Nebulized Intranasal Scopolamine for Rapid Treatment of Motion Sickness

Motion sickness is a common ailment that can impact the performance of aircrews, special operations forces, sailors, or astronauts. Existing motion sickness medications must be taken well before exposure to stressful motion, and typically have significant side effects. If a fast-acting motion sickness drug could be developed, personnel could wait and use the drug only if symptoms are present (i.e., as a rescue drug). A fast-acting motion sickness drug could revolutionize motion sickness treatment because the drug (and its corresponding side effects) would only need to be administered when actually needed on a just-in-time basis. The intranasal (IN) administration route is an attractive option because it can be very rapid and avoids using injections. IN delivery of scopoline may also result in reduced side effects relative to other routes of administration such as oral or patch. IN scopolamine has been studied previously for motion sickness, but the drug was formulated and delivered in a way that compromised the time of onset of the drug. We propose to demonstrate and commercialize a novel delivery method and formulation for truly fast acting IN scopolamine for treatment of motion sickness.