MANCHESTER, England, Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — CN Creative, Ltd. (CNC), a healthcare company providing innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce smoking and smoking-related illnesses, today announced it has raised a Series A financing round led by Advent Life Sciences. The financing raised 2 million pounds, equivalent to approximately US $3.1 million. CNC intends to use the investment to continue and finalise development of its Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) product for use as part of medically supervised smoking cessation programmes.
Despite large-scale public health efforts, about 20% of adults in the UK and the US continue to smoke. Smoking remains the most common cause of preventable death in the Western world and generates enormous costs for healthcare systems worldwide. Two-thirds of smokers report that they would like to quit, and about three-quarters of current smokers say they have tried to stop, but smoking is a powerfully addictive habit that can make quitting very difficult or almost impossible. Fewer than 10% of smokers are estimated to achieve success when trying to stop smoking on their own. In addition, studies show that currently available NRT products help only a small proportion of smokers to stop smoking permanently.
“CN Creative provides innovative approaches to reduce the harm caused by smoking, by helping smokers quit whenever possible or reduce their consumption of cigarettes when total abstinence is not achievable,” said David Newns, a co-founder and Company Director of CN Creative. “We believe our Nicadex electronic inhaler NRT, which will deliver pharmaceutical-grade nicotine using advanced electronic vaporisation technology, has the potential to help significant numbers of smokers stop entirely or significantly reduce their exposure to harmful tobacco smoke.”
Nicadex is similar in concept to the electronic cigarettes currently marketed to adult consumers by CN Creative and others, but with several key differences.
First, Nicadex will be tested in clinical trials and then submitted for regulatory review under the process used for other prescription NRT products, initially through the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and then through the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies.
Second, CNC intends to market the Nicadex electronic inhaler as a medically supervised NRT designed to reduce the harm caused by smoking and to help smokers quit as part of a comprehensive smoking cessation programme.
Third, the Nicadex electronic inhaler has been specially engineered and will be manufactured in the UK under the same stringent standards used for regulated medical products, and the pharmaceutical-grade nicotine solution it uses is being produced by CNC in its own UK-based cGMP facilities approved for the manufacture of prescription drugs.
“The support from our colleagues at Advent Life Sciences will enable CNC to undertake the clinical trials and medical regulatory review needed to confirm the safety and efficacy of Nicadex and to prepare for commercialisation. We expect to file for regulatory approval of the Nicadex electronic inhaler in the UK later this year,” added CN Creative co-founder and Company Director Chris Lord.
Nicadex is a hand-held device that delivers purified nicotine to the user through the vaporisation of a pharmaceutical-grade solution of nicotine. A rechargeable lithium battery powers the vaporiser that instantly turns the nicotine solution into a vapour that is inhaled by the user. Many users report that the sensation of using the Nicadex device is similar to smoking, but the vapour contains no smoke and none of the carbon monoxide, tar or thousands of toxic impurities that make smoking tobacco products so damaging to health. In addition, since there is no smoke, there are no smoke by-products that can cause “second-hand” harm to others.
“Decades of smoking cessation initiatives have had a positive impact on public health but millions continue to smoke and new approaches are urgently needed,” noted long-time smoking cessation and public health advocate Dr. Chris Steele. ”I am encouraged by the potential of the innovative Nicadex electronic inhaler being developed by CNC, which provides a smoke-free, tobacco-free nicotine replacement product in a format that is highly acceptable to smokers. If approved, Nicadex could be a valuable addition to our smoking cessation toolkit, immediately reducing the harm caused by smoking and enabling many smokers to proceed over time to full cessation. CNC’s emphasis on clinical testing, regulatory review, medical supervision and supportive services is encouraging, and I look forward to seeing the results of the clinical trials the company will be conducting this year.”
A distinctive element of CNC’s strategy is its recognition of the value of harm reduction. As noted in the influential 2010 UK government report, A Smokefree Future, “The tar and the carbon monoxide in smoked tobacco are the primary causes of smoking-related disease and death. … Nicotine (in the doses obtained from smoked and smokeless tobacco) is not a significant contributor to disease.” The report proposes that harm reduction measures should be an important element of smoking cessation programmes, noting that “this strategy … opens more routes to quitting, which, we believe, will help thousands more smokers to quit successfully. The new routes will encourage smokers to … manage their nicotine addiction using a safer alternative product … and dramatically reduce the harmful effects to their health, and the harmful effects to those around them. …”[1]
Similarly, after a comprehensive review of the medical and scientific literature, the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) became the first medical organisation in the US officially to endorse tobacco harm reduction as a viable strategy to reduce the death toll related to cigarette smoking. It advocates in its white paper, The Case for Harm Reduction, that inveterate smokers – who are unable or unwilling to abstain from nicotine and tobacco – should be encouraged to switch to lower-risk smokeless tobacco products.[2]
Dale R. Pfost, PhD, a General Partner at Advent Life Sciences and the newly appointed Chairman of CN Creative commented, “CNC’s strategy of applying their smoking cessation expertise and the technology innovations first deployed in their Intellicig® electronic cigarettes to provide smokers with an advanced electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy is a potential game changer. We believe that Nicadex will significantly increase smokers’ chances of ending or reducing their reliance on smoking, while also reducing the well-documented health risks caused by smoking tobacco. With this investment in CN Creative, we aim to continue our track record of investing in innovative life science companies with the potential to become best-in-class in their fields.”
Kaasim Mahmood, a Partner at Advent Life Sciences who is joining the CN Creative Board of Directors, added, “We believe CNC’s products have great clinical and commercial potential, and we are delighted to provide the CNC team with financial and strategic support as they embark on the clinical studies and regulatory review process central to the success of this exciting new approach.”
[1] Department of Health (2010). A Smokefree Future, 2010. Available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_111789.pdf.
[2] Nitzkin JL, Rodu B. Tobacco Control Task Force, American Association of Public Health Physicians. The Case for Harm Reduction for Control of Tobacco-related Illness and Death, 2008. Available at: http://www.aaphp.org/Resources/Documents/20081026HarmReductionResolutionAsPassedl.pdf
About CN Creative
Headquartered in the Bioscience Incubator at Manchester University in the UK, CN Creative provides innovative and sustainable solutions to global problems arising from smoking and smoking-related illnesses. It has developed a distinctive portfolio of products and services focused on smoking cessation and harm reduction, including user-friendly nicotine delivery systems and patient-focused smoking cessation and support services. CNC’s diverse products include QuitDirect, an NHS-accredited supplier of comprehensive smoking cessation services, the Intellicig® electronic cigarette, ECOpure proprietary high purity nicotine preparations and NRT Direct, which provides traditional nicotine replacement therapy products and patient support services to publicly and privately sponsored smoking cessation programmes. CNC’s Nicadex™ electronic inhaler nicotine replacement therapy product is in clinical development for use as part of medically supervised smoking cessation programmes. For more information, visit www.cncbio.co.uk.
About Advent Life Sciences
Advent Life Sciences is the dedicated Life Sciences Fund at Advent Venture Partners, one of Europe’s best-established growth and venture capital firms. Advent Life Sciences invests predominantly in early-stage and growth equity life sciences companies in the UK, Europe and the US. It will back companies that have a first- or best-in-class approach in a range of sectors within the life sciences, including new drug discovery, enabling technologies, med-tech and diagnostics.
The Advent Life Sciences team is a leader in European life sciences capital. Its investments include PowderMed, a therapeutic DNA vaccine company sold to Pfizer; Thiakis, an obesity treatment company acquired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals; Respivert, a drug discovery company focused on respiratory diseases acquired by Johnson & Johnson; EUSA Pharma, a rapidly growing transatlantic specialty pharmaceutical company focused on late-stage oncology, pain control and critical care products; and, Algeta (OSE: ALGETA.OL – News), an oncology company developing treatments for bone metastases and disseminated tumours. For more information see www.adventventures.com.
For more information, please contact:
CN CreativeMediaBarbara Lindheim or Jennifer Anderson, BioCom Partners:
blindheim@biocompartners.com, +1 212 584-2276 ext. 201
janderson@biocompartners.com, +1 212 584-2276 ext. 202
CorporateDavid Newns
david.newns@cncbio.com +44 (0) 7834 767 367
Advent Life SciencesSophie Kreifman, Grayling:
sophie.kreifman@grayling.com; +44 20 7592 7924
http://tourism9.com/ http://vkins.com/
2012年1月27日星期五
2012年1月6日星期五
How to Restore Communities Blighted by Subprime Loans
Hill’s latest book Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home was published in October 2011.
(MORE: 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis)
To begin with, the $10,000 compensation some of the 200,000 Countrywide customers covered in the settlement are entitled to is likely not enough to put them back in their homes, let alone rebuild their neighborhoods. No one is more aware of this than Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Madigan’s investigation into Countrywide and Wells Fargo Bank began in March of 2008. From 2004 until 2007, at the height of subprime and high-cost lending, Countrywide was the state’s most prolific mortgage banker. During that same period, Wells Fargo aggressively embraced the increasingly lucrative subprime mortgage market as well. Madigan had been tipped off to huge disparities in the numbers of risky loans given to African Americans and Latinos by an investigation conducted by the Chicago Reporter. The Reporter found that African Americans, even those with six-figure salaries, were as much as three times more likely to get subprime or high-cost loans from the two lenders than whites or Asians and that the preponderance of those loans were given out in black and Latino neighborhoods. These practices, combined with the targeting of specific neighborhoods, wound up bankrupting poor working- and middle-class communities of color.
Madigan’s pleadings in a 2009 lawsuit filed against Wells Fargo outline how this discrimination siphoned off equity in neighborhoods until they became drags on municipalities and, over time, the state. Ongoing lawsuits against Wells Fargo in Baltimore and Memphis paint a similar picture and make clear the short-term and long-term negative impact of era’s lending tactics on the safety and security and the tax-based funding of schools in blighted neighborhoods. There is no reason to believe that Wells Fargo and Countrywide were the only banks engaged in such behavior.
Madigan flanked Holder at the news conference when he announced the settlement with Countrywide, which ends the state of Illinois claim against that bank. Yet, as she contemplated “the enormous amount of work that needs to be done to rebuild communities and our economy,” Madigan’s endorsement of the DOJ’s settlement agreement was understandably measured. Illinois’ suit against Wells Fargo continues. In it the state alleges that Wells Fargo broke a number of its consumer-protection and human-rights laws and asks for what could amount to much as $110,000 for every violation of credit and civil rights protections. Unlike the DOJ settlement, that compensates individuals, Baltimore and Memphis ask that a jury determine the amount of compensatory and punitive damages owed the cities for Wells Fargo’s actions.
(MORE: Hill: The Stories I Carry with Me)
Yet, even if Madigan and the cities of Baltimore and Memphis prevail, more needs to be done. Relief is in order for countless other cities which the DOJ acknowledges continue to suffer losses attributable to the reckless practices of lenders leading up to the foreclosure crisis. Ultimately, after the financial market collapsed, the government bailed out the banking industry, including Bank of America, which now owns Countrywide. The industry rebounded because the government concluded that a secure banking system was in the public’s interest. Yet, the playing field won’t be level as long as American communities pay for the corrupt decisions made by lenders. A federal effort targeted at restoring blighted neighborhoods is needed to clean up the mess left behind by such egregious predatory practices as those alleged in the Department’s reports and pleadings. The establishment of a pool of money, drawn from fines for violation of the laws and modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund, to be distributed by the DOJ in collaboration with state and local governments, is also in the public’s interest. The process for prioritizing communities set for restoration and structuring relief could be coordinated with other agencies under the DOJ’s direction.
Speaking before Congress in April 2011, Attorney General Holder acknowledged that “communities of all kinds, in every state, from coast to coast” have been touched by the foreclosure crisis. But Holder noted that “communities of color [had] been hit particularly hard, and [had] suffered greater consequences” as the basis for his establishment of the agency’s enforcement of fair housing laws. Funding to restore the neighborhoods Holder’s team of attorneys, economists and mathematical statisticians have identified would enhance the DOJ’s effectiveness as well as assist state and local governments currently dealing with costs associated with these sites. As importantly, it would show our federal government’s commitment to the protections enshrined in our Constitution and laws.
Hill, author of Reimagining Equality, is a professor of social policy, law and women’s studies at Brandeis University. The views expressed are solely her own.
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