Rhenovia Pharma has been selected by the French Armaments Directorate (DGA) and the General Directorate for Competitiveness, Industry and Services of the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry (DGCIS) for inclusion in the RAPID program (Support Regime for Dual Innovation in SMEs). By this distinction, Rhenovia will lead a research program, named RHETOX, which will be conducted in partnership with the French Army’s Biomedical Research Institute (IRBA). Rhenovia will receive EUR 850,000 from a global funding amount of EUR 1.15 million.

The goal of the RHETOX project is to expand the field of application of Rhenovia’s proprietary biosimulation platforms, which are already used in the pharmaceutical and agro-food industries, to include the evaluation of the neurobiological effects of exposure to battlefield neurotoxic agents in order to develop more effective medical counter-measures.

The purpose of the project is to develop a unique neurotoxicity biosimulation platform designed to evaluate the effects of neurotoxins to which military personnel may be exposed in times of war or civilian populations under threat of a terrorist attack, and to identify new ways to counteract these effects. Rhenovia will incorporate in its biosimulation platform the molecular elements required to analyze the effects of organophosphoric neurotoxic agents, such as sarin and soman, as well as pesticides/insecticides like paraoxon, which have similar chemical characteristics and pharmacological properties.

The DGA and DGCIS decided that the RHETOX project met the criteria of RAPID, a disposition designed to finance projects that have major technological and commercial potentials, are the most innovative in terms of industrial research, and have both military and civilian applications.