A new Cincinnati company is hoping to give premature babies a better chance of growing healthy lungs.
Airway Therapeutics, formed earlier this month, is working to commercialize research begun at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center into why so many premature babies develop chronic lung disease.
Extremely premature babies -- those born before the seventh month of gestation -- come into the world without surfactant, a natural substance found in animal lungs that keeps the lungs inflated. The remedy is to replace the baby's natural surfactant with one made from animal lung tissue, says Steven Linberg, Airway's CEO.
"But part of the process of giving them the surfactant involves either mechanically ventilating the baby or hand bagging the baby just to force some air into their lungs, and also giving them higher than normal amounts of oxygen," Linberg says.
That often causes trauma and chronic lung disease for as many as 30 percent to 40 percent of such babies. Now, research by Jeffrey Whitsett, chief of Cincinnati Children's
Section of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology, indicates inflammation may be worsened because of a lack of Surfactant Protein D, which occurs in normal surfactant but is missing in replacement surfactant. Airway is working on a recombinant human Surfactant Protein D with the goal of adding it to replacement surfactant as nature intended. If shown to reduce or prevent chronic lung disease in preemies, all makers of surfactant would like add the protein to their products, Linberg says.
The next step for Airway is to meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, possibly in August, for validation of its development plan, Linberg says. Because of the number of both non-clinical and clinical studies to be done, the earliest Linberg expects to see Surfactant Protein D on the market is 2016.
"Our next goal beyond this is to move into cystic fibrosis," Linberg says. "It's likely that because this Surfactant Protein D is both anti-inflammatory and anti-infective, it will have a positive role in treating cystic fibrosis patients."
The company currently has a number of consultants but only one employee -- Linberg. It is housed at
BioStart and recently received $500,000 from
CincyTech and Cincinnati Children's Tomorrow Fund as part of a projected $1.2-million seed-stage funding round led by CincyTech.
Source: Steven Linberg, Airway Therapeutics
Writer: Gene Monteith