Armis Biopharma Announces Receipt of a $20.3 Million Contract with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to Develop Veriox® DECON for Battlefield Wounds

Armis Biopharma, Inc. announced that the company received a $20.3 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to develop its proprietary Veriox® DECON chemical warfare agent (CWA) decontamination product for use in battlefield wounds. This will be an important product for warfighters who may be exposed to chemical warfare agents when wounded as the technology could have the potential to help save lives and extend the opportunity to provide an appropriate level of care to the severely injured. The May 2023 edition of the DTRA JSTO publication, "JSTO in the News" included the article, "Beyond a Bandage," that explains the significance of the Veriox® DECON technology for military personnel.

The Armis Veriox® technology (Veriox® DECON) was found to be effective in neutralizing chemical warfare agents in two separate studies conducted by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD). 

"We are excited for the opportunity to bring a new technology to decontaminate chemical warfare agents for application in both civilian and military markets. Our unique proprietary solution, Veriox® DECON, offers several advantages over existing decontamination products for both individual application and for mass casualty settings because it can be rapidly dispensed with standard liquid dispensing systems that will allow first responders to quickly decontaminate multiple individuals," said Ted Ziemann, Chairman and CEO of Armis Biopharma. "Veriox® DECON is also environmentally safe in that it breaks down rapidly into harmless products and demonstrates a better safety profile than competitive products."

In November 2020, Armis Biopharma received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop Veriox® DECON to provide first responders working on mass-casualty decontamination, an effective, cost-efficient, fast application to neutralize chemical warfare agents on skin. Work on that application is currently in progress.

In addition to nerve agent decontamination, Veriox® DECON is also a highly effective antimicrobial agent, having shown excellent efficacy against biological warfare agents (BWAs) and drug resistant pathogens and has also been successfully tested against fentanyl.