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news.The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has awarded contracts to Aeolus Pharmaceuticals and Biotest towards the development of drugs to treat skin and lung injuries associated with acute radiation syndrome (ARS) that results from a nuclear blast.
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The Aeolus contract is valued at $10.4m for the first year and can be extended for a total of five years and up to a total of $118.4m.
Aeolus is developing a broad-spectrum antioxidant drug known as AEOL 10150, designed originally to reduce the damage caused by radiation during cancer treatments.
For BARDA, the drug will be developed for use in treating lung injuries associated with ARS, known as pulmonary acute radiation syndrome or lung-ARS.
The US Biotest contract is valued at $4.5m for the first 16 months and could be extended for a total of five years and up to a total of $14m.
The contract with US Biotest supports advanced development of DSC127, a drug applied to the skin to help body tissue heal after being exposed to ionizing radiation.
The contracts are part of the HHS radiological and nuclear threats preparedness strategy.
In addition to these contracts, BARDA has awarded contracts to develop medical countermeasures to treat neutropenia, an abnormally low number of white blood cells, as well as contracts to develop drugs that bind radioactive materials in the body and for biodosimetry devices that measure an individual’s level of radiation exposure after a nuclear incident.