A Medical Device Daily

Tissue Regeneration Technologies (TRT; Woodstock, Georgia) reported the receipt of a $2 million grant from the Defense Acquisition Challenge (DAC) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for FY09.

TRT's proposal, "Shockwave Therapy for Traumatic Wounds of the Extremity," is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of shockwave therapy in treating complex wounds in a combat casualty care venue. TRT's DoD partner, the Combat Wound Initiative (CWI) Program, is currently spearheading a randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of shock wave therapy.

The Combat Wound Initiative Program, in partnership with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF), submitted a competitive grant proposal to the DAC, which was one of four selected from 300 submitted.

The DAC grant funds will allow the CWI program to expand its clinical trial to Brooke Army Medical Center (San Antonio), Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Members of the CWI Program, HJF, and TRT's management team attended the Foreign Comparative Testing/DAC Kickoff ceremony at the Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia, where more than 200 senior military staff as well as the under secretary of the Army were briefed on the projects selected for field testing in 2009.

The primary function of the Defense Acquisition Challenge is to accelerate field testing for technologies demonstrating potential for direct war fighter benefit. If field testing is successful, the DAC expects rapid procurement of these advanced technologies into the U.S. military in order to deliver the latest and best technology to America's war fighters at cost savings or cost avoidance to the U.S. government.

The CWI-HJF-TRT proposal achieves these objectives by providing cutting-edge MultiWave technology at significant potential cost savings over the current standard of combat casualty wound care.

"This project is the culmination of extraordinary efforts by the U.S. Army, Research, Development and Engineering Command, Henry Jackson Foundation, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center and TRT employees," said Tissue Regeneration Technologies CEO John Warlick "We are honored to be involved in such a worthy endeavor."