Pharmas and drug delivery companies are all abuzz over inhaled medicines. Chalk it up to needle-phobic patients, or maybe the looming threat of avian flu, which has everyone scrambling for a vaccine that can be delivered en masse.

Cambridge Consultants, for example, caused a stir last month when it announced a four-cent inhaler that delivers up to 40 percent more medicine than most other inhalers—just perfect for a pandemic, they say.

The buzz really became a roar last March when Sanofi-Aventis came up with its breakthrough inhalable insulin—Exubera—and licensed it to Pfizer for $1.3 billion. “It’s been the Holy Grail of insulin,” says Decision Resources analyst Donny Wong. “Patients have been waiting decades.”

Now, all sorts of inhalable medicines are under development. Besides GlaxoSmithKline’s inhaled flu drug, Relenza, Eli Lilly has partnered with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alkermes to create inhaled insulin; it’s also conducting preclinical trials for an inhaled medicine to treat osteoporosis.

Drug delivery company Syntonix, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, is collaborating with Serono to create an inhaled infertility treatment, which CEO John Ripple says will generate an estimated $50 million for licensing fees and royalties.

Startups are itching to enter the pulmonary drug delivery market, as well. Matthew Kim left his post as a patent attorney for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to become CEO of Atlanta-based AerovectRx, which just finished a seed round of funding to produce a nebulizer licensed from the CDC.

Columbus, Ohio-based Ventaira Pharmaceuticals, which also developed an inhaler, recently completed a third round of venture funding for $18.5 million. “The lung has the surface area of a tennis court,” says CEO Leslie Williams. “It’s a great portal for drug delivery.”

The genius behind inhaled medicines lies in patient convenience: consider the osteoporosis sufferer simply inhaling what’s needed instead of coping with self-injections.

But no pain, no gain, say inhaler critics. They argue that delivering medicines via injection is more efficient and that more insulin is needed when it’s delivered through the lungs, making it a costlier option. Some doctors, it turns out, are also reluctant to prescribe inhaled insulin for another reason: no one really knows the long-term effects of insulin exposure to the lungs.

Mr. Wong of Decision Resources is still confident that inhaled medicines will be a big business—eventually. “This technology is 10 to 15 years from fruition,” he says. “A lot of physicians are adopting a wait-and-see attitude.”

Contact the writer:MTaylor@RedHerring.com

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