Medical Countermeasures

We develop medical countermeasure (MCM) technologies to detect, prevent and mitigate adverse health effects imposed by chemical threat agents and ionizing radiations. Zymeron work closely with industrial partners, federal labs and nonprofit stakeholders to test and evaluate our technologies and products for performance qualification, regulatory acceptance and acquisition. The MCM programs are predominantly funded through government initiatives that support research and development of advanced threat reduction readiness and capability, and that transform scientific discoveries out of the lab and into the market.

Zymeron’s MCM efforts have three Focus Areas: Detection, Decontamination, and Protection.

Chemical Threat Agent Detection

Leveraging the sensing capabilities in our rapid diagnostic test platforms, we integrate highly sensitive optical nanoprobes into easy-to-use detection formats to develop field deployable tests and sensors for rapid assessment of threat levels to inform decisions of subsequent decontamination or mitigation strategies. One example is the development of visually color-changing sensing spray for universal detection of various opioid molecules on various surfaces.

Chemical Threat Agent Decontamination

We develop novel technology solutions to enhance decontamination performance with quicker onset of action and prolonged duration of effect. Our technologies seek complete neutralization of the threat agents including organophosphate compounds and narcotic substances. It is essential to provide a spectrum of capabilities to mitigate multiple threat agents and achieve universal decontamination for critical civilian and defense assets. Zymeron applies our drug delivery and formulation innovations to advance topical, dermal and surface decontamination solutions.

Radioprotection

Radioprotection medical countermeasures that are administered prior to ionizing radiation exposure prevent its harmful impacts on healthy tissues and organs. We reformulate and repurpose FDA-approved small molecule drugs in our proprietary drug delivery systems to guide the active agents to specific tissue and subcellular locations that maximizes its prophylactic protective effects while minimizing the off-target toxicity and significantly improve the protection ratio and therapeutic index. Our technologies are tailored toward applications in incidental radiation exposure. Zymeron develops novel prophylactic drugs to protect specific organs that are vulnerable to low and mild radiation doses from developing hematopoietic subsyndrome and gastrointestinal subsyndrome, which are two important clinical presentations of acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Concurrently, our deep understanding of radiation interactions with tissues and cells enable the development of novel clinically used radiation-activated secondary therapeutic modality to enhance the clinical benefits of cancer radiotherapy.