NervGen Pharma Corp. announced it has been awarded up to USD 1.5 million in US Department of Defense (DoD) funding from the Military Operational Medicine Research Program (MOMRP/JPC-5) to evaluate NervGen's NVG-291-R as a therapeutic to enable accelerated and enhanced restoration of function following peripheral nerve injury. The work described in the project would establish preclinical proof-of-concept for the use of NVG-291-R to improve the rate and extent of nerve regeneration following peripheral nerve crush injury or transection followed by repair.

There are currently no effective pharmaceutical treatments to enhance recovery in PNI. The funding was made through the US Army Medical Research and Development Command's (USAMRDC) Other Transaction Agreement with the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC). MTEC is an enterprise partnership in collaboration with industry and academia to facilitate research and development activities in cooperation with the DoD and other government agencies in the biomedical sciences.

NervGen will be working with Wilson "Zack" Ray, MD, a Professor of Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Surgery, and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, to evaluate the investigational therapeutic NVG-291-R. The objectives of the research program are: (i) to investigate functional and histological recovery following treatment with NVG-291-R in different animal models of PNI, (ii) to identify the best dosing regimen for NVG-291-R to advance to a clinical study in patients with PNI, and (iii) to identify where NVG-291-R may be exerting therapeutic benefits (e.g., enhancing regeneration through lesion, rate of regeneration, remyelination of axons, plasticity in CNS).