USIL Therapeutics Lands €5.2M EU Grant

Luxembourg healthtech startup USIL Therapeutics has secured a major EU grant to build Europe’s first sovereign treatment for acute radiation syndrome — and earned a near-perfect score doing it.

Less than a year after being spotlighted for its ambition to make radiation exposure survivable, USIL Therapeutics has turned that ambition into a concrete European mandate. The Luxembourg-based medical countermeasures company has been selected for a €5.2 million grant from the European Commission under the EU4Health Programme, administered by HERA.

The evaluation score says it all: 93 out of 100, with full marks for team quality, and strong results for relevance to HERA’s mandate and technical excellence — well above the 70-point threshold required for funding.

The grant targets a gap that has long gone unaddressed. Currently, no comprehensive EU treatment exists for Acute Radiation Syndrome, a life-threatening condition triggered by high-dose radiation from nuclear accidents or radiological attacks. USIL’s answer is a lead compound delivered via an autoinjector designed for rapid administration even by non-medical personnel — temperature-stable, with a shelf life of over three years.

What If Radiation Exposure Was No Longer A Death Sentence?

“Our objective is to bridge cutting-edge biotechnology with real-world operational readiness across defense, civil protection, nuclear, and space environments,” said Frédéric Marin, CEO of USIL Therapeutics.

Developed in partnership with France’s CEA, the initiative has been recognised as Europe’s first universal medical countermeasure fully developed and manufactured on the continent, and awarded the STEP Seal for strategic sovereignty. Market entry is targeted around 2029.

Behind the announcement lies a precise roadmap — and ambitions that reach well beyond Europe. Valentin Wiedling, Chief Development Officer at USIL Therapeutics, walks through the timeline, the clinical choices, and the markets ahead.

The grant covers development up to which specific stage exactly — and what is the realistic timeline to reach a marketing authorization in Europe?

The grant covers €5.2M of an €8.7M project; the balance will come from our active investment round. The funding takes UT-241, our autoinjector, through formulation, manufacturing under EU pharmaceutical standards, a healthy volunteer study, and the regulatory file with the European Medicines Agency. By the end of the project, the autoinjector is ready to be produced and submitted for approval.

Treatments for Acute Radiation Syndrome already exist in the United States — in what way is your solution clinically or operationally superior, and why has Europe waited so long to develop its own?

Approved US products treat only hematopoietic injury (H-ARS), damage to bone marrow that produces blood cells. Our products are designed to treat whole-body acute radiation syndrome, including gastrointestinal and systemic injury. UT-241, the autoinjector, is for on-site use by first responders within minutes of exposure. UT-242, the intravenous version, continues treatment in hospital intensive care. Together they form a complete protection layer. No approved equivalent exists globally.

Beyond defense and nuclear markets, space applications are mentioned — do you already have discussions underway with agencies such as ESA or private players like SpaceX?

Yes. We have an ESA-funded project with Luxembourg-based Yuri Gravity (Space Taxi) testing our compound in orbit under microgravity and natural cosmic radiation. Additional space-domain initiatives are in preparation. Our ambition is to provide the first dedicated radioprotection treatment for astronauts on long-duration missions, including NASA’s planned lunar base and future Mars exploration. Interest in radiation countermeasures is accelerating across space agencies and private operators worldwide.