JPEO-CBD Awards Contract for Weaponized Toxin Treatments

The U.S. Army has backed a blood filtering technology to remove poisonous mycotoxins from the blood stream with a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I contract award.

CytoSorbents, a critical care immunotherapy company, will further develop its CytoSorb blood filter under the development program entitled “Mycotoxin Adsorption with Hemocompatible Porous Polymer Beads.”

CytoSorbents’ purification technologies are based on biocompatible, highly porous polymer beads that can actively remove toxic substances from blood and other bodily fluids by pore capture and surface adsorption.

Managed by the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD), the purpose of this SBIR contract is to develop effective blood purification countermeasures for weaponized mycotoxins that can be easily disseminated in water, food and air.  Examples include aflatoxin which can cause acute liver failure, neurologic coma, and death, and T2 toxin which can cause fatal lung and liver injury, bone marrow destruction, nerve damage and bleeding.”

A successful Phase I effort will position the company to be competitive for selection in the Phase II SBIR program, valued at more than $1 million.

While this program is driven by JPEO-CBD’s biological defense countermeasure requirements, the system also supports clinical application of the blood purification technology to treat military and civilian patients with fungal infections.

“Fungal infections account for approximately 25% of all hospital-acquired blood infections, are common in immune compromised patients, and have caused the death of more than 90% of infected patients in some studies due to fungal sepsis,” said Dr. Phillip Chan, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of CytoSorbents. “Mycotoxins and excessive cytokine production can be devastating in fungal sepsis.  CytoSorb reduces aflatoxin, likely a broad range of other mycotoxins, and cytokines very efficiently in blood and has been used to help successfully treat a number of patients with fungal sepsis to date.”

CytoSorb is approved in the European Union with distribution in 32 countries around the world, as a safe and effective extracorporeal cytokine adsorber, designed to reduce the “cytokine storm” or “cytokine release syndrome” that could otherwise cause massive inflammation, organ failure and death in common critical illnesses such as sepsis, burn injury, trauma, lung injury, and pancreatitis, as well as in cancer immunotherapy.  CytoSorb has been used safely in more than 11,000 human treatments to date.

CytoSorb® is a registered, protected term by CytoSorbents.