Australian healthcare and technology company InhaleRx (ASX: IRX) has confirmed a renewed focus on business development has generated interest from potential ‘white label’ partners in Australia and New Zealand, opening up new opportunities to increase the market penetration of its Medihale devices.
The company made the announcement in its report for the year ending 31 December, in which it posted revenue from the sale of Medihale vaping devices and pods of $167,301 compared to $12,557 in the previous year.
It plans to commence marketing its own medicinal cannabinoid medications for use in Medihale devices, having recently applied for wholesale and import-export licences relating to source and supply.
Other financial results included a loss for the consolidated entity (after income tax and non-controlling interests) of $1.11 million – down 7.8% on the previous year’s $1.20 million.
Inhaled formulations
During the reporting period, InhaleRx embarked on a range of inhaled therapeutic medicinal formulations for registration in Australia and overseas.
The company is in the process of opening investigational new drug applications with the US Food and Drug Administration for use of the formulations in treating chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and panic disorder.
CRPS typically develops after an injury, surgery, stroke or heart attack and usually affects an arm or a leg, whereby the pain is characteristically out of proportion with the severity of the initial injury.
There is currently no approved drug to treat the condition.
Panic disorder refers to the experience of recurrent and disabling panic attacks which last up to a few minutes and are accompanied by physical symptoms such as heart palpitations, shaking, shortness of breath and dizziness.
Like CRPS, there is currently no effective treatment for panic disorder, with sufferers forced to rely on atypical antidepressants, sedatives (benzodiazapines) and anticonvulsants (gabapentin).
Novel drug combinations
InhaleRx is in the process of developing novel drug device combinations of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for CRPS and cannabidiol (CBD) for panic disorder in pressurised metered dose inhalers (pMDI) aimed at rapid onset symptomatic relief.
The company has appointed a UK-based formulation expert group with experience in preparing cannabinoids for inhalation.
The group will assemble a drug device and formulation combination using pMDI devices for both indications.
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