Nebu-Flow

Nebu-Flow is a Glasgow-based medical technology company developing a next-generation nebuliser platform to fundamentally transform the delivery of inhaled medicines. Founded in 2019 as a spinout from the University of Glasgow by Dr Elijah Nazarzadeh and Professor Jonathan Cooper, the company was built around a breakthrough application of surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology to pulmonary drug delivery.

Respiratory diseases — including asthma, COPD, and cystic fibrosis — affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide and impose an estimated cost of €400 billion annually on society. These conditions are typically treated through inhaled drugs, but treatment effectiveness depends critically on producing aerosol droplets within the narrow 1–5 micrometre range needed to reach the lungs. Existing nebuliser technologies struggle with this precision, are slow and cumbersome, and cannot handle the next generation of biologics and RNA-based medicines emerging as the most promising new therapies.

Nebu-Flow's technology uses acoustic waves to disperse liquids into aerosols with precisely controlled droplet sizes, improving the inhalable fraction of drugs by up to 60% compared to conventional devices. Critically, the platform can nebulise hard-to-deliver formulations — including fragile biologics, RNA medicines, nanomedicines, and vaccines — that currently have no viable route to the lungs, dramatically expanding the clinical utility of drugs otherwise limited to systemic delivery.

The company has received backing from Scottish Enterprise, Innovate UK, the British Business Bank, Ascension, and Fortesce, and has won awards including the Scottish Edge Higgs Prize and the Institute of Physics Lee Lucas Business Start-Up Award. In 2024, Nebu-Flow raised £3.7 million backed by the Scottish Venture Fund, Ascension, British Business Bank Investments, and others. The company is chaired by Dr John Pritchard, who brings over 25 years of respiratory drug delivery experience from GSK, AstraZeneca, 3M, and Philips.