Kansas State University wasn’t the only college operation getting good news Thursday from the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

CritiTech, a spinoff company from Kansas University’s Higuchi Biosciences Center, won approval from the authority’s board of directors for $48,700 in financing.

The money will be used to buy a new and improved coating unit, equipment that will help the company test the feasibility and development of processes and materials for use by major pharmaceutical companies.

CritiTech, with a lab and offices off Wakarusa Drive in Lawrence, recently signed contracts with several pharmaceutical companies. CritiTech is preparing to conduct human trials of the company’s reformulation of a cancer-fighting drug, and continues to work on ways to coat medical devices, such as stents, with medications that can help improve their performance.

Members of the bioscience authority gathered Thursday in Overland Park to review and approve projects, welcome two new members – John Carlin and Ray Smilor – and elect officers: Clay Blair, chairman; Bill Sanford, vice chairman; and Sandra Lawrence, secretary-treasurer.

Board members also elected members to serve on the organization’s executive committee: Blair, Sanford and Lawrence, along with state Sen. Jim Barone, D-Frontenac, and Dolph C. Simons Jr., chairman of The World Company, which owns the Journal-World.