An Israeli pharma-tech company Syqe Medical has announced the creation of the first-ever metered-dose cannabis inhaler, Arutz Sheva reports.
Syqe Medical presented the device on Thursday. It has been approved by the country’s Minister of health and is now seeking FDA approval.
The product will be distributed in Israel before any other country by Teva Pharmaceuticals, who has an exclusive deal with Syqe for the marketing and distribution of the drug in the region, Calcalist reports.
The company has raised a total of $83 million and the device has been in development for the past eight years, undergoing numerous clinical trials and regulatory screening processes before it was approved for sale, Syqe’s founder Perry Davidson was quoted saying.
The device uses a unique delivery method that Syqe says “provides symptom relief in minutes,” and its “unprecedented dosing precision achieves maximum relief while avoiding any undesired psychoactive effects.”
Although technically any patient with a medical cannabis licence may purchase the inhaler, which the company says will be delivered to patients’ doors, it may not be accessible to many. The device is priced at a costly NIS 1,950 (approx. CAD$711).
“Almost 80% of cannabis patients inhale the plant,” Davidson said. “For too long, physicians who wish to treat these patients have been without the most basic clinical knowledge on dosing, efficacy and adverse events of cannabis… This launch marks the beginning of a new chapter in pain treatment, one in which physicians can confidently prescribe precise dosages of cannabis.