INOmax® - History
The evolution of inhaled medicinal nitric oxide as a therapy (INOmax®) can be traced back to the 1980s and the efforts of three researchers, Robert F. Furchgott, Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998. They were recognized for their discovery that the simple nitric oxide molecule was in fact the mystical endothelial-derived relaxing factor and for discoveries of the related mechanisms. Louis Ignarro, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of INO Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Linde Gas Therapeutics.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA played a key role in the clinical development that brought the approved pharmaceutical INOmax to market. That research was conducted in collaboration with INO Therapeutics, which holds the worldwide license for INOmax. In December 1999 INO Therapeutics LLC received FDA approval for INOmax, indicated for the treatment of hypoxic respiratory failure (HRF) in newborns. In August 2001 INO Therapeutics AB received approval of INOmax in Europe through the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA), and the product was launched in Europe.