Kansas Bioscience Authority group recommends investment; recipient, amount kept secret for now

? A Kansas Bioscience Authority committee Monday recommended that the state-funded group provide funding for a company in the state, but the recipient and the amount of the funding were kept under wraps for now.

The KBA’s Investment Committee will recommend funding for what is code-named “Project Gray” after a unanimous vote Monday. The final decision on the funding will go to the KBA’s board of directors, which meets Jan. 22.

The committee discussed the investment Monday during a closed session.

Tony Simpson, the KBA’s director of commercialization for bioenergy, could say only that the proposed recipient of the funding was a bioscience company already located in Kansas, he said.

Because of “commercial process concerns,” Simpson said, the company had asked the KBA to keep all other information tightly under wraps for now. That includes even the amount of the proposed funding.

“As soon as it won’t impinge the company, we’ll share everything we can,” Simpson said.

Next week’s KBA board meeting will be the first since the hiring of new president and CEO Duane Cantrell in November.