Daré Bioscience, Inc. announced it was awarded a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the amount of approximately $385,000 to support activities related to the conduct and completion of proof-of-concept target validation studies in support of a potential new approach for the prevention and treatment of idiopathic preterm birth. Daré will collaborate with its sub awardee, the Lockwood Laboratory at the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani College of Medicine, on the grant-funded activities. Preterm birth is defined as a live birth before 37 completed weeks of gestation.

Premature babies often have serious health problems. These problems can vary in severity and the earlier a baby is born, the higher the risk of health-related complications, including difficulty maintaining normal body temperature, difficulty breathing or feeding, and susceptibility to severe infections and brain disorders. Under an exclusive option agreement with the University of South Florida Research Foundation, Inc. (USFRF), a nonprofit Florida corporation that is a direct support organization of USF, Daré has an exclusive right, and not an obligation, to elect to negotiate to acquire the exclusive worldwide rights to patents and know-how controlled by USFRF related to this research in the field of human reproduction during an option period which extends through this NIH-funded development project. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 13.4 million babies were born preterm in 2020.

Preterm birth complications were responsible for the deaths of approximately 900,000 children in 2019 and complications from preterm birth are the leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age.