Pulmorphix breathes in nomination

Pulmorphix, spun out of Liverpool John Moores University, is one of three finalists in this year’s Merseyside Innovation Awards. The finalists were selected by a cross-section of the business community, with a winner announced on July 10 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Liverpool.

Based on research by Mike Davies at the university’s School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Pulmorphix has created a technology platform that replicates the conditions deep in the human lung. The technology allows drug developers to reliably understand how a drug will behave when inhaled. The company hopes this will lead to a lesser need for injections and particularly benefit patients in countries where refrigeration of vaccines is not always possible.

The spin-out previously secured a grant from the Technology Strategy Board, before going on to raising seed capital via equity crowd-funder Crowdcube – the first UK spin-out to do so. That campaign was overfunded and will enable Pulmorphix to advance the technology into a commercial business-to-business testing service.

Kish Mistry, CEO, said: “Although the market is unexplored, as this is disruptive technology, we estimate that the dissolution profiling market in the UK could be worth around £150m ($255m) per annum. We are already talking to several major biopharmaceutical companies involved in drug delivery treatment via the lungs, who are interested in our services and technology. We are confident that within five years we will be the market leader for testing inhaled drugs and can deliver excellent returns for our investors.”