Medicortex Finland Plc signed a 2 million dollars research grant contract with the US Department of Defense

The grant provides funding for the continued development of a biochemical test which will address the urgent need to rapidly and reliably diagnose mild TBI and concussion. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command’s (USAMRDC) Combat Casualty Care Research Program.

The project is titled “Rapid Detection of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in a Non-Invasive Body Fluid Sample” and the plan for 18 months aims at developing a test strip capable of detecting brain injury biomarkers in non-invasive body fluid samples such as urine. The budget for the project was approved as proposed by the company, and the project is commencing in the Q4 of 2022.

The plan went through a stringent qualification process from a pre-proposal to a full scientific and programmatic review at the DoD. Before the currently awarded grant, Medicortex had a previous DoD-funded project in which novel brain injury biomarkers were characterized in human body fluid samples. The new project serves as a natural continuum of the previous project by incorporating the biomarkers towards practical diagnostic use.

Dr. Adrian Harel, CEO of Medicortex says: “To my knowledge, we are the only company in Finland that has ever received two consecutive grants from the US DoD - we are very proud and privileged to be selected for such an important grant.”

Dr. Harel adds: “Medicortex is an outstanding company. We are tackling a global problem of developing diagnostics for head injury. We have been successful in the very difficult space of translating an idea through research to the clinic stage.” The company has accomplished three clinical trials, and received funding from institutions such as US Department of Defense, Business Finland, European Union, ELY-center as well as from 250 investors. “The company has benefited from strong leadership and very professional team combined with a strong group of consultants working together with the management to successfully meet the milestones”, Dr. Harel concludes.

Acknowledgement and about the grant

This work was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs and the Defense Health Agency J9, Research and Development Directorate, or the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command, in the amount of $2,093,995, through the Combat Casualty Care Research Program under Award No. W81XWH-22-C-0100. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense.

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