Nebu-Flow, the Glasgow-based medical device firm, has secured an additional £4.7 million of investment to help accelerate the next generation of inhaled drugs for patients with respiratory conditions.

The company’s nebuliser platform for respiratory drug delivery has been developed to provide a number of advantages over existing technologies, with the global market valued at over $1 billion (£798m~).

The funding round was led by SCVC, a UK-based venture capital firm investing in early-stage deep tech spinouts, and was supported by Scottish Enterprise, Foresight WAE Technology, SIS Ventures, Ascension, and Conduit EIS Impact Fund.

Speaking on the firm’s technology and what the new investment means, Dr Elijah Nazarzadeh, CEO and co-founder of Nebu-Flow, said: “Our mission is to revolutionise respiratory drug delivery. The investment accelerates our development activities to position the company for inhalation delivery of RNA-based formulations. We now look forward to the final product development and commercialisation stages, with the support of SCVC and our other investors.”

“Essentially, our technology provides new opportunities for targeted drug delivery to the lungs as well as drug delivery to the cardiovascular and central nervous systems. We are engaged with a number of partners in the UK and North America who are currently trialling the product as we prepare for the regulatory approval stage.”

Kerry Sharp, director of entrepreneurship and investment at Scottish Enterprise, also commented: “Scottish Enterprise has supported Nebu-Flow’s ambition to revolutionise respiratory drug delivery over a number of years, from inclusion in our Unlocking Ambition entrepreneurship programme and feasibility grant support, all the way through to this investment, which has in turn helped unlock access to other large grant awards for the company.”

“It has been fantastic to follow their journey from university spinout right through to securing the investment needed to commercialise their technology, hopefully bringing benefits to respiratory patients around the world.”

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A former spinout, Nebu-Flow’s team has strong knowledge of inhalation drug delivery, with the company’s chair Dr John Pritchard having over 25 years’ experience in the field and previously working in senior roles for GSK, AstraZeneca, 3M, and Philips.

Further, Dr Gary Pitcairn, formerly head of project leadership (respiratory) at AstraZeneca, joined Nebu-Flow advisory’s board last year. The company is also set to expand its team in 2024.

The last time DIGIT reported on Nebu-Flow was at the tailend of last year, when it won the Business Start-up Award from the Institute of Physics.