Otifex lands $1.1m to develop treatment for childhood hearing problems

Melbourne University spin-off Otifex Therapeutics has raised $1.1m from the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund and Uniseed to develop a nasal spray for otitis media with effusion (OME), which is a common cause of childhood hearing problems

OME is a condition where there is thick or sticky fluid behind the eardrum in the middle ear, but there is no ear infection. Severe cases can even lead to hearing loss.

There are no effective medicines available to treat OME, which is often managed with antibiotics to clear any infection that can cause a ear infections or congestion, or a surgical implantation of tympanostomy tubes (‘grommets’) to allow fluid to escape through the ear.

Otifex plans to develop a nasal spray to assist in the clearance of fluid from the middle ear. The company plans to test the nasal spray in collaboration with The Australian Paediatric Research Unit of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

Otifex also announced today the appointment of Dr Christopher Wraight as Chief Operating Officer. Dr Wraight was previously a technology founder and Research Director of the ASX-listed, clinical stage biopharmaceutical R&D company, Antisense Therapeutics.

The $1.1m investment funding will be used in reformulation for nasal delivery, pharmacology and safety experiments, manufacture, and a Phase I clinical trial to confirm the nasal formulation’s safety.

The company then plans to seek additional investment to advance to Phase II clinical efficacy trials in children with OME, representing a key value inflection point in the company’s commercialisation strategy.

The technology was developed by Associate Professor Colin Anderson from the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at The University of Melbourne, and Dr Burkhard Franz, a Melbourne-based ENT physician and Honorary Research Fellow from the same Department, and licensed to Otifex with the assistance of UoM Commercial, the commercialisation company of The University of Melbourne.