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In a paper just published in the peer-reviewed academic journal
Advanced Materials, the researchers say the spray “coats the nasal cavity, capturing large respiratory droplets from the air, and serving as a physical barrier against a broad spectrum of viruses and bacteria, while rapidly neutralizing them with over 99.99% effectiveness.” In other words, it catches the viruses and bacteria at the typical point of entry into our bodies — the nose — and stops them there.
There are plenty of caveats. These results came from a study involving mice, not people. The study was conducted in a laboratory, not the outside world. The spray has not gone through the cumbersome process of getting regulated as a medical treatment by the Food and Drug Administration and is instead being sold as a personal-care product. Researchers used a 3D-printed replica of a human nose to test the nasal spray’s efficacy.
Nonetheless, the news is promising: The product is cheap, its ingredients are harmless and it might reduce our risk of getting colds or flu during winter flu season.
“In … research in our labs, the nasal spray reduced the load of viruses and bacteria — including Influenza A and B, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, adenovirus and a bacterial form of pneumonia — by over 99.99% and persisted in the nose for eight hours,” Harvard’s Jeffrey Karp tells MarketWatch.
It is the first such spray to come close to this type of protection, the researchers say. Previous sprays have provided between 20% and 70% protection.
In a laboratory experiment where mice were exposed to a severe flu virus, they report, all of the mice who were given the new spray survived. Among mice who were not given the spray, none survived.
The scientists call their new spray the Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Spray, or PCANS, though they are marketing it under the more euphonious name Profi.
The ingredients are pectin, gellan, polysorbate 80, benzalkonium chloride, and phenethyl alcohol, Harvard assistant professor Nitin Joshi tells MarketWatch. All were drawn from the FDA’s inactive-ingredients database and “generally recognized as safe” list.
“We performed rigorous screening of ingredients that have been used in approved nasal formulations or have been widely recognized for their safety, and identified combinations and concentrations that maximize effectiveness and safety,” Joshi says.
Due to the cumbersome federal regulatory structure, the researchers decided not to seek FDA approval, which can take years, to market the spray as a medical product. Instead they are selling it as a personal-care product. “Because of the nature of the ingredients … we do not need clinical trials (and we don’t make any medical claims — as this is regulated as a personal care product/cosmetic),” they say.
In other words, due to regulations, even though research published in a peer-reviewed journal points toward 99.99% effectiveness, they can’t make these claims in their marketing materials.