Respira Therapeutics, a Santa Fe, New Mexico startup that is developing inhalers to deliver drugs in dry powder form directly to the lung, is closing a $2 million to $3 million series B round.
President and CEO Robert Curtis told an audience gathered at the Mid America Healthcare Venture Forum Tuesday in Minneapolis that the company’s drug delivery platform is much more effective in delivering the drugs to the lung than competing inhalers.
Current inhalers, because of the way they formulate the drugs into powder form, are only able to deliver 20 percent to 30 percent of it to the lung. The rest remains in the throat or ends up in the stomach, Curtis said.
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Instead of coating lactose particles with the drug needed for treatment of say asthma or COPD, Respira Therapeutics coats a lightweight bead. When the patient breathes in, the bead inside the inhaler oscillates vigorously and releases the drug into the patient and 80 percent of the drug is delivered to the lung.
“Our product has fewer off-target effects and better healthcare economics,” he said.
Even the best asthma inhalers like Advair deliver 40 percent of the drug to the lung, Curtis declared, while the company’s dry inhalers deliver 80 percent.
Respira has already raised $2.1 million from Cottonwood Technology Fund, which helped build a working prototype. The company is expecting to close a $3 million convertible note from the emerging Texas Emerging Technology Fund in late Q1, early Q2 of next year, Curtis said.
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Next the company hopes to raise a $15 million series C fundraising round that will help fund clinical trials needed to get regulatory approval in Europe.