The arrival of every cold and flu season has frequent sufferers checking their supply of nasal sprays and other medications as they brace for impact. Healthcare stock Altamira Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CYTO) surged upward in Friday afternoon’s trading thanks to recent success in testing its latest nasal spray. Bentrio, Altamira’s latest candidate, performed better than a saline nasal spray on several fronts.
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Both Bentrio and a standard saline spray got a fluorescent agent added so that the two mixes could be tracked visually. Bentrio managed to remain detectable in the nose for as long as 210 minutes. Meanwhile, saline spray lost its detectability after just 60 minutes. Better yet, Bentrio managed to get all the way to the oropharynx part of the nose and stay there for as long as 240 minutes. Saline, once again, could only manage 60 minutes. This provides better resistance to various allergens and other particles reaching the nose.
The big reason for that longevity? Bentrio is actually a gel rather than a liquid. While the gel can briefly become liquid by being shaken, it can adhere to nasal mucosa for extended periods. The end result is a nasal spray that—as the studies show—sticks around for a long time and can address more issues. That, in turn, should make Bentrio a more powerful option, easier to market, and better able to break into an already crowded field.
Looking at the last five days of trading, we see something somewhat disturbing. Altamira held its numbers reasonably well going into today’s surprise gain, but it lost most of that ground almost as quickly. Overall, Altamira is actually down just over 3.5% for the week.
