CHICAGO - Chrono Therapeutics on Friday announced that clinical data for the company's smoking cessation technology showed a statistically significant reduction in nicotine cravings in a trial of adult male smokers. The data were presented at the Society for Research on Nicotine & Tobacco's 22nd Annual Meeting.
Chrono's wearable transdermal drug delivery device times nicotine delivery to when smokers have their strongest cravings. For example, 75% of all smokers reach for their first cigarette within 30 minutes of waking up. The Chrono Solution is designed to deliver the first dose of nicotine replacement therapy shortly before a smoker wakes up and then creates a pattern of "peaks and troughs" of nicotine delivery throughout the rest of the day to assure the smoker has more nicotine support when cravings are predicted to be strongest.
"In the United States, 70% of smokers want to quit, but quitting is extremely difficult. In fact, most people try 8 to 10 times and this includes quit attempts with standard cessation medications like nicotine patch and gum and prescription drugs like varenicline," stated Alan Levy, chairman and CEO of Chrono Therapeutics. "Gums and patches are designed to help manage cravings, but they are only 5% to 9% effective. Our goal is to solve this crisis of public health with an innovative, integrated smoking cessation solution, and the data we presented demonstrates that we are on the right path."
"Achieving statistical significance in a 24-subject trial is very striking and happens infrequently in biopharma; so these results are very encouraging," noted Wende Hutton, general partner at Canaan Partners and a member of Chrono's board of directors. "Quitting smoking is one of the simplest ways to improve global public health, but as the dismal efficacy of current therapies demonstrates, it is also one of the hardest. I'm very excited to be working with a company that has the potential to solve such a serious problem."