The James Watt School of Engineering’s Dr Elijah Nazarzadeh received a prestigious award on Tuesday last week for his work on Nebu-Flow, a drug-delivery spinout from the University. The Higgs EDGE award is presented to science, technology and engineering-focused businesses with high growth potential.

The Nebu-Flow team, which also includes Prof Jon Cooper and Dr Julien Reboud, have developed a new way to aerolise and deliver drugs to treat respiratory disorders, one of the world’s main causes of death and disability.

Higgs Award

Respiratory disorders cost society an estimated €400bn. These diseases, such as asthma and cystic fibrosis, are treated by the inhalation of drugs to the lungs. The efficiency of the treatment crucially depends on the drug particle size to be able to reach the right area of the lungs, between 1 and 5 micrometres.

Nebu-flow’s technology employs acoustic waves to disperse liquids in the form of an aerosol. Coupling these waves into micro-structured arrays enables to control the aerosol droplet size with this clinically proven effective range.

The Scottish EDGE awards, now in their 15th round, are the UK’s biggest funding competition for potential high growth businesses. The awards are supported by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Hunter Foundation, the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise, and have awarded over £14 million to over 350 Scottish businesses.

The award is the latest success for Nebu-Flow, which also reached the finals of the Converge Challenge earlier this year.

First published: 6 December 2019

<< 9 December 2019