As a university student, Dalton Signor was troubled by how many people around him smoked or vaped, including his grandmother and 14-year-old sister.
Signor (pictured center) felt that existing smoking cessation medicines, whether patches, gums, or lozenges, are not very effective because they take too long to start working. “They take about 30 minutes to provide relief, but the average person relapses in 11 minutes,” he told TechCrunch.
So, three years ago, he set out to develop a withdrawal-inhibitor inhaler because delivering medication directly to the lungs allows for rapid absorption into the bloodstream, providing faster relief. He dropped out of the university to work on this problem, creating Miist Therapeutics, attracting Jeff Schuster (pictured left), a physicist who has dozens of patents for developing inhaled medicines, as CTO and co-founder, and his long-term friend and biomedical engineer Eric Ezerins (pictured right) as head of R&D.
Three years after launching, Miist announced it secured $7 million in seed funding from investors including Refactor Capital, 1517 Fund, and Freeflow Ventures.
Refractor’s solo GP Zal Bilmoria said he initially wasn’t convinced that Miist’s approach would be effective. But when Signor presented him with the results of the company’s Phase I trial, the former Andreessen Horowitz partner who helped launch that firm’s first Bio Fund, instantly changed his mind.
The small study showed that smokers who used Miist’s inhaler eliminated 92% of their cravings in only two minutes, a 10X improvement over the existing standard of care. “It’s game-changing,” Bilmoria said.
Signor explained that Miist’s technology produces particles that are 50% smaller than other inhalers, which means the medicine is deposited deeper in the lungs, where the lining is just one cell thick, leading to faster absorption into the bloodstream.
Although Miist calls its invention an inhaler, it looks and acts like a vaping device. Signor said that its vape-like properties may help with the psychological aspects of quitting.
“When people quit, they miss taking the five-minute smoke break and like having that part of their day to themselves,” he said, adding that even though the medicine could be delivered in one inhalation, Miist chose to spread it out over seven puffs to mimic the behaviour of smoking.
Nicotine addiction is not the only health issue where rapid release makes a big difference.
The company recently launched a program for migraines. For someone in the throes of a migraine the difference between fast-acting and slow-absorbing medication can be significant. It not only provides faster relief, but can also help avert a much longer, untreatable attack.
Although several nasal inhaler formulations of migraine drugs currently exist, Miist anticipates that its oral inhaler will be more effective.
Miist is gearing up to run a Phase II trial of its smoking cessation tech that uses the active ingredient in standard nicotine replacement therapy, like Nicorette. It is also currently testing triptans, a class of migraine drugs, in the lab, Signor said. Signor envisions that the inhaler can one day also be used to administer other medicines for other conditions, such as anxiety control.
Miist is not the only startup developing a vape-like device for smoking cessation and migraines. Qnovia has raised over $35 million at an estimated $350 million valuation from investors including Blue Ledge Capital, DG Ventures, and Vice Venture, Forbes reported.
Qnovia, like Miist, needs FDA clearance before selling its device in the US. If approved, they will be the first prescription-approved smoking cessation treatment to come to market in nearly two decades.
Some may view vaping as an unorthodox method of drug delivery. However, Refractor’s Bilmoria believes that its effectiveness should override people’s reservations.
“It’s unbelievable to me that the pharma industry has overlooked this opportunity,” he said.