Overview

Neuronasal’s one mission is to get drugs across the blood-brain barrier with five focused programs and two delivery approaches.

Since their first introduction about 10 years ago, GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) drugs have revolutionized the treatment of diabetes and weight loss. With their blockbuster success comes a multitude of side effects from gastrointestinal distress, in the short term, and muscle loss, in the long term. These side effects are caused by the high doses required to produce efficacious results. Neuronasal has partnered with Ophidion to work together to use Ophidion’s proprietary “trojan horse” technology to carry the GLP-1 molecules across the blood-brain barrier and preferentially deliver them to the brain. Early cellular testing has been very successful with proof-of-concept data expected in the summer of 2026 and proof-of-biology data expected in the fall of 2026.

GLP-1s have also shown efficacy in multiple phase 2 Parkinson’s Disease trials but have failed in their phase 3 trail because of insufficient brain delivery. In parallel with the weight loss and diabetes pre-clinical program, Neuronasal has a pre-clinical program using the Ophidion trojan horse to treat Parkinson’s Disease. The proof-of-concept data for this program is expected in the fall of 2026 and proof-of-biology data expected in the spring of 2027. See Pipeline.

Supported by newly issued IP, the company also has a cellular Proof-of-Science program for the combination of GLP-1 and NAC with the work being done at an NIH lab.

The drug NAC (N-Acetylcysteine) has shown promise in a number of chronic central nervous systems diseases. But NAC, when administered orally in sufficient doses, also causes gastrointestinal distress and not enough of the drug gets to the brain. In groundbreaking research done at Thomas Jefferson University, NAC was administered to Parkinson’s patients intravenously (IV) and orally and the disease progression was slowed as shown via symptoms and via imaging. Since daily IV dosing of NAC is not realistic, nor cost-effective, Neuronasal invented new direct nose-to-brain delivery technology to bypass the blood-brain barrier. By utilizing this technology, magnitudes of increased NAC brain delivery was shown, in a pilot study, over the oral and IV approaches, with no side effects. This patented approach is being testing in two phase 1 trials, one in Australia and one in University of California San Francisco, which is funded by the NIH. As the completion of these phase 1 studies, the company will sponsor a phase 2 study in Bergen, Norway with partial funding by the Cure Parkinson’s Trust.

Finally, NAC has shown considerable efficacy in treating mild traumatic brain injury in both animal models and in published work done on Gulf War soldiers. In order to stay focused on chronic CNS diseases, NeuroNasal out-licensed its patents in the acute disease domain to Beyond Barrier Therapeutics.

Five Focused Programs. Two Proven Delivery Approaches.

Programs