Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
and NIH Director Francis Collins have fired the starting gun launching
biotech companies on a race for $1 billion in new government research grants or
tax credits.
On Friday last week, Geithner,
Collins and other senior administration officials described what companies can
do now to start preparing to apply for the therapeutic discovery tax credit,
which was included in the healthcare reform law for biotechs with 250 or fewer
employers that are developing new therapeutic technologies.