Infirst Healthcare Inc.

Who we are

infirst Healthcare is a company which is determined to bring meaningful innovation to Consumer Healthcare and Primary Care practitioners to contribute to improved early medical intervention for everyday ailments.
Modern medicine continues to make great advances with new drugs and new treatments. These developments however are increasingly focused on severe conditions and rare diseases, while treatments for everyday ailments and bothersome symptoms have not seen much improvement in recent years. Arguably pharmaceutical development and advancement is moving away from everyday drugs. However, at infirst Healthcare, we believe that there are effective solutions to common ailments hidden in known medicines and we strive to unlock those secrets. Our developments aim to build on the trust and safety of well-known drugs and develop formulations which result in a genuinely perceived difference in performance. The ultimate goal is improved and highly effective health management, involving patients, the family practitioner and the pharmacist.

What we believe
infirst Healthcare believe that more effective treatments can be found by taking a closer look at existing medicines to make known drugs better

We believe in early intervention
Whether for a patient's quality of life, or simply for the ability to carry on with daily tasks and chores, or for the containment of public health budgets, we believe that everyday ailments and diseases need to be stopped in their tracks early on. Such early intervention must include easily accessible, safe and effective tools and remedies for self-medication, for pharmacist consultation and for the daily needs of General Practitioners (G.P.'s)

We believe in addressing unmet needs
Contrary to common belief, the landscape for early drug intervention, whether at GP level or for self-medication, shows many unmet or poorly met needs. It is widely recognized that there is an increasing need for new medicines to treat serious conditions including an urgent need for new antibiotics. What is less often reported is the need for improved effective treatments for many other conditions which can cause great suffering and discomfort e.g. Cough & Cold, Pain management, Urinary and Gastro-intestinal conditions, as well as Fatigue and Sleep Disturbance to name a few.

We believe in known drugs - made better
infirst Healthcare is focused on addressing such unmet need areas for early intervention - these can be over-the-counter products (OTC) or prescribable and reimbursable OTC drugs (OTx) or primary care prescription drugs (Rx).
infirst Healthcare has developed unique expertise in improving the formulation of known drugs to increase their effectiveness. We believe that many solutions don't require new products to be developed from scratch. The world's best known drugs have been used for decades by many millions of patients and their safety and side-effect profiles are extremely well known and understood. With time and extended use, many of these drugs have demonstrated latent and desirable benefits and qualities. These can be brought to the surface and into greater effect without changing the mode of action, the dose or the regime. With detailed understanding of the body of evidence and knowledge of these drugs, small but meaningful reformulations can be made to provide noticeable patient benefits. infirst Healthcare emphatically believe that there is every reason that continuous improvements should result in more effective everyday drugs. This is the goal and the passion of the infirst Healthcare team. This is what we have captured through 'known drugs - made better' and it is this which defines our mission and quest.

We're working on
Our first products to market will focus on unmet needs in unproductive cough and inflammatory pain. Future products will address other common ailments.

The initial areas of development for infirst Healthcare focus on medications to treat Cough & Cold and Inflammatory Pain conditions. These are the most common ailments when it comes to self-medication but also the most common symptoms presented to General Practitioners (GP's).
Cough

Treatments for cough, which have been assessed in either clinical trials or 'real world' observation studies and which are non-narcotic / non-opioid, therefore define the agenda for infirst Healthcare's cough programme.

Inflammatory pain
infirst Healthcare aims to take well known drugs, refine them and make them more fit for purpose, more specific for the pain which comes with inflammatory surges, so that acute and flaring pain can be effectively treated.


BC1036


BC1036 is a programme intended to develop theobromine capsules for the treatment of cough. Theobromine is an alkaloid which is naturally present in cocoa beans, kola nuts and guarana berries and is also a metabolite of caffeine. It has been used in a variety of therapy areas in the past and is being regarded as a promising non-narcotic / non-opioid candidate for the suppression of dry unproductive cough.

Theobromine's potential to treat cough was first observed by a group around Professor Peter Barnes at Imperial College London in 2004. Later, a clinical programme was conducted in Korea (by Ahngook) which led to a new drug application and a marketing authorisation for cough in this geography, in 2009. The Korean development continues with further clinical assessments and with a post marketing safety study, which now includes over 3,400 patients.

Building on this, infirst Healthcare has undertaken to conduct a European development programme for Theobromine in the treatment of unproductive cough. This development programme also includes a pivotal European Phase III clinical study, aiming to seek approval for this treatment option in Europe. If approved, this would be one of the very few clinically assessed new medicines for the treatment of cough.


CS1002


Many cough treatments on the market use narcotic / opioid actives (such as codeine, hydrocodone or dextromethorphan) to suppress the cough reflex in the brain.

CS1002 is under development using a combination of well-established ingredients which are non-narcotic / non opioid and which combine decongestant and expectorant properties with the calming effect of an antihistamine.

In addition CS1002 will come in a cocoa flavour delivered in a thick and comforting liquid. This is intended to optimally coat the inside of the throat and to bring the medicine into contact with the sensitised nerve ends of the throat lining.

Cocoa also adds the full range of synergistic health benefits generally attributed to high quality dark chocolate


BC1054


BC 1054 is a development programme which uses an OTC dose of ibuprofen in a unique formulation which aims to improve the utility and specificity of ibuprofen in acute inflammatory pain conditions.

infirst Healthcare intends to demonstrate that a potential differentiating benefit of the drug can be shown in a 'real world' observation study among sufferers from this specific patient population.

infirst Healthcare aims to target this as an episodic and temporary treatment option for acute inflammatory pain. This will accompany the treatments already available for long-term disease modification of this large group of auto-immune and inflammatory diseases.

Additional treatment choices for flaring breakthrough pain will contribute to helping patients and GP's control the acute stages of many inflammatory conditions.