Venture Capital Firms

AerovectRx Corporation Takes Aerosol Medicines to Market

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, AerovectRx Corporation is a privately owned corporation that works with aerosol therapeutic treatments for respiratory diseases and disorders, such as asthma, COPD, and IPF. AerovectRx also produces aerosol therapeutic treatments for cancer. The general therapeutic aerosol that AerovectRx produces for cancer is for the treatment of lung cancer, both small cell and non-small cell lung cancer. AerovectRx also deals with aerosol anti-infective treatments for respiratory bacterial and viral infections, such as pneumonia, enduced by either a virus or a fungus that can be life threatening if the infection is severe enough.

Respiratory disorders, such as asthma, COPD or IPF count for the highest number of respiratory disorders affecting people across the world. In some cases asthma or COPD can cause attacks severe enough that the sufferer needs to visit the emergency room or be hospitalized. In some cases asthma attacks can be severe enough to cause life threatening situations by severely impairing the flow of oxygen intake into the body. AerovectRx does not only produce the therapeutic aerosols to treat these respiratory disorders, the company has also developed a revolutionary new technology to aid the delivery of the solutions into the lungs. This technology is the company’s proprietary AeroCell Nebulizer with the AeroCell disposable cartridge technology that also reduces the risk of infection.

Cancer is another disease that affects a large number of people. The number of people suffering from lung cancer is staggering, and AerovectRx produces therapeutic solutions that can treat both small cell and non-small lung cancer. According to AerovectRx’s own data, the average life span of a patient with untreated lung cancer is about eight months. One of the reasons that lung cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to cure is not just that the lack of an early diagnosis, but the main problem is that most of the cancer treatments are delivered by injection. Injections do not always deliver the medicine directly to the source of the cancer. While injections take a while to get to the lungs, the revolutionary aerosol treatments for lung cancer that AerovectRx has been developing treat the lung cancer more effectively, since it goes directly to the lungs, which is the area afflicted by lung cancer. These treatments can also be delivered to the lungs with the AeroCell Nebulizer.

The third area of focus that AerovectRx deals with in respiratory medicine is in aerosol drugs to fight respiratory infections. There are some bacterial respiratory infections, however, the one respiratory infection that kills the most people is either viral or fungal pneumonia. In many cases of respiratory diseases, like with lung cancer, the treatment is usually injections. In the case of pneumonia, the majority of these cases end up in either fatalities or serious life threatening situations, requiring the hospitalization of the patient for a long period of time. The revolutionary treatments that AerovectRx is developing to fight respiratory infections are delivered to the disease in the lung via the AerovectRx AeroCell Nebulizer.

AerovectRx Corporation is a rather large company with 41 people on its management team and seven people on its board of directors. Furthermore, AerovectRx Corporation also has seven advisors that work with the company’s executives. AerovectRx was founded in 2006 and closed its seed funding in 2008.

Some of the noteworthy events in the young life of AerovectRx Corporation is in April 11, 2006, when the company got the clearance needed from the FDA to market and commercialize their AeroCell Nebulizer and its disposable inhaler able medicine cartridge. The article published in AerovectRx’s company publication also announces that AerovectRx’s new revolutionary technology would deliver a whole array of special points of care medication to treat a large variety of respiratory diseases and disorders. The delivery of these medications treats the lungs more effectively than injections and is also attractive, since unlike injections, inhaled medications are not painful.

On November 1, 2006, AerovectRx joined forces with the US CDC to develop the intranasal flu vaccine. The company received over $750,000 in funding and the creating a quicker delivery system to deliver the flu vaccine without the waste and toxic preservatives in the injectable vaccines.
AerovectRx Corporation’s investors include Georgia Venture Partners and Emergent Growth Fund, which invested $1.2 million in seed funding in April of 2008.

Founded in 2004, Georgia Venture Partners, or GVP has a mission to finance companies that are either in the seed and early stage in the life sciences industry; and has an interest to the population of the state of Georgia. The vc firm believes that within the state of Georgia and its institutions, there is a growing interest in the life sciences industry and the mission of GVP is to support the entrepreneurs who want to build strong companies in the life sciences industry in Georgia. Some companies in GVP’s portfolio include Abeome, Altiris Therapeutics, Artarain Medical, Aruna Biomedical, Inc., Biofisica, CytoDome, Insectigen, Spectra Analysis, and others.

The Emergent Growth Fund is a group of angel investors who share the same focus and interests on early stage companies. Emergent Growth Fund was founded in 2003 and also has the active support of the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce. Some companies in Emergent Growth Fund’s portfolio include Cliniplace, Prioria, Smart Structures, Inc., Wilmington Pharmaceuticals, LLC, and others.

For more information about AerovectRx Corporation, click here.

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