More and more . We're seeing units go
into more austere locations and we know
that the window of time for evacuation
is getting longer and longer . 5.4
million snake bites occur globally
every year . And of those up to
138,000 deaths per year . Not
only is it a true issue , especially
when you're looking at certain regions
of deployment . But it is also a fact
of their comfort level as they're being
deployed out to these areas .
So the Broad spectrum snake bite
antidote program or BS S A for short ,
the end goal of this program is to have
an FDA approved shelf stable broad
spectrum antidote that is species
agnostic . Traditional antivenom is how
we combat snake bite and venom now and
it has a lot of problems . So it can be
very expensive . It's species specific .
So you need to know which snake bites
you to know which antivenom to use .
Many different anti venoms require
refrigeration , cold storage that poses
a logistical problem and they're
injected , which means a medic has to
administer it . And , and every hour
that passes from bite to treatment
could result in a 1% greater mortality
rate . So this program is intended to
find a solution to all of that
something that would be shelf stable
that would reduce the logistical burden ,
that would be broad spectrum . So it
would counteract venom from lots of
different states and would be easy to
use something that could be used in
austere role one conditions . We had a
lot of interest from both the special
operations community as well as some of
the different combatant commands .
Africo , in particular , the defense
Health agency invested in a phase
one proposal for the small business
innovation research of the program . So
the research got started there . This
is what we call a tech pull from
industry where an industry partner has
the intellectual property , but what
they're doing fits our needs . And so
we're able to invest in that technology
to move it forward and to make sure
that the military requirements are
covered . I think this is truly an
exciting team to be on . We have
logistics experts , we have financial
lists members from SOCOM , we have
members from the combatant command ,
medics and other folks that might use
this so that we're not just developing
something that is safe and efficacious
but that it's usable . This could be a
large game changer and not only hitting
military medical needs , but also again ,
the humanitarian piece . This is a
first of its kind people who need it
would be able to have it in their
pocket and so we can go into those
austere locations , we can deal with a
wider evacuation time because now we're
looking at just a tablet of self
treatment to combat snake bite ,
amphetamine versus something that has
to be injected by a medic and pulled
out of the refrigerator , just having
something in your pocket or knowing
that a medic has something readily
available . Should that occur ? That
can put your mind at ease too . Think
about anybody who is worried about
snake bites , right . That can be
people who spend a lot of time outdoors
hikers , campers , hunters , people in
agricultural business . But it's also a
huge deal for global health . This
is really a game changer for combating
snake bite and venom .