Tango Biosciences Inc.

Tango Biosciences Inc. is a for-profit biotech startup based in Chicago, Illinois that develops phage-display and peptide-engineering platforms for drug discovery and affinity reagent generation, operating exclusively as a prime recipient of federal research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Tango's federal footprint consists entirely of SBIR and SBIR-adjacent Phase I and Phase II Project Grants from NIH institutes, totaling nine awards and $4.1 million in combined obligated dollars across the past several years. The vendor's customer concentration is heavily weighted toward the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which funds four awards, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which funds three; the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences each fund one award. All nine awards are prime grants — the vendor has no subcontract or sub-recipient footprint. The vendor competes in the open SBIR market; no set-aside designations are present in the award record.

Tango's capability portfolio centers on platform development in chemically induced proximity modalities, high-throughput screening for affinity reagent discovery, and recombinant protein engineering using phage-display and combinatorial peptide libraries. Recent representative work includes a $332,917 NIGMS SBIR Phase I award (April 2026, completing March 2027) for development of a commercial platform accelerating drug discovery for chemically induced proximity modalities using peptide ligands identified through phage display screening — the project targets discovery of peptides binding BRD4 and CRBN proteins with affinities from 200 nM to 2 mM, their ligation into bispecific modalities to induce binary protein complexes, and delivery of peptide glues to cells via lipid nanoparticles to demonstrate in vivo proteolysis. A second Phase I award from NIGMS (July 2025, completing January 2027) develops the Avidimer Platform, a novel application of phage display for discovery of bispecific binders and sustainable, recombinant affinity reagents for proximity research and drug discovery. NIAID funded a $332,917 Phase I grant (April 2023, completed March 2025) for generation of fast-on-rate recombinant affinity reagents for lateral flow assay detection of hepatitis C virus core antigen, conducted in collaboration with the University of Houston. Tango also holds a multi-year NIGMS SBIR Phase II award (May 2022, completing August 2028) for generation of phosphobodies to activated protein kinases, and a NIGMS Phase I award (May 2022, completed April 2024) for engineering phosphothreonine-binding domains using FHA domain phage libraries.

Three awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating recompete opportunity. The vendor's activity has remained modest — one to two awards per year between 2021 and 2023, with no awards in 2024, one in 2025, and one in 2026 — reflecting early-stage biotech grant funding patterns rather than declining engagement.