ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Every year, millions of cigarette smokers try to break their habit by turning to electronic vaporizers, which produce intense heat to turn liquid nicotine, and often artificial flavors, into inhalable vapor, generating harmful by-products as a result. Qnovia has developed a heatless nebulizer device that may provide a more manageable path to smoking cessation.
Of the 40 million tobacco smokers in the US, more than half attempt to quit each year. The majority of these people are unsuccessful in their attempts to break their nicotine addiction due to the ineffectiveness of their chosen tactic, a “cold turkey” approach that leaves them to manage cravings and other withdrawal symptoms without a crutch, causing them to return to smoking or introduce a replacement habit that may be no less detrimental to their health. Gums, pills, and patches are available as nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) to help smokers divert their intake to a less hazardous method of consumption, though none of these provide instant relief of physical sensations that contribute to cravings.
In turn, vaporization devices, including e-cigarettes, may spare users some of the tars, carcinogens, and other compounds inhaled from combusting tobacco, yet they, too, are known to create potentially harmful constituents through thermal degradation of both the liquid drug solution they deliver and the materials from which heated components are made.
Cessation rates today hover around 8%, a figure that Qnovia aims to dramatically increase with its breakthrough device, RespiRx, a handheld nebulizer capable of producing vapor without introducing heat.
