Texas' embattled $3 billion cancer-fighting agency approved an $11 million grant to a biomedical company even though the proposal wasn't reviewed.
The improper funding was uncovered during an internal audit of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
The Associated Press on Thursday first reported the audit's findings, which were later announced by the institute.
The grant in 2010 to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics Inc. was among the agency's first. The company's funding has been halted and its application is now being reviewed.
The agency is home to the second largest pot of cancer-research dollars. But it has came under scrutiny after several scientists, including Nobel laureates, resigned claiming it was charting a new politically-driven path putting commercial interests before science.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.