• Nanotherapeutics Awarded $20 Million NIAID/BARDA Contract to Develop Inhaled Gentamicin for Treatment of Aerosol Exposure to Bioterrorism Agents
• Respirics to Divest Device Assets
• Respirics Announces Launch of MD Turbo
• Accentia Biopharmaceuticals to Begin Shipping MD Turbo
• Respirics Inc. Completed Series A Financing
• Respirics Inc. Receives 510(k) Clearance for its MD Turbo Device For Use with Metered Dose Inhalers
• TEAMM Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Respirics, Inc. Announce Development And Licensing Deal
• Companies Plan Better Inhaler

Companies Plan Better Inhaler

By David Ranii, NewsObserver.com Staff Writer

Morrisville - Tuesday January 28, 2003 - Two emerging Triangle companies have joined forces to develop and market a new device aimed at ensuring that patients suffering from asthma and other respiratory diseases receive the proper amount of medication from their inhalers.

Teamm Pharmaceuticals of Morrisville, which sells seven prescription drugs for colds and allergies, has obtained the U.S. licensing rights to Raleigh-based Respirics' MDTurbo device. Under the agreement, Teamm will pay royalties based on sales and will help pay the development costs of MDTurbo, which the companies expect to win regulatory approval and be ready for commercial launch in 18 months. Financial details weren't disclosed. MDTurbo would be the first product produced by Respirics, which was incorporated in May 2001 after its founding in September 2000 by three former executives of Glaxo Inc. (now GlaxoSmithKline): Gil Mott, David Gardner and Robert Casper. They are also the only employees of the company, which functions as a "virtual company" that farms out additional work to contractors and consultants when needed, said Mott, president and CEO.

Respirics has raised $1 million from investors, including Triangle-based Research Triangle Ventures and Catalysta Partners.

Mott said that more than half the patients who use metered-dose inhalers have problems getting the proper amount of drug, which involves depressing an aerosol canister with their hand to trigger release of the drug while simultaneously inhaling. And when patients who have just started using a drug report that it doesn't seem to be working, physicians can be hard-pressed to know whether the problem is related to the drug or the patient's inhaler technique.

Products called spacers already on the market offer a partial solution to this problem. But they also rely on hand-mouth coordination, Mott said.

MDTurbo eliminates the problem by automatically triggering the release of the drug when patients achieve an easy-to-obtain level of negative pressure by inhaling -- without manually depressing the canister. It would work with drugs that account for $2.4 billion in sales per year in the U.S. market, including GlaxoSmithKline's Flovent and Serevent. It would not work with GSK's top-selling respiratory product, Advair, which comes in an inhaled dry-powder form rather than an aerosol.

Marty Baum, Teamm's president and chief executive, said MDTurbo, which would be available by prescription only, would be a good fit for the company because its salespeople already target the physicians most likely to prescribe the device: primary care physicians, allergists and ear, nose and throat specialists.

Today Teamm has 75 employees, including 52 salespeople. Baum said he expects its sales force to triple by late 2004.

Mott said he knows Baum and Gary Cantrell, Teamm's vice president of sales and business development, from when they all worked at Glaxo together. "We know what they can do," Mott said. "We feel very confident that we have picked a good partner. They not only know the respiratory [market],they are already in it."