DARPA Awards RxMP Therapeutics Up to $10.7 Million for Hemostatic RMP-402

RxMP Therapeutics, Inc. has been awarded up to $10.7 million from the U.S. Department of War through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's RAPIID program, the company said on October 20, 2026. The award, announced by PR Newswire, supports the company's lead product candidate, RMP-402.

What the DARPA RAPIID Award Funds

RxMP Therapeutics is a late pre-clinical stage therapeutics company developing therapies for the rapid control of hemorrhage and excessive bleeding. The contract will fund completion of RMP-402, including remaining IND-enabling development activities, furthering manufacturing scale-up, and preparation of the Investigational New Drug application package.

RMP-402 is a first-in-class hemostatic biomimetic composed of manufactured allogeneic red cell membrane particles, analogs of active particles that circulate naturally in human blood. Administered intravenously, it is designed to rapidly accelerate hemostasis at sites of active bleeding without increasing the risk of off-target clotting. The product is being developed for hemorrhage in dual use settings, both military and civilian, especially where access to conventional blood products may be limited by availability, storage requirements, logistics, or the urgency of treatment.

DARPA's RAPIID program focuses on advancing shelf-stable blood analog technologies that can be manufactured at scale and rapidly progressed toward regulatory authorization. The program seeks to establish the manufacturing, clinical, commercial, and regulatory pathways necessary to make advanced hemorrhage countermeasures available to warfighters and civilians when traditional blood products are unavailable.

"This award represents a major inflection point for RxMP and for the development of RMP-402," said Dr. Rifat Pamukcu, President and Chief Executive Officer of RxMP Therapeutics. "The support of the Department of War and DARPA allows us to complete critical IND-enabling work while continuing to demonstrate that RMP-402 can be manufactured at the scale required for both military and civilian commercial use."

DARPA's Recent Program Moves

According to akta.pro company records, DARPA in June 2026 expanded the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative into later stages, advancing Nord Quantique to Stage 2 and admitting Atom Computing to Stage B, while validating Microsoft's Majorana 2 topological qubit progress through the US2QC program. The same records show DARPA in June 2026 awarded Applied Research Associates 'Awardable' status through the ERIS Marketplace, extending its procurement surface and signaling a pivot to nontraditional, commercial, and startup transition pathways under the Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative. DARPA was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in Arlington, funding high-risk R&D across six technical offices.

Earlier DARPA Awards This Month

On October 19, 2026, Xanadu Quantum Technologies received provisional approval for up to $10 million in project funding under DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, a one-year contract extension building on its Stage B work, TradingView reported. On October 8, 2026, NRx Defense Systems, a subsidiary of NRx Pharmaceuticals, entered a DARPA prime contract on September 29, 2026, for the SPARC-TMS clinical trial treating treatment-resistant depression, according to Ticker Report. On October 7, 2026, IonQ advanced to Stage C of DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative under an agreement with a potential value of up to $300 million, Stock Titan reported.

RxMP's Next Steps

RxMP said the award enhances its momentum toward entering clinical trials culminating in FDA regulatory review and may provide an opportunity for an Emergency Use Authorization for combat casualty care. The company's lead candidate is being developed for a global trauma, medical and surgical bleeding market estimated at up to $12 billion annually.