CytoSorbents Corporation, a critical care immunotherapy leader commercializing its flagship CytoSorb blood filter to treat deadly inflammation in critically-ill and cardiac surgery patients around the world, announced that the company was awarded a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract for its development programme entitled "Mycotoxin Adsorption with Hemocompatible Porous Polymer Beads."  A successful phase I effort will position the company to be competitive for selection in the Phase II SBIR programme, valued at more than $1 million.

Dr Phillip Chan, chief executive officer of CytoSorbents stated: "Mycotoxins are poisonous toxins produced by fungi, like black mold and Aspergillus.  The purpose of this Phase I SBIR contract is to develop effective blood purification countermeasures for weaponized mycotoxins that can be easily disseminated in water, food and air.  Examples include aflatoxin which can cause acute liver failure, neurologic coma, and death, and T2 toxin which can cause fatal lung and liver injury, bone marrow destruction, nerve damage and bleeding."

"But this programme also highlights the more clinical application of our blood purification technology to treat patients with fungal infections today," stated Dr. Chan. "Fungal infections account for approximately 25% of all hospital-acquired blood infections, are common in immune compromised patients, and have caused the death of more than 90% of infected patients in some studies due to fungal sepsis.  Mycotoxins and excessive cytokine production can be devastating in fungal sepsis.  CytoSorb reduces aflatoxin, likely a broad range of other mycotoxins, and cytokines very efficiently in blood and has been used to help successfully treat a number of patients with fungal sepsis to date.  Because of this, CytoSorb represents a new, potentially synergistic strategy in treating these deadly infections.  More than $6 billion is spent on anti-fungal medications annually."

This work is being funded by the US Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD) under contract W911QY-16-P-0048.

CytoSorb is approved in the European Union with distribution in 32 countries around the world, as a safe and effective extracorporeal cytokine adsorber, designed to reduce the "cytokine storm" or "cytokine release syndrome" that could otherwise cause massive inflammation, organ failure and death in common critical illnesses such as sepsis, burn injury, trauma, lung injury, and pancreatitis, as well as in cancer immunotherapy.  These are conditions where the risk of death is extremely high, yet no effective treatments exist.  CytoSorb is also being used during and after cardiac surgery to remove inflammatory mediators, such as cytokines and free hemoglobin, which can lead to post-operative complications, including multiple organ failure.  CytoSorb has been used safely in more than 11,000 human treatments to date.

CytoSorbents' purification technologies are based on biocompatible, highly porous polymer beads that can actively remove toxic substances from blood and other bodily fluids by pore capture and surface adsorption.  The company has numerous products under development based upon this unique blood purification technology, protected by 32 issued U.S. patents and multiple applications pending, including HemoDefend, ContrastSorb, DrugSorb, and others.