Three companies working to take innovative approaches to addressing health problems are the latest recipients of grants from the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

The authority announced Tuesday that three companies in northeast Kansas - including one in Lawrence - had been selected for the investments, using money from the estimated $580 million the authority is slated to receive over 15 years to encourage and promote bioscience projects and research statewide.

Tom Thornton, the authority's president, said the investments would accelerate development of technologies that would make a difference in people's lives, by helping the promising companies attract further investments.

"Kansas bioscience companies and researchers are making incredible discoveries, and their work truly improves the health of our communities," Thornton said. "Our goal is to provide the resources and expertise these companies need to thrive on a larger scale."

Receiving grants:

¢ OsteoGeneX, a Lawrence-based operation that is working on a treatment to increase bone density, $130,000. The treatment is an outgrowth from research conducted at the Stowers Institute in the Kansas City area, work that then was transferred to Kansas University's Higuchi Biosciences Center.

OsteoGeneX formally is based out of an office at 3514 Clinton Parkway, and its leaders have their eyes on markets - for treating osteoporosis and other bone ailments - that are worth more than $19 billion each year in the United States alone.

"The holy grail is growing new bones," said Dr. Debra Ellies, president and CEO of OsteoGeneX and upon whose research the company is based. "(A treatment for) osteoporosis will be our first product, and we will license that out - and use the licensing payment that we're going to get - to fund development of the other applications that we're developing."

Among potential applications are spinal fusions and other work, such as on knees.

¢ KC BioMediX, a De Soto-based company whose devices help premature babies feed orally, $150,000. The money will be used by the company to commercialize its technologies, which have been developed at KU.

¢ Innovia Medical, a Lenexa-based company, to help take its EarCheck product to market, $650,000. The equity investment is designed to help the company get the FDA-approved product into the hands of physicians, parents and others to help rapidly detect ear infections in young children.