OptiNose attracts $48.5m

The device, which was developed with Cambridge Consutants, delivers drugs to parts of the nose that standard nasal sprays are unable to reach, while preventing drugs from reaching the lungs.

OptiNose is based on a multi-dose, bi-directional system, which includes a mouthpiece and nasal nozzle. As the patient exhales through the mouthpiece into the device, the airflow will carry spray droplets of the drug into the upper posterior nasal passage beyond the nasal valve to the sinus region.

Helena Kyttari Djupesland, chief executive of OptiNose, explained that when a patient exhales, it lifts a soft pallet at the back mouth that closes off access to the throat and lungs. This means, she said, the drug has nowhere else to go but the nose.

With traditional nasal sprays, Djupesland said, drugs cannot reach the areas they reach with OptiNose. ‘With the application of drugs using normal spray pumps, you feel a wetness and you feel it will run out so you sniff and actually end up swallowing it,’ she said.