Spring allergy season may be upon us in Boston, but viruses that cause respiratory illnesses aren’t going away with the end of winter.
Scientists from Harvard Medical School developed a nasal spray that they say captures pathogens and neutralizes them in the respiratory pathway. Called Profi and marketed by Boston-based Akita Biosciences, the nasal spray is classified as a consumer product, not a medical intervention. It contains ingredients on the FDA’s Generally Recognized As Safe list and Inactive Ingredient Database. Since Profi is not a drug, it's not regulated by the FDA.
Profi was created by Jeffrey Karp, professor at Harvard Medical School, and Nitin Joshi, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.
Karp and Joshi launched Akita in October, and Profi is their first product. It was released the same month.
The product came about as they worked to come up with alternatives to n95 masks amid fear that hospitals would run out of them during the worst days of the pandemic. The scientists behind Profi were already developing nasal products to treat other health concerns when this issue came about, according to Joshi.
How it works
The nasal spray forms a coating in the respiratory cavity that catches and neutralizes germs, which are then cleared naturally into the stomach, said Akita’s CEO Alex Revelos. It “addresses the problem at the gate,” he said.
Profi isn’t the first or only nasal spray to perform a similar function, Joshi said, but there has long been a challenge in getting it to stay in the nasal cavity for any duration of time. Profi was developed with uses technology to have an extended release cycle that lasts for up to eight hours after administration. Previously, similar products would last two to four hours, according to Joshi.
“We have something that could really be a game changer,” Joshi said.
As it’s not a medical grade product, Profi is not meant to replace vaccines or other safety precautions, Revelos said. Instead, it’s meant to make users feel safer.
“We know so much more today about how germs are spread from person to person than even four years ago,” Revelos said. “We now have smarter ways, better ways, more effective ways to stay healthy.”
Profi’s co-creator, Karp, was an inaugural BBJ Innovator in Healthcare.
