[2] Founded in 2006 by entrepreneurs and scientists with seed funding from private investors, Retrotope is developing a non-antioxidant approach to preventing lipid peroxidation, a detrimental factor in mitochondrial, neuronal, and retinal diseases.

[5] Retrotope's drug platform, deuterium-stabilized polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), prevents lipid peroxidation damage from propagating, rapidly stopping the toxic chain reaction at its source.

[10] These findings caused discussion in popular science press about the use of deuterated nutrients against ageing,[11] but the most promising direction of further development was toward rare neurodegenerative diseases in which oxidative damage plays a part.

[15] A Phase II open-label clinical study for long-term evaluation of efficacy, safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of RT001 in the treatment of infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy started in the Summer 2018.

[16] After a petition for access filed by investigators at major medical centers, in 2018 RT001 was given to a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) under a "compassionate use" scheme sponsored by Retrotope.