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Medical and Energy Technologies for the future
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Company Background:
Aerophase, Inc. was founded in 1997 as an S-Corp in Colorado by Brian N. Hansen, PhD. Aerophase is leveraging proprietary aerosol technology for targeted delivery of drugs directly into the lungs and is working to commercialize aerosol drug delivery products for the treatment of lung cancer. Its initial product is an Aerosol Delivery Device (ADD) and an inhaled paclitaxel formulation that was developed with funding from SBIR Phase 1 and Phase 2 awards from the National Cancer Institute. The next goal will be to commercialize the Aerophase device through preclinical studies, human clinical trials, and FDA approval.
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Improved Aerosol Therapy for Lung Cancer
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Market Need:
There are about 350,000 lung cancer patients in the U.S. Approximately $10 billion is spent each year domestically on lung cancer treatment, with about $800 million spent on antimitotic agents such as paclitaxel. The oncology drug market is growing by over 10% annually. The current route of administration of lung cancer drugs is by IV infusion which side effects throughout the body and new approaches to drug delivery are badly needed. Inhaled oncologic agents represent a new, potentially huge class of therapies for lung cancer with an anticipated market size of $1B/yr.
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Additional Company Technologies:
The company focus has been the development of technologies that utilize supercritical fluid carbon dioxide as a process fluid. The motivation has been to replace solvents and fluids that are hazardous to health and the environment. Aerophase has successfully developed many products that use carbon dioxide as a working fluid.
The firm has also developed several prototype inhalers that use CO2 as a propellant, a CO2-based cleaning and drying system for the semiconductor industry, high-pressure spectroscopic cell used to measure VLE and determine solubility that are monitored and viewed with a video system, and CO2 extraction technologies for drug and energy applications.
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