Tempo Therapeutics Awarded $2.25 Million NIH SBIR Grant to Advance MAP™ Technology for Complex Wound Healing

Novel synthetic biomaterial is designed to support volumetric tissue regeneration
while minimizing inflammatory foreign-body response

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Tempo Therapeutics, Inc. ("Tempo"), a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company pioneering synthetic biomaterials designed to promote the formation of healthy, functional tissue, today announced that it has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support a randomized clinical study of its proprietary Microporous Annealed Particle (MAP™) Wound Matrix.

"This award brings Tempo closer to an important value-enhancing milestone: demonstrating that MAP can provide a fundamentally different approach to wound management by accelerating the formation of healthy tissue while minimizing the inflammatory foreign-body response," said Steven Sands, Chairman of Tempo Therapeutics. "If successful, we believe this platform could address multiple wound indications where current treatment options remain inadequate, potentially improving outcomes for patients while reducing the clinical burden and cost of managing complex wounds."

The award provides potential total funding of approximately $2.25 million over two years, subject to continued satisfactory progress and availability of funds. The project, MOSAIC II: A Randomized Clinical Study of the MAP Wound Matrix to Reduce Time to Graft-Readiness after Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer Resection, will be led by Stephanie Deshayes, Ph.D., Vice President of Research & Development at Tempo and Principal Investigator of the grant.

"MAP is designed to accelerate the formation of healthy, vascularized tissue within complex wounds," said Stephanie Deshayes, Ph.D., Vice President of Research & Development at Tempo Therapeutics and Principal Investigator of MOSAIC II. "This award allows us to evaluate that approach in more challenging wounds where the unmet clinical need remains significant."

Unlike traditional approaches that can trigger a persistent foreign-body response, MAP was engineered to support the body's regenerative processes while minimizing inflammatory signaling associated with implanted materials. The goal is to enable rapid, volumetric growth of healthy tissue within complex wounds and create a vascularized wound bed suitable for subsequent reconstruction or grafting.

"The ability to regenerate tissue throughout the volume of a complex wound—rather than simply promoting healing from the margins—could fundamentally change the way difficult wounds are treated," said Westbrook Weaver, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Tempo Therapeutics. "MAP was designed as a flowable, volumetric scaffold to support the rapid ingrowth of cells and tissue formation in a wound without provoking the persistent foreign-body response commonly associated with implanted materials. MOSAIC II gives us the opportunity to rigorously evaluate whether that biology can translate to improved tissue formation over bone in the definitive reconstruction of complex wounds."

The newly funded study builds upon Tempo's recently published first-in-human randomized, controlled, multicenter study in patients with full-thickness wounds following Mohs surgery for non-melanoma skin cancer. In that study, MAP-treated wounds achieved a favorable Wound Bed Score approximately 14 days earlier than controls, without delaying overall wound closure. At approximately six months, MAP-treated wounds also demonstrated significantly improved physician-assessed scar quality and reduced soft tissue volume loss compared with standard-of-care hydrocolloid treatment.

MOSAIC II is designed to extend these findings into a clinically important reconstructive setting by evaluating whether MAP can reduce the time required to develop a wound bed suitable for grafting following complex non-melanoma skin cancer resections with exposed bone. The NIH award specifically supports one or more clinical trials and identifies the MOSAIC II randomized clinical study as the funded project.

About Tempo Therapeutics

Tempo Therapeutics is a privately held, clinical-stage regenerative medicine company developing synthetic biomaterials designed to enable the body to regenerate healthy tissue. The Company is leveraging its patented MAP™ technology platform to develop products for surgical reconstruction and wound healing, with additional opportunities in aesthetic dermatology and other regenerative medicine applications.

Tempo's lead product has completed first-in-human clinical evaluation and has been submitted to the FDA through the De Novo pathway.

NIH Funding Acknowledgment

Research reported in this announcement is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44CA314892. The content is solely the responsibility of Tempo Therapeutics and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The Notice of Award requires this acknowledgment and advance notification to NCI before issuing a press release concerning the research.

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SOURCE Tempo Therapeutics, Inc