight is far from over, but the tide is turning. The big challenge for you is to get out and educate the candidates running for election. Do it not only for the candidate of your choice, but to the opposition as well. Attend their rallies, talk to their staff, and to the press. Undoubtedly there will be many new freshman congressmen and senators coming in to the next congress and you'll want them to know about the importance of the SBIR/STTR programs to your business and the economy. Also, step up to the plate and publicly thank those who have supported your programs, and don't be afraid to criticize those who didn't.

So thanks to all of you who jumped on this and turned around the hostage situation with a favorable outcome.

Jere Glover's Small Business Technology Council (SBTC) has promised to provide some good educational information for us to use in this educational effort. I urge you to please join the SBTC and help support Jere and the others who volunteer their time for SBIR advocacy. If you're an SBIR supporter, it's the right thing to do.
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Velazquez Holding SBIR Hostage for Lame Duck Ploy

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[UPDATE 9/29: Nydia Caved Under Pressure!
Read this and then click HERE for the update.]
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Incredible! And I wish I could say unbelievable! But, sadly, I'm not really surprised.

The illustrious Chairlady of the House Small Business Committee, Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), evidently holds herself above the will of both the Senate and the House. Is this a manifestation of self-importance (with a touch of petulance) or just selfish personal pocket-book protection? Or maybe both. I have my opinion, but you can draw your own conclusions. (Rumor has it she was recently seen shopping at Macy's for a bigger pocket-book.)

In an obvious ploy to sneak into law her provisions for opening up the SBIR program to unrestricted VC controlled company access to these funds, with jumbo awards to boot, she is defying the will of the Senate and many of her own Party in the House to get her way. The intent is to use the post-election Lame Duck session to tack her version of SBIR Reauthorization onto otherwise untouchable emergency legislation.

In his usual inimitable and eloquent style, Rick Shindell blew the whistle on this in his SBIR Insider of September 27:

SBIR/STTR/CPP EXPIRATION LOOMS

The SBIR/STTR/CPP now appears likely to expire on Thursday night, September 30. Some will deny it but here's what's happening.

Allegedly the Senate and House were close to a compromise complete with an 8 year reauthorization of SBIR/STTR/CPP but each time it goes back to the House (Nydia & Day), they change the VC language to masquerade 100% VC involvement as a compromise.

Because time is so short, the Senate passed a bill (S.3839) to simply extend SBIR/STTR/CPP through January 31, 2011. The House was going to pass it on Wednesday with the President signing Thursday. However, the word on the street is that Nydia Velazquez, chair of the House Small Business Committee, and her illustrious second, Michael Day, are rejecting the bill and are poised to let SBIR expire if necessary, at least in the short term.

It seems that Velazquez's hope is to move the SBIR reauthorization into the lame duck session and incorporate all her Wall Street investors' 100% non-compromise VC ownership and jumbo award support into a must pass, end of the year omnibus bill that can't be touched by her detractors.

This sounds like a script for TV, but several years ago we had a similar year end omnibus situation involving Nydia (as ranking member) and Sam Graves (subcommittee chair) and BIO/NVCA, but the main difference was that the small business committee chair was Donald Manzullo who nipped it in the bud. In our scenario today we have to look to the House leadership to do it, but it will take your involvement.

Many senior people in the democratic party called for the House to support the Senate compromise bill H.R. 2965, but Nydia ignored those calls, as did Jason Altmire, the creator of this infamous Altmire Quagmire. Now Nydia's really "miffed" because last week she tried to "scrub" H.R.5297, the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, but the Obama administration and Speaker Pelosi rolled her over and passed it.

Rick includes a Call To Action to marshal support to prevent this Velazquez ploy from succeeding. You can read about it on the SBIR Insider itself, or on www.SBIRreauthorization.com.

Rick concludes his comments with a discussion of what happens if SBIR lapses, even for a short time:

Theoretically those projects (grants and contracts) that are already in place should be okay, but some not. All new unsigned agreements would stop. Agency comptrollers may start adjusting their budgets to put the overall 2.8% SBIR/STTR back into their own research pools. Administrative funding for SBIR could be severely cut back. Remember, all of your grants and contracts are "subject to the availability of funding."

On the other hand, SBIR can be voluntary, so some agencies may choose to keep their SBIR doors open, hoping for, or expecting the reinstatement of the program.

I agree with Rick. For SBIR to lapse, even for a short time, is bad for you and the agencies.

Please join our Call to Action and stop Nydia in her tracks.

REMIND EVERYONE YOU CONTACT THAT THEIR INACTION IN LETTING A SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM DIE WILL NOT PLAY WELL IN THEIR RE-ELECTION CHANCES!

Monitor what happens on www.SBIRreauthorization.com.
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Re-inventing SBIR?

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They've been meeting for almost a year with good intent: make SBIR more "effective and efficient". They're calling it SBIR 2.0 - borrowing on the Web 2.0 lexicon that heralded the shift from passive viewing of web content to active interaction among all elements of the web community (from content creators to content users) in a collaborative fashion.

Don't be fooled. It's not the same thing. Not even close. They're talking the talk. But not walking the walk.

Collaboration? Among newbie Agency SBIR Directors (the content creators) - maybe. Are SBIR funded companies (the content users) involved? Nope. Were past and retired SBIR Program Directors consulted? Nope. Were SBIR's founders consulted? Nope. (I'm certainly not in the loop -- not that I should be, although I do have ideas that could have merit -- so if some of the "Nopes" are erroneous, I apologize. But I bet the Nopes are pretty accurate.)

The SBIR 2.0 effort is being spearheaded by Sean Greene, the SBA's Associate Administrator for Investment and Special Advisor for Innovation. (Don'tcha just love government titles?) He's a good guy, a true friend to SBIR, and, as I said, well intentioned. But the naivete here is disturbing.

Here's a quick outline of what's included in the SBA's SBIR 2.0 initiative:

Simplification and Streamlining
- Shortening the contract/grant initiation period after award
- Building a web portal to search for available open topics
- Clarify and simplify SBIR Data Rights
Shared Best Practices
- Expanding bridge financing programs (between Phases)
- Expanding SBIR to facilitate tech transfer (ala NIST)
- Issuing joint agency solicitations
Better Performance Management
- Implement common performance metrics across agencies
- Share performance data publicly

Ambitious for sure! It would be marvelous to get all of that to work. But, folks, it ain't gonna happen quickly. Some aspects may not happen at all. The challenges are daunting. Some of the issues have been debated for years without consensus!

Every one of the agencies can improve the efficiency of project initiation after award. All it takes is money allocated to pay for administration. They haven't got any for this. Current SBIR law doesn't allow use of SBIR apportioned funds for admin. Unfortunately, last I knew, SBIR reauthorization which may fix that provision, hasn't happened yet.

And, at least for DOD, the SBIR Program Managers have NO CLOUT WHATEVER with component contracting authorities, who completely control the contract initiation process. I've seen contracting delays of as much as two YEARS! And, if they did have some clout, the current Army default of Phase I payments every two or three months (instead of monthly) wouldn't be the practice. Can you spell "cash flow"?

A "one-stop-shop" portal with a topic search feature? Gee, don't we already have one? It's called The SBIR Gateway. Not a penny of government money funds it, by the way. The "official" SBIR website (SBIR.gov) certainly could use some work - and a topic search engine - but why waste taxpayer money re-creating something that already works? Or is it simply a control issue?

Getting agencies to work together for improved SBIR efficiency? Don't make me laugh. The agencies are too different and too bureaucratically rigid to make any "one style fits all" approach work. Just the difference in competition compliance requirements between contracting and granting agencies alone makes the whole effort quite unlikely.

Clarifying SBIR Data Rights? PLEASE DO! But this involves getting lawyers to agree. Good luck with that. Ron Cooper, another good guy from the SBA, is at the point for this. If you have ideas, he'd like to hear them.

They're trying a working-together experiment - a five-agency (NIH, DARPA, DHS, NSF, and USDA) joint solicitation on Robotics. Just announced. Here's the info: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-279.html. Warning: Take two aspirin before reading, and call me in the morning. Heaven help us, the NIH SBIR application system will be used to collect all five agencies' Robotics proposals!

The NIH's system? Yikes! Y'all know what I think about it: It Sucks! For those of you who are used to doing DOD SBIR proposals, be prepared for EXTREME frustration! I've even put out an SBIR Coach's Newsletter issue about what to expect.

Regarding expanding bridge and commercialization funding, Kristina Johnson, the person at DOE who got their first of its kind Phase III funding initiatives in place, is apparently and suddenly leaving the agency. And the NIST "SBIR TT" program cited as the example for innovative SBIR tech transfer just lost it's creator, Cara Asmail, who's moved on to another NIST post. We have a leadership gap.

The turnover issue also extends to agency SBIR Program Director/Manager roles, as many newcomers are sitting in those chairs this year. I wonder how many of them have actually read the SBIR Policy Directive? Probably about as many as our legislators who actually read the bills they vote for.

Finally, common performance metrics? Oh, please! The agencies don't currently have ANY meaningful SBIR performance metrics. At the Beyond Phase II Conference last week, we were shown some (I thought suspicious) statistics on alleged SBIR performance, but there's no consensus on what constitutes SBIR success and no data gathering that has integrity or accuracy. I'm sure the SBIR funded companies have quite a different view of "success metrics" than do the agencies. Who provides the data? Who collects it? Who is to analyze it? What's to be done with the results? All still undefined.

I'm not usually pessimistic, but it's hard to have optimism about SBIR 2.0. Just being well intentioned doesn't cut the mustard. Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I'm tired of being told to "trust" and "have hope" for "change" we can count on.

Change huh? This Administration's idea of "change" makes me shudder. (And make no mistake about it, the SBA is an arm of this Administration.) Will "simplification" mean adoption of the NIH's horribly complex SBIR collection and evaluation system? Will "best practices" for laying SBIR eggs (and making them into omelets) be defined by the eggs rather than the chickens? Will "performance metrics" have anything to do with creating jobs and producing innovative technology by giving small businesses access to Federal R&D opportunities?

Until SBIR is reauthorized, much of this is moot. Any efficiency changes will be limited and intra-agency. And, Lord knows, intra-agency efficiency changes are sorely needed! Effectiveness changes? Who knows what that even means?

I do applaud what Sean Greene and the Agency SBIR Program Directors (with a special nod to Chris Rinaldi at DOD) are trying to do with SBIR 2.0. They're sincere and trying hard to do what's best for SBIR. I just entreat them to do it smart and not ignore the user community and what's been tried in the past. Involve Roland Tibbetts, Ann Eskesen, and Jere Glover in the dialog and listen to what they have to say. Involve small business and their advocacy arm, the SBTC, too. Make SBIR 2.0 truly collaborative.

If you're going to talk the talk, please walk the walk.
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SBIR Reauthorization? Hit the Reset Button.

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It ain't gonna happen this year folks. The 111th Congress will be remembered for many things. Reauthorizing SBIR won't be among them.

But, don't worry, they won't let it die. No one wants to be accused of killing a small business program. So it'll be extended as is, with yet another Continuing Resolution, and the 112th will have to start over. With a clean slate. All unresolved legislation is trashed, ya' know.

Hit the Reset Button. It'll be a brand new game.

If the polls are even close to being accurate, there will be a lot of new faces in both the House and Senate. Many of these new legislators are likely to have never even heard of SBIR. So we must start over again with educating, persuading, persisting.

And we'll have new Congressional leadership, both at the top and on Committees. In the case of the House Small Business Committee, that's a good thing. Nydia needs a vacation. She works so hard on behalf of her constituents and supporters' pet projects. Too bad SBIR has never been one of them.

Those of you from Missouri -- get ready to "show me" some style. If the Republicans gain control of the House, Sam Graves is likely to be the new SBC Chair. At least his district of north Kansas City and St. Joseph may actually have some SBIR funded companies in it! Make sure he knows how you feel.

It's also a brand new game at many of the SBIR Agencies. The three biggest in terms of SBIR budgets, DOD, NIH and DOE, all have new leadership at the Program Director level.

Defense, the Big Gorilla with over $1 Billion of SBIR and STTR projects annually, has had Chris Rinaldi at the DOD SBIR helm for just a few months. He's still getting his feet wet. And he's got a bunch of new faces at the twelve DOD component desks as well, as DOD's had a bunch of recent SBIR office retirements including Connie Jacobs (DARPA) and Steve Guilfoos (AF). New game here for sure.

Energy still hasn't officially settled on the replacement for Larry James and has Vince Dattoria serving as Acting SBIR Program Director. No telling what's going to evolve there. But, DOE has done more than any other agency to use their Stimulus Funds for small business R&D projects, so there's hope.

But the biggest new game is at the NIH, where Jo Anne Goodnight recently announced that she is retiring from government service this month. No announcement yet as to who will be replacing her as NIH SBIR Program Director, but Kay Etzler is certainly qualified and capable of handling that job! Heck, she did it most of last year when Jo Anne was on temporary assignment to the Senate. I haven't asked her if she's even put her hat in the ring, but if they don't give Kay the job, watch out. That could very likely portend a significant shift in NIH SBIR policy.

Jo Anne will really be missed, especially by me. She and I haven't always agreed on SBIR policy implementation, but she's been a respected friend. SBIR Conferences just won't be the same without her. Her "SBIR 101" presentations are classic and legendary. She and Joe Hennebury from DOT (also recently retired) were mainstays as the primary cheerleaders for the Program. Now who's going to pick up that slack?

Another SBIR office that's lost a star is NIST. Clara Asmail, in my opinion the most creative thinker among the SBIR Directors, has moved to another NIST post. Hopefully what she started at NIST (see my column on this: Clever Clara...) won't be allowed to fade away.

So, it's pretty much a brand new game. On all fronts. Hit the Reset Button.

I predict this eighth SBIR CR will likely be for seven months, taking us to April 30th of 2011.

We'll have a few months of nothing doing while Congress re-boots and the 112th gets started. New SBIR Reauthorization bills will be introduced by the House and Senate Small Business Committees. Probably similar to the current ones, but hopefully a bit closer together in concept.

Here we go again. Monitor www.SBIRreauthorization.com for updates.

Meanwhile, there are three important events coming up this fall that The SBIR Coach will be participating in as a sponsor or speaker:

• The DOD's Beyond Phase II SBIR Conference in San Antonio (Sep 13-17),
• The National Association of Seed and Venture Funds (NASVF) Annual Conference in Baltimore (Oct 13-15), and
• The Fall 2010 SBIR National Conference in Oklahoma City (Nov 8-10).

If you're attending be sure to look me up and we can talk about your SBIR commercialization game plan. You'd better have one. Companies don't get the luxury of having Reset Buttons!
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Sometimes it does take a Rocket Scientist!

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I decided a couple of months ago that beating the SBIR drum was just making noise that no one (but a few of us in what's loosely called the Advocacy) cared about. I was getting a headache and decided I'd had enough. I wasn't going to write any more about SBIR reauthorization until something significant happened.

Well, nothing significant (or at least that's made any difference in getting a bill passed) has occurred, except for some behind-the-scenes (don'tcha just love the transparency) maneuvering to get the Senate's compromise worded so both the House and Senate can agree on something. They couldn't get it done by the end of July, so it's now September 30th before we'll, probably at the last minute, see a bill. Hopefully. But, frankly, after what's gone on this year, nothing our legislators do will surprise me. (Monitor www.SBIRreauthorization.com and Rick Shindell's SBIR Insider for updates.)

This isn't rocket science. It shouldn't be so hard to come up with an SBIR compromise if everyone involved really was interested in defining a program that worked better than what we've got. Wishful thinking perhaps, but ya' know, maybe they need to engage rocket scientists to work on this instead of lawyers. At some point, everyone needs a rocket scientist to get past a really tough problem and make things work better.

Hmmm... Don'tcha wish you could call up a "hire a rocket scientist" service and quickly get one to work on a tough problem you've got? No strings attached? And that service be free? ... Actually you can. Really!

I had coffee last week with Shaun Tinoco of The Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP). I thought I knew just about everything available to small technology businesses, especially the free (and non-dilutive) support opportunities, but the SATOP opportunity had eluded my ken.

As Shaun enthusiastically explained: "The SATOP program helps those small businesses and entrepreneurs that have hit a bump in the road during their product development. By simply submitting a short Request for Technical Assistance (RTA) via our website: http://www.spacetechsolutions.com/, they will be put in touch with the brightest engineers and researchers to solve their specific issue within 40 hours. This gets them back on the road to future revenue generation in a short time-frame and at no financial cost."

While this is a NASA supported program, no NASA connection is necessary. Any small business may apply. And the technologies involved need not be just ones NASA might be interested in. Just take a gander at their "Success Stories". A couple dozen industries have been helped, including consumer products and food processing.

And did you catch that this "rocket scientist" (likely to be an employee of one of the big NASA prime contractors) you'll be engaging with comes absolutely free of charge? In fact, more than 50 different aerospace companies, universities, and NASA centers have committed in excess of 30,000 hours to providing this free assistance to small businesses via SATOP. In the famous words of NASA legend Wernher von Braun, "It verks!"

Want an informative 2-page SATOP flyer? Click on the Astronaut to download it.


Shaun's final word: "Small businesses should not pass up this opportunity for free NASA support while federal funding is in place." I agree, Shaun!

There's so much more to talk about than reauthorization. I got in a rut about it, but have climbed out, and picked up the "pen" again. Expect more from me on a more regular basis. Thanks to the many of you who have encouraged me to write.
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Greed Drives Continued Campaign to Hijack SBIR's Funding Base

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We're getting it from all sides. Small business is being pushed by big bullies. What we get from SBIR funding is tantamount to lunch money -- just enough to keep us from starving. But they want it. Want it all. Want it bad enough to lie and cheat to get it.

Yes, lie.

The bullies make statements asserting that VC funded businesses can't participate in SBIR. Of course they can. The companies just can't be controlled by VCs and still be eligible. And they tearfully make statements asserting that VC controlled company SBIR eligibility was "taken away" in 2002. Bullfrogfeathers. It was never allowed. Tell a lie often enough and people begin to believe it. Trouble is, it's our elected officials who believe the lies. Or (tucking campaign fund envelopes in their pockets or purses) choose to ignore the truth.

And, yes, cheat.

Will someone please ask Representative Jason Altmire (D-PA-4) why he keeps trying to cheat the system by sneaking the House version of SBIR Reauthorization (HR. 2965) into other legislation? This is a bad bill. Viewed by everyone other than the NVCA/BIO bullies as being destructive to true small business innovation.

Altmire tried a couple of months ago to sneak it into the first Jobs Bill. Word is it was stopped by the Speaker after a rather rapid and loud outcry by small businesses all over the country. Altmire's on the House Small Business Committee. Isn't he supposed to be looking out for small business interests? Why is he taking the side of the bullies?

And, he's trying again. In a "dear colleague" letter sent out a few days ago, Altmire asked for support for including HR 2965 in the new "Jobs" bill, asserting that this was a "compromise" and good for small business. More bullfrogfeathers! In fact, the House Small Business Committee has steadfastly refused to negotiate with the Senate's Small Business Committee and hasn't even considered a compromise version of their much more reasonable SBIR reauthorization bill (S.1233) that was presented to it last October!

What's more, Altmire's letter was not signed by a single true small business. Lots of Universities and Big Businesses signed it though. This hijacking attempt is both a lie and a cheat!

We're appealing to the Speaker to again quash this attempt to cheat the system. (Join the Stop Altmire campaign!)

The bullies have gotten $1.5 BILLION in new funding from a combination of provisions in the recently enacted Health Care Reform Bill and the Jobs Bill. You'd think that would make them happy and they'd leave us alone for a while. All it's done is make them more greedy, emboldened to go and get it all. They're well funded and determined. And did I say greedy?

Even the Finance Reform bill inadvertently threatens small business via an unintended consequence of redefining accreditation of Angel investors and the process of doing funding deals. (Join the Save the Angels campaign!)

There have been a few voices out there on behalf of small business. The SBTC, Ann Eskesen, and Rick Shindell, for example, have tried valiantly to get out the word and counter the lies. And there are a host of other advocates who do their best to spread the word. Largely, these efforts have been ad hoc and woefully underfunded.

A new group has formed to try and organize some truth and reasonableness into this mess. It's called the Small Biotechnology Business Coalition (SBBC). Check out their website: http://www.smallbiotech.org. See everything they're into. If you're a biotech small business, join. If you're interested in supporting small biotech businesses, join. Any of you not covered by that? Join anyhow.

And, finally, in my last column, I mused about antibacterial lip balm for our legislators' excessive lip-service challenged chapped lips. Little did I know there actually is one. And, it's incredibly (some might say appropriately) branded:


Nothing to add to this, folks. I rest my case.
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SBIR Companies' Futures Threatened by Finance Reform Unintended Consequences

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UPDATE: The Senate's Cloture Vote failed on Monday, but they'll try again. It's not too late to follow this guidance ...
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It's so tiresome. Every time I hear one of our politicos, from the top guy on down, talk up the importance of small business I just want to puke. Not because what they're saying isn't true. Quite the contrary. It is true. It's the lip service they pay.

Not only do they not find the time or take the effort to actually enact legislation that's beneficial to the growth of small business, but they don't even stop to think about the consequences to small business when they try and fix something they think is broken.

This time it's Finance Reform. S.3217 to be precise. The Congress is hell bent on fixing Wall Street. We're not going to debate here whether they're doing it right, and God knows there are aspects that do need overhaul, but it's the unintended consequence to small business that I'm upset about.

SBIR only takes you so far. To proof-of-concept. Right up to the edge of the Valley of Death. Then other funding is needed to get you to a marketplace. So what does S.3217 do? Cut off the most likely funding source. Angel Investors. That's right, S.3217 kills the Angels.

The Small Business Technology Council (SBTC), led by my friend Jere Glover, began beating the drum on this as soon as the bill was made available for reading. (Yes, some of us actually do read these things.) Senator Dodd has assured Jere that they'll put in some amendments to save the Angels, but you'll pardon me if I don't just sit back and trust it to get done.

The deadline for introducing amendments to S.3217 is TODAY, Monday, April 26th, as the Senate will call for a Cloture vote at around 5PM EDT. So it's time to marshal the troops, warm up the fax machines, and be proactive.

I sent out an URGENT ALERT Newsletter to my clients and friends list yesterday. Here's a short link to the Newsletter:

http://budurl.com/SaveTheAngels

It has the Call to Action with links to resource materials and a template of a letter you can send to your Senators urging inclusion of the "Save the Angels" amendments.

Read the information in the Newsletter carefully. Follow all the links and get informed. Send a letter or two or twenty. Then, spread the word. Forward this info around to anyone who can help us.

I've already heard from some of my contacts that they're re-broadcasting the Alert to their lists, doing Tweets and recruiting Facebook friends to help Save the Angels. One of these is my friend The Fiscal Doctor. (Thanks, Gary! Much appreciated.) Check him out -- he has good advice for emerging companies.

All that lip service has to be quite chafing. I wonder if they have trouble keeping lip balm in stock at the Capitol commissary? Hope they offer an anti-bacterial version for use with lobbyists!
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The NIH SBIR proposal submission process SUCKS!

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There. I said it. And I meant it.

Over the last few weeks I coached five companies through the intimidating, arduous, and demeaning NIH SBIR proposal submission process for the April 5th deadline. A few of them may need therapy, but by and large, they all survived the process. The jury's still out on me! What's the treatment for "craniac arrest"? I'm getting too old to work this hard!

Why does the NIH's SBIR process have to be so difficult? Required registrations on THREE websites, with multiple registrations on two of them. Just that alone may take a week or two. One of the websites, the NIH's eRA Commons, requires a faxed signature page! Even the IRS eschews that now.

Then, if that wasn't enough, one has to deal with an Adobe Form system with eleven major subforms (one mandatory subform marked "optional") and at least a dozen PDF attachments needed for those subforms, some with page limits, others not. There are dozens of fields and buttons to be filled in and selected, and you'd better do it just so. Or else.

Yes, the NIH provides an Application Guide. Only 234 pages. Shallow Table of Contents. No index.

Once you get the registrations done, all the forms filled out, and the various and sundry documents attached, you still have to endure the submission process. Take a deep breath...

First, upload the completed Adobe Form to Grants.gov (my favorite website...NOT!). Pray you've registered properly and that they'll pass it on to the eRA Commons. If not, fix the AOR credential, and upload again. Don't forget to use the Grant Tracking Number -- but it's called the Federal Identifier in the form. Huh? If it's passed on to the NIH, then the SO and PI can go to the eRA and check the eSub. Alphabet soup anyone?

And, better not have Firefox as your default browser. Grants.gov uses JavaScript. Firefox doesn't. You need JavaScript enabled to "Sign" the application. Aaargh! If JavaScript isn't enabled, you just sit and watch a screen that doesn't change. No message. Nada happens.

Then the eRA Commons does what I call the Nit-Pick Check. If everything's not perfect, you get ERRORS, and have to go back to the start, fix the Adobe Form and resubmit through Grants.gov. You may only get WARNINGS, which do not require a re-submit, but scare the bejezus out of you.

The most ridiculous field that can trip you up is the "Congressional District". Collected for statistical purposes only, it's needed on two different subforms. The format is XX-nnn where XX is the state abbreviation and nnn is the District as a 3-digit number. The use of 3 digits is required even for Wyoming which only has one district. Come to think of it, California has the most Congressional Districts of any state - 53. Why do they require a 3-digit number? That's what I call a Walter Cronkite - "That's the way it is." Put it in wrong? ERROR! Fix and re-submit!

But the Walter Cronkite that really frosts my cookies, is the question that requires you to LIE to answer it right. Yes, LIE. I wanted to do a Joe Wilson when I first read it. It's in the Vertebrate Animals Use section. Here's the quote from page I-69 of the Guide: "Applicants should check “Yes” to the question “Is the IACUC review Pending?” even if the IACUC review/approval process has not yet begun at the time of submission." Then they want you to put "None" in the field for the Animal Welfare Assurance Number. (Isn't that obvious?) If you don't -- go all the way back to the start, put it in, and re-submit. (I know this because we had to do it yesterday!) A button for "Not yet" would make it so much clearer - and truthful!

The DOD's Spring SBIR solicitation will be out in a couple of weeks. Their Guide is only ~40 pages. One website with a 5-minute registration process. You write your proposal and upload one (1) PDF file. Three forms: a cover page, a budget, and a company information form. If you've had prior Phase IIs there's one more form. That's it. And NO submission process! They close the website at the deadline. Anything there gets evaluated. Period. So clean. So simple. Thank you DOD!

So, I'll say it again: The NIH's SBIR proposal submission process sucks. It's so tied up in administrivia it's easy for the applicants to neglect paying attention to the objective: clearly articulate an innovative solution to an important health-related problem. And the agency is so wrapped up in its process that it seems more time (and taxpayer money) is spent on bureaucratic enforcement of policies than on enabling innovation for solving serious health-related problems.

And now, the NIH is campaigning to eliminate the "Error Correction Window", the five extra days (used to be only two but they had to increase it because of recent policy/procedure changes) they give you to fix all the Nit-Pick problems they find. DON'T LET THEM DO THIS! You can weigh in until April 19th at this weblink: http://grants.nih.gov/cfdocs/era_process_changes_rfi/add.htm. Read the NIH's view on why they should be allowed to do this in the Federal Register (page 11889, 12 March 2010). Again: DON'T LET THEM DO THIS!

Remember, the NIH is part of HHS -- our National Health Care agency. They'll be administering ObamaCare. And the IRS will be enforcing it.

Oy Vey! What are we in for?
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SBA Raises SBIR Award Caps

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NOTE: STTR was not changed by this move -- only SBIR (for now).
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The SBA announced the intent back in 2008. They sought comments. They sat on it for almost two years and did nothing. Until now.

The SBA decided not to wait for Reauthorization and kicked the cap for Phase I awards up to $150K and Phase IIs up to $1M. It's been published in the Federal Register (http://budurl.com/SBAraisesSBIRcaps) so it's official.

Rick Shindell has some background in the March 30th Issue of his SBIR Insider. Check it out on the SBIR Gateway's Insider page.

This doesn't mean that an agency must raise their award levels, nor does it mean that they can't exceed these caps. The agencies can (and do) do what they please. What changes is the level at which they have to explain themselves.

It remains to be seen which agencies will immediately change their funding policies. Note that the NSF actually made this change (at least for Phase Is) last fall.

Making SBIR awards that exceed the authorized caps means the agency must include a justification in each case in their Annual Report to Congress. Making awards below the caps requires no justification.

Some agencies (notably NIH) frequently make awards in excess of the caps. Now they'll have less work to do writing justifications! That should make our hard working public servants happy!

I expect we'll find out what the agencies will do at the SBIR National in Hartford (April 21-23). It'll be a hot topic of conversation. Another reason for you to join me in attending. Check out the agenda for this important Conference and register HERE.

So what about Reauthorization? Does this affect the likelihood of it getting done by April 30th?

Yes it does, and my feeling is: NO, it won't get done. It actually takes the pressure off Congress to act quickly.

Given this development, I now predict another Continuing Resolution, probably to September 30th. Unless Nydia gets her usual way and makes it shorter. Or just lets it die. After all, remember, she thinks SBIR awardees are just "marginal small businesses" on "corporate welfare", and don't matter much.
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ObamaCare "Cures" SBIR Controversy - CAN it be true?

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Yes, you're reading that right. The "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" aka the Heath Care Reform Bill signed by President Obama today includes a provision that may affect SBIR. Maybe even CURES the controversy surrounding SBIR eligibility!

The provision is called the "Cures Acceleration Network" or CAN. It's Section 10409 of HR.3590. Look it up. (An SBIR awardee who's been one of the program's strongest advocates found this and alerted me to it's existence.)

CAN is an NIH funded initiative to provide a new grant mechanism open to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies of all size to receive NIH grants of up to $15 million. A pot of $500 million has been allocated for the remainder of FY2010. It will be administered by a CAN Review Board of which at least 4 of the 24 members must be VCs.

If the bill avoids the upcoming procedural minefields and this provision survives, it completely obviates the need to include VC controlled companies in SBIR. For years many of us argued that VC controlled companies should be eligible to receive NIH grants - just not from the 2.8% SBIR/STTR allocation. BIO always replied that companies could never get funding outside of SBIR. The CAN program would completely turn their argument on its ear!

Now that Health Care won't necessarily hog the front-burner we might get some attention to other things -- like SBIR! And, maybe with CAN we have a way to keep SBIR from being hijacked by VCs and Big BIO.

Dare we hope this indeed "CURES" our impasse and allows SBIR to be reauthorized without drastically altering the program? Stay tuned.
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