NRx Defense Systems, a subsidiary of Wilmington, Delaware-headquartered NRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., whose clinical operations are based in Radnor, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia — announced on September 30, 2026 an initial $11,177,757.27 contract from DARPA, a branch of the U.S. Department of War, to evaluate robotic magnetic stimulation combined with the company’s investigational drug NRX-101 for treating Treatment Resistant Depression. The underlying trial, called SPARC-TMS, has already been approved by the FDA (NCT07227103) and is now beginning patient enrollment.
A One-Day Treatment Built for Military Deployability
SPARC-TMS will test whether an entire course of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) delivered in a single day can treat major depressive disorder when paired with NRX-101, which combines d-cycloserine and lurasidone to enhance NMDA receptor function — the same pathway believed to drive TMS’s therapeutic effects through synaptic plasticity. The approach is based on a completed, DARPA-funded randomized-controlled trial that found a 91% treatment response rate and 69% remission at three months using traditional TMS plus D-cycloserine. Delivered via a robotic targeting system originally developed for neurosurgery, with sub-millimeter precision, the treatment requires just one outpatient day, with no anesthesia and no psychedelic experience.
The DARPA contract’s own preamble frames the stakes bluntly: current TRD treatments “require weeks of daily outpatient treatment, have modest response rates of 30%-50%, and are not easily deployable in military operational settings,” making a validated one-day protocol potentially practice-changing.
Who’s Involved, and What’s at Stake
The trial will run at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital, Arizona State University, and HOPE Therapeutics — an NRx sister company — with several military hospitals also affiliated, and plans underway to expand further into military hospital settings.
NRx Defense is led by Prof. Joshua Brown, MD, PhD (Chief Medical Innovation Officer, who has spent years researching the interplay between neuroplasticity drugs and TMS), alongside Dr. Dennis McBride, PhD, a retired Navy captain and former DARPA program manager, and Dr. Martin Goodwin, PhD, the company’s COO. Dr. McBride said: “I am delighted to unite with my former colleagues at DARPA to reinvent the paradigm for treating depression and suicidality for all Americans.” Dr. Brown added: “The chance to see fundamental research mature from my laboratory to a technology that has the potential to save lives and end suffering is the dream of any physician scientist.”
If SPARC-TMS results replicate, the trial could serve as an FDA registration study for NRX-101 plus TMS in Treatment Resistant Depression — a population estimated at 8.9 million American adults, with roughly $44 billion in associated illness burden.
About NRx Pharmaceuticals
NRx Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company built on an NMDA-receptor platform, developing therapies for central nervous system disorders including suicidal depression, chronic pain, and PTSD. Its pipeline includes NRX-100 (preservative-free IV ketamine, holding FDA Fast Track Designation) and NRX-101 (oral D-cycloserine/lurasidone, holding FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for suicidal bipolar depression).
