Three firms awarded $500k grants

Globe Staff

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center said it has awarded $500,000 grants to three Bay State life sciences companies.

"The companies receiving grants are Boston Biochem Inc. and Tetragenetics Inc., both of Cambridge, and Thermedical Inc. of Somerville," the center said in a press release. "Each company will receive $500,000 from the center to match federal small business grant funding that the companies had previously been awarded.... The three companies that are receiving awards have committed to collectively creating 40 new jobs in the Commonwealth by the end of 2011, including six jobs to be relocated from New York."

The center is a quasi-public agency with the mission of helping to create jobs in the state's life sciences industry.