NebuFlow secures £2m Scottish Enterprise grant to transform inhaled medicine delivery
What's the deal? Nebu~Flow, a Glasgow-based medical technology company spun out of the University of Glasgow, has secured a £2M grant from Scottish Enterprise to accelerate development of its patented nebuliser technology. The funding will support product engineering, regulatory preparations, and partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotech firms as the company works to bring its device to market in the UK, Europe, and the US.
The grant follows a successful £4.7M investment round in 2024. Nebu~Flow's technology enables precise control of aerosol droplet size, delivering medicines more gently and efficiently to the lungs than existing nebulisers — devices that have barely changed in over a century.
Why now? Respiratory conditions like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cystic fibrosis place enormous strain on healthcare systems. In Scotland alone, managing these conditions costs the NHS around £500M a year. Current nebulisers can't handle newer, more effective therapies such as biologics and advanced therapeutics. Nebu~Flow says its device can deliver a much wider range of medicines, including these fragile formulations.
The company is now moving from a working prototype to a fully engineered product — finalising design, running performance tests, and preparing regulatory approvals.
What could go wrong? Medtech regulatory pathways across the UK, EU, and US are complex, costly, and slow. Nebu~Flow still needs to clear those hurdles before reaching patients. It also faces the challenge of convincing pharmaceutical partners to reformulate or adapt therapies for a new delivery platform — no small task in a risk-averse industry.
The signal: Scottish Enterprise has backed Nebu~Flow at multiple stages, from its Unlocking Ambition entrepreneurship programme through feasibility grants to this latest R&D award. It reflects a broader push to build Scotland's human health sector into an engine of economic growth through high-value spinouts.
"Companies like Nebu~Flow play a vital role in transforming our economy by scaling up, creating high-value jobs and competing internationally," said Nicola Anderson, director of scaling innovation at Scottish Enterprise.
The deal also highlights a growing trend: investors and public funders betting that drug delivery innovation — not just new drugs — can unlock significant clinical and commercial value.
Read more: scottish-enterprise-mediacentre.com
