Forbes Magazine reports that ENA Respiratory receives $12m dollars from the US military

From discoveries made by the University of Melbourne’s Prof David Jackson and his team, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, to receiving $12 million of funding from the US military to produce a more shelf-stable product than the liquid nasal spray – the drug continues to evolve.

As reported in Forbes magazine, the ENA Respiratory liquid nasal spray has seen success by demonstrating its ability to fight flu and COVID by stimulating a host of immune-related genes in its trial of 123 human subjects. INNA-051 is the key drug and is based on discoveries made by Prof David Jackson and his researchers in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute. Although they initially were looking for ways to get “agonist” agents to administer alongside vaccines to give additional stimulation to the immune system. But, the drug alone was found to give enough stimulation to innate the immune system.

However, the US Department of Defence (DOD) were seeking a more appropriate alternative for their conditions. They initially awarded US$4.38m to the company through its Joint Program Executive Officer for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence, then last week invested another US$3.8 million. The military needs a product that is longer lasting and practical to help them through the next pandemic, and are prioritising “getting people back on deck”.

ENA Respiratory’s CEO Christophe Demaison approached the DOD with a solution – a dried-powder formulation. The funding was necessary to be able to validate it and manufacture it to scale.

The dry powder version will push back the launch of the drug by two years or more, with the DOD’s funding paying for repeats of its safety and efficacy tests in its new form, despite having passed them in the liquid form.

Refer to the full version in Forbes Australia.