Dermal Medical Countermeasures for Chemical Weapons Exposure

The skin is the first line of defense against chemical warfare agents including nerve agents and toxic industrial chemicals, providing a possible barrier or delay to systemic distribution. Some chemicals also can act directly on the skin including the vesicants sulfur mustard and lewisite. Early and rapid skin decontamination is extremely important following exposure to CWAs and TICs because it decreases serious systemic and dermal damage. Current formulations of dermal medical countermeasures such as reactive skin decontamination lotion (RSDL) are only approved by the FDA for small area applications on intact skin. This severely restricts its usefulness since warfighters may be exposed over large areas of the body including wound or skin abrasion sites. Zymeron proposes to develop a thermally stable, broad spectrum skin decontamination product that overcomes the major obstacles of RSDL. The decon formulation will be demonstrated by a tiered evaluation approach involving the use of in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo assays and animal models. At the end of Phase II, the dermal decon formulation will be ready for IND-enabling GLP studies.