Critical raises £1.5M in Wellcome Translation award

Grant

Critical Pharmaceuticals has won a £1.5 million translation award from the UK research charity the Wellcome Trust to develop a nasal spray for administering human growth hormone (hGH) using its proprietary CriticalSorb technology, as an alternative to injection.

Lisbeth Illum, Chief Executive Officer of Critical Pharmaceuticals, said the hGH market represented a major opportunity for Critical. “This project addresses a large unmet medical need. Biologics continue to grow in importance, representing 30 per cent of new drugs. However, 98 per cent of these are administered by injection, leading to poor compliance.”

Human growth hormone is a prime example. Current therapies require daily injections and are strongly disliked by patients and their carers. “We believe Critical’s technology has the potential to enable the non-invasive delivery of not just human growth hormone but many other biological drugs with at least equivalent efficacy.”