Fountain Healthcare invests in $47.6m stop smoking device

A US company developing technology to help people stop smoking has raised $47.6 million to finance clinical trials and investigate other conditions that it might target.

Chrono Therapeutics has developed a device that delivers nicotine through the skin in set doses at set intervals timed to coincide with the peak of the craving cycle.

The success of the second round fundraising is a boost for Ireland's Fountain Healthcare Partners, which was one of three founding investors in the group. Fountain invested further in the group in this round, which includes a wide range of VC funds and was led by Californian group Kaiser Permanente Ventures .

Chrono’s technology combines the drug delivery through the skin, embedded sensor technology to monitor compliance, and connected and personalised behaviour change support via smartphone. The company recently won a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer award for its technology.

Other conditions

It is targeting initially the challenge of stopping smoking, but there is optimism that the technology could also be used to address addiction to prescription drugs, Parkinson’s disease and even helping patients manage chronic pain.

The company is banking on the timed and personalised nicotine dosed delivering better results among smokers looking to quit over a 10-week period than current nicotine patches and gums.

The investment is an interesting one for Fountain, which emerged from the former Irish pharmaceuticals group Elan that initially made its name with the slow release nicotine patch.

Success in quitting

Kaiser's Liz Rockett who will join the company as a director says that only a fraction of the 40 per cent of smokers who try to quit each year succeed, according to data from the Centre for Disease Control.

"We have made tremendous progress in developing our technology to help people quit smoking, one of the lowest cost ways to improve health and reduce healthcare costs," said Alan Levy, chairman and chief executive of Chrono. "This financing will bring us closer to commercialising our system for smoking cessation and also enable us to dive more deeply into other applications where we can make a major impact and save lives."