Impel NeuroPharma, a medical device company whose technology is designed to enable pharmaceutical drugs to bypass the blood-brain barrier and enter the central nervous system (CNS), today announced that it was selected to receive a Phase II Small Business Investigational Research (SBIR) grant from the Department of Defense's Chemical and Biological Defense SBIR Program entitled, "Blood Brain Barrier Drug Delivery of Therapeutics for Chemical Warfare Agents." The grant includes funding for up to $750,000 for the years 2011 and 2012.
“We are very pleased that the Department of Defense's Chemical and Biological Defense program has selected us for this SBIR contract, validating our early work demonstrating the POD technology's ability to bypass the blood-brain barrier and enable the delivery of novel therapeutics to the CNS”
Impel's Pressurized Olfactory Delivery (POD) device delivers drugs to the upper nasal cavity where they are directly transported into the brain, effectively bypassing the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The POD device is designed to enable molecules to become therapeutics that were previously unable to cross the BBB. As a result, a lower drug dosage may be utilized, thereby lowering plasma exposure and potentially reducing systemic side effects. The POD device is compatible with liquid and powder formulations of both small molecule and biologic drugs.
John Hoekman, PhD, Impel NeuroPharma's Chief Scientific Officer, will serve as Principal Investigator of the grant. He will collaborate with Rodney Ho, PhD, the Milo Gibaldi Endowed Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington (UW) School of Pharmacy, an Investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a co-inventor of the POD technology. Researchers from the Collaborative Research Facility (CRF) of the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD), Cirrus Biosciences, Oratech, Southwest Research Institute, and MPI Research will also support Impel in this endeavor.
"We are very pleased that the Department of Defense's Chemical and Biological Defense program has selected us for this SBIR contract, validating our early work demonstrating the POD technology's ability to bypass the blood-brain barrier and enable the delivery of novel therapeutics to the CNS," stated Michael Hite, Impel's CEO. "We appreciate the opportunity to apply our technology to CNS indications of critical therapeutic need, such as treatments for exposure to chemical and biowarfare agents."
Impel was previously awarded a $500,000 SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health for the development of a potential treatment for AIDS-related dementia (neuroAIDS). Impel has also recently collaborated with Donna Cross, PhD, and Satoshi Minoshima, MD,PhD, from the UW School of Medicine's Department of Radiology on breakthrough neuroimaging studies which may allow for the early diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of brain cancer. The research will be presented at the 2011 Radiological Society of North America conference. Impel will discuss these research and product development initiatives at the 2011 BIO International Conference scheduled for June 27-30, 2011, in Washington, DC.
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