WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) announced on Tuesday that Farmington’s Frequency Therapeutics is “Murphy’s Innovator of the Month.” Murphy will be taking a tour of the company and hosting an employee town hall on Wednesday, May 30th at 3pm.

Earlier this month, Murphy helped Frequency Therapeutics secure a $2 million U.S. Department of Defense Hearing and Balance Research Award grant. The grant will support Frequency Therapeutics’ Regeneration work to address hearing dysfunction in military personnel resulting from military service-related injuries. The biotech company is also collaborating with the U.S. Army’s Institute for Surgical Research to explore regenerative medicine to repair muscle-based injuries due to military service. 

Frequency Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that develops small molecule drugs to stimulate cells in the body to reverse biological deficits – such as hearing loss, skin disorders, and gastrointestinal conditions – and restore healthy tissue. David Lucchino, Chris Loose, Ph.D., and Will McLean, Ph.D. founded Frequency Therapeutics in 2015 based on discoveries made by Robert Langer, Sc.D., and Jeff Karp, Ph.D. The company’s proprietary therapy, Progenitor Cell Activation, uses the power of human cells and the body’s regenerative capabilities to heal the body and treat disease. Frequency Therapeutics employs 22 workers, and operates out of the University of Connecticut’s Technology Incubation Program (TIP) in Farmington. Frequency Therapeutics also operates out of Woburn, Massachusetts. 

“The $2 million award from the Department of Defense is a testament to the groundbreaking biomedical work being done at Frequency Therapeutics,” said Murphy. “Connecticut’s biotech sector is booming, and I’ll do everything I can to bring home even more federal funding to help Frequency Therapeutics grow. I’m looking forward to my visit tomorrow." 

David Lucchino, CEO of Frequency Therapeutics, said, “We put down roots for the Farmington location after determining that the Farmington TIP facility was a perfect site to start Frequency Therapeutics and build out our research and development site. We value our facility and team in Farmington and hope to expand the core team over the next 24 months with several key new hires spanning a variety of roles to bring the best and brightest talent to Connecticut.”

Murphy believes entrepreneurship and innovation are building blocks for a strong economy. In the U.S. Senate, he has introduced two bipartisan pieces of legislation to incentivize angel investors to put more money into startup companies – the Angel Tax Credit Act and the Helping Angels Lead Our Startups (HALOS) Act. Last month, Murphy’s HALOS Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Startup companies create an average of 2 million jobs each year.

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