Epistem awarded US$3.5m in NIH biodefence contract

Epistem has been reappointed for up to five years to provide preclinical testing services as a subcontractor to the US National Institutes of Health’s Radiation/Nuclear Medical Countermeasure Product Development Support Services Contract.

Epistem, a UK biotechnology and personalised medicine company, has been reappointed for up to five years to provide preclinical testing services as a subcontractor to the US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Radiation/Nuclear Medical Countermeasure Product Development Support Services Contract. The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) in Baltimore has been awarded the contract. Since 2006, when it won its first subcontract, Epistem has received approximately US$3.5m to develop and evaluate new drugs to treat the effects of radiation damage to the gastrointestinal tract. The new five-year subcontract is expected to extend and grow the scope of the collaboration. The Medical Countermeasures against Radiological Threats (MCART) programme, funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), aims to develop new treatments for use in the event of a radiological or nuclear incident. Epistem is a member of the research consortium that has