[Breating Defense] WASHINGTON: Special Operations Command expects to move into clinical trials next year of a pill that may inhibit or reduce some of the degenerative affects of aging and injury — part of a broader Pentagon push for "improved human performance."The pill "has the potential, if it is successful, to truly delay aging, truly prevent onset of injury — which is just amazingly game changing," Lisa Sanders, director of science and technology for Special Operations Forces, acquisition, technology & logistics (SOF AT&L), said Friday.
"We have completed pre-clinical safety and dosing studies in anticipation of follow-on performance testing in fiscal year 2022," Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a SOCOM spokesperson, said.
SOCOM is using Other Transaction Authority (OTA) funds to partner with private biotech laboratory Metro International Biotech, LLC (MetroBiotech) in the pill’s development, which is based on what is called a "human performance small molecule," he explained.
"These efforts are not about creating physical traits that don’t already exist naturally. This is about enhancing the mission readiness of our forces by improving performance characteristics that typically decline with age," Hawkins said. "Essentially, we are working with leading industry partners and clinical research institutions to develop a nutraceutical, in the form of a pill that is suitable for a variety of uses by both civilians and military members, whose resulting benefits may include improved human performance — like increased endurance and faster recovery from injury."
Hawkins said SOCOM "has spent $2.8 million on this effort" since its launch in 2018.
A "small molecule" in biology is a low molecular weight organic compound, many of which regulate biological processes and often form the basis for drugs, i.e. ’pharmaceuticals.’ A ’nutraceutical,’ by contrast, is "a food containing health-giving additives and having medicinal benefit," according to the Oxford Dictionary — in essence a dietary supplement.