The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $56.3 million in contracts toward the development of new drugs to treat injuries associated with acute radiation syndrome.
The contracts have been distributed under the department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), an agency within the department's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
BARDA is supporting the development of products to treat bone marrow, gastrointestinal, lung, and skin injury caused by radiation, and expects to expand the list to include products to treat thermal burns that might be caused by a nuclear detonation.
The contracts were awarded to the following organizations:
- Araim Pharmaceuticals won a two-year, $3.1 million contract to conduct studies of ARA 290 to evaluate whether the drug improves overall survival when administered 24 hours or longer after exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation.
- Cellerant Therapeutics garnered a contract with BARDA that extended a 2010 agreement for a second year and an additional $16.7 million. Cellerant will continue studies and manufacturing activities to further develop a new way to treat neutropenia.
- Neumedicines won $17 million to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a drug known as recombinant human interleukin-12 (rhuIL-12), or HemaMax.
- RxBio won a two-year, $15 million contract to study the efficacy of its drug Rx100, which may protect against radiation-induced gastrointestinal injury.
- The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences garnered a two-year, $4.5 million contract to evaluate SOM230, a drug developed by Novartis to treat Cushing's disease.
