By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- A pharmaceutical company based here is seeking a $1.5 million state Regional Economic Development Council grant to help create 27 jobs at an operation making an anemia drug.

The company, Hemo Medica, aims to make a drug to treat anemia in dogs that if successful, could create a similar medicine for humans, according to Venkat Kekani, the company’s CEO. Anemia is a deficiency of red blood cells or hemoglobin.

If the REDC grant is approved later this month, Hemo would have to first spend $7.8 million before receiving the $1.5 million from the state. Kekani said they haven’t yet spent the money or hired the 27 people.

It is among the NCREDC “priority projects” for the year, designated as such by the council as “significant and regionally transformative in nature” with the potential to have “significant positive economic impact in the seven counties,” the Progress Report says.

All of the priority project proposals from the North Country are outlined in the 2016 North Country Regional Economic Development Council Progress Report and Round VI application submitted for review in a competition for awards to economic development projects and programs in 10 regions of the state.

The council’s progress report for 2016 also outlines the status of past priority projects in the North Country, including 16 in St. Lawrence County, ranked according to how well each plan has performed so far.

“We are thinking of the first quarter of 2017 to start operations,” Kekani said. “Hemo would like to purchase or rent a building in Massena, perhaps in the Industrial Park.”

He said the drug has already been developed and is ready to move to clinical trials.

“The drug, the science and all those things is done,” Kekani said in a phone interview. “The next step is small-scale production and clinical trials, then full production, if successful.”

The science behind the project has been developed for the last several years at Albert Einstein Medical College in Bronx, the Hemo CEO said.

“A lot of work was put into it,” he said.

Hemo Medica is separate from Kingston Pharma, which operates out of the former Michelle Audio building on outer Willow Street. Kekani is also CEO of Kingston Pharma.

Kingston was created after Purine Pharma was shut down last year. Purine had qualified for $250,000 from last year’s Regional Economic Development Council but was not able to take the money, Kekani said.