Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded $22.83m contract to Battelle, NxStage Medical and Aethlon Medical collaboration team to develop an advanced portable device to treat sepsis for military needs.

DARPA created the Dialysis-Like Therapeutics (DLT) program to develop a portable device that creates a holistic treatment for sepsis.

This device is intended to remove blood from the body, separate harmful agents from the blood and return cleaned blood to the body, like in a dialysis treatment for kidney failure cases.

The objective of this four year project is to develop, design, test and validate the device as part of DLT program.

Beyond the military need for sepsis therapies, the DLT device may play an important role in civilian treatment as well.

The project is led by Battelle, which focus on military user needs, systems engineering, integration of DLT technologies and pre-clinical testing.

NxStage, working closely with Battelle, will design, develop and distribute the device upon regulatory approval.

Aethlon will supply key blood separation component technologies in developing the DLT system.

This contract is funded in phases but the funding does not include human clinical trials that may be required before military use and for US Food and Drug Administration clearance.