The UCI Beall Applied Innovation startup aims to use university research to help millions.
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – or COPD – are two of the most common chronic respiratory diseases, affecting people all over the world. According to the World Health Organization, hundreds of millions suffer from these diseases, with COPD-related deaths making up nearly five percent of global deaths each year.
The problem with chronic respiratory diseases, according to UC Irvine (UCI) alumna and NOWA Innovations’ CEO Nasam Chokr, is the way they are managed.
“The biggest cause of death for asthma and COPD patients is poor management,” said Chokr. “Research has shown that many patients have trouble remembering how to properly use their inhalers. That is further compounded when they miss doses and don’t keep track of their inhaler use, which then makes it harder for physicians to treat these diseases.”
NOWA Innovations, a UCI startup that has been part of the Wayfinder incubator at UCI Beall Applied Innovation since 2018, is taking university intellectual property (IP) and developing a device to help patients with chronic respiratory diseases.
ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPOSURE
Respiratory disease management wasn’t the team’s first joint project, however. For their senior design project, then-students Chokr and Michael Nguyen, NOWA Innovations’ co-chief technology officer, worked to develop a laser septoplasty device to noninvasively correct a patient’s deviated septum for improved airflow through the nasal airway. The project first brought them to the Cove @ UCI, Applied Innovation’s headquarters, for events and lab space. There, they also learned how to take an idea and develop it into a product as well as how to create a business plan and go-to-market strategy.
Unfortunately, the underlying IP for the laser septoplasty device was licensed to a different company, leaving the team empty-handed. But after spending so much time at the Cove and having been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, the team wanted another problem to tackle. That’s when Chokr, Nguyen and Patrick Chung – NOWA Innovations’ co-chief technology officer – continued where another senior design project left off and they began their next venture: respiratory disease management.
Since then, they have gone through the I-Corps program, received mentoring from Innovation Advisors and made countless connections through the Cove.
BREATHING LIFE INTO EXISTING RESEARCH
The research behind the startup was conducted over decades in various labs and at the Pediatric Exercise and Genomics Research Center at UCI and was the focus of numerous grants, including from the National Institutes of Health. The biggest inspiration stems from the work of UCI Professor of Chemistry and Nobel laureate Frank Sherwood Rowland – whose name adorns one of the university’s physical science buildings – and his team’s discovery in the 1970s that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were contributing to the depletion of the earth’s ozone. By the time the world decided to phase out CFCs, they had been used in all sorts of everyday items, including hairspray canisters and inhalers.
While conducting a study on a compound that was to replace CFCs in inhalers, Rowland, along with longtime collaborator and UCI Professor of Chemistry Donald Blake and Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Dan Cooper, discovered that they could detect the new compounds in exhaled breath.
This newfound ability to measure compounds in exhaled breath was a revelation, and has huge potential for respiratory disease management.
RESPIRATORY REMEDY
NOWA Innovations’ technology, Unaresp™, notices compounds in exhaled breaths to give pulmonologists and patients the data to help them better manage their diseases.
This device detects inhaled medication concentrations in the body and trains patients to properly inhale those medications, which leads to improved treatment outcomes.
“We’ve completed the second prototype and completely changed our technology to utilize something more promising, which will be more accurate and reduce the cost of the device,” said Chokr.
The final Unaresp device will be handheld so patients can use it anywhere. Patients will exhale into the device and it will detect certain biomarkers and analyze molecules to provide instant feedback and valuable information that is not currently available to patients with chronic respiratory diseases.
Information would include the quality of their exhalation, the likelihood of an inflamed airway and the effectiveness of prescribed medications. By quantifying medication intake and providing feedback on airway and breath quality, NOWA Innovations hopes to help reduce the adverse effects associated with poor respiratory health management and increase patient quality of life.
“I-Corps has really changed the way I look at things,” said Chokr. “I was able to talk to the top pediatric pulmonologists in Orange County and in California. … They all said there needs to be education about asthma and COPD and for patients to really know how to take their medications because that’s one of the biggest issues they face.”
RESPIRATION ASPIRATIONS
The startup continues to receive acclaim for their dedication to commercializing university-based IP for the public’s benefit. In April 2019, NOWA Innovations was one of just 20 startups from across the country invited to present at the 2019 University Innovation & Entrepreneurship Showcase in front of members of Congress, federal agency officials and government relations officers in Washington, D.C.
NOWA Innovations recently submitted a number of grant proposals to fund clinical studies, which would provide them the information needed to submit to the Food and Drug Administration. From there, NOWA Innovations plans to request a Breakthrough Devices Designation with the FDA, which, if a few criteria are met, can fast-track the device’s approval to get it out to the public faster where it can begin to help patients.
“There are many obstacles along the way and things that slow the process down,” said Chokr. “You have this timeline in your head but then reality tells you otherwise. But we can’t quit now. We have big dreams for NOWA Innovations.”
Learn more about NOWA Innovations.
Photos by: Rthura Cevallos
Device illustration by: Vivian To