The Kansas Bioscience Authority is looking to set aside $600,000 to support Kansas University Cancer Center’s quest to become a National Cancer Institute center.

After a two-hour executive session, the KBA’s investment committee passed along a recommendation to earmark the money for this fiscal year. The entire board will vote on the recommendation Tuesday morning at a meeting in Atlanta.

The KBA would oversee how the $600,000 is spent, KBA spokesman Chad Bettes said. The money is intended for advocacy, communications and support of the cancer center’s effort to attain NCI designation.

In two years, KU will apply for the designation, which would put it in a league with more than 60 top-tier cancer treatment and research centers in the country.

Since 2006, the state has committed $5 million toward the effort.

The funding arrangement would be similar to what the KBA had in place as the state worked to land the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at Kansas State University, Bettes said. Money would be used to write grants and possibly hire more staff to work on the process.

KU wasn’t the only entity recommended for funding Friday.

The investment committee also approved a recommendation to give $50,000 to a Lawrence-based bioscience company that is working to improve drug delivery.

CritiTech Inc. and its affiliate SCF Technologies LLC asked the KBA for a 50 percent match to a $100,000 National Institutes of Health grant it received in April.

CritiTech, which uses technology developed at Kansas University, has received two other KBA grants in the past.

This round of funding would go toward testing the company’s technology, which uses supercritical carbon dioxide to both sterilize and dry drugs for storage in their dispensing vials, so the drugs can later be mixed with a solution for injection into patients.

As of now, the freeze-dry process can only be done with water and not other organic solvents.