Nighthawk Biosciences, Inc.

Nighthawk Biosciences, Inc., operating as Heat Biologics, is a for-profit biopharmaceutical company that develops targeted immunotherapies and novel drug-delivery platforms for federal funding as a prime recipient of federal research grants, with no federal prime contracts or subcontracts in the source data. The vendor receives 100% of its recent federal funding through National Institutes of Health grants administered across three distinct institutes within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Nighthawk's federal grant footprint spans pediatric oncology, biodefense, and pharmaceutical manufacturing innovation. The vendor is the recipient of a Phase I STTR grant from the National Cancer Institute (awarded September 2023, completing August 2025) for an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R)-targeting peptide-drug conjugate designed to treat atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors in children; the grant partners Nighthawk with Dr. Nadia Dahmane's laboratory at Weill Cornell Medicine to test two anti-IGF-1R peptide-drug conjugates — one conjugated to the antimitotic toxin MMAE and another to the pan-HDAC inhibitor panobinostat — in cell and animal models. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases awarded a grant (September 2023, completed August 2024) for development of a multivalent botulinum antitoxin based on Nighthawk's proprietary Terminator technology, which sequesters pathogens by binding them to circulating red blood cells via complement receptor type I for delivery to macrophages, intended as a next-generation replacement for the stockpiled equine-serum-derived antitoxin BAT. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences funded a grant (December 2022, completed December 2023) to develop a microfluidics-enabled continuous low-energy electron irradiation sterilization platform for biopharmaceuticals, executed in partnership with Georgia Institute of Technology and Texas A&M University.

Activity is episodic — one award in 2010, one in 2022, and two in 2023 — with combined federal dollars obligated across all four awards totaling $1.8 million. The vendor operates as a research-stage biopharmaceutical recipient without federal contracting activity or subcontracting relationships. Nighthawk Biosciences maintains a named subsidiary, Skunkworx Bio, Inc., a for-profit organization entity present in the corporate structure.