We are Discovery Labs, a specialty biotechnology company with one focused goal – to advance a new standard in respiratory critical care by creating life-saving products for patients with respiratory disease.

Our mission is to improve the lives of patients with respiratory disease, collaborate with the healthcare community, provide our dedicated employees with a rewarding work experience, and create value for our shareholders through innovation that contributes to the long-term growth of our business.

To accomplish this, we are dedicated to the development of novel synthetic surfactant therapies with broad potential application across many respiratory diseases. Surfactant is essential for normal breathing throughout life. Our fully synthetic surfactant technology has the potential to establish a completely new therapeutic approach for the treatment of respiratory disease, with a targeted initial application in preterm infants. Our lead surfactant product candidate is called SURFAXIN^®, which we are developing for the prevention of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in premature infants.

Creating life saving medicines for patients with respiratory disease is only part of the solution when attempting to ensure patients are getting the best possible care. Currently, the delivery of inhaled medicines to critical care patients is cumbersome and inefficient, and potentially subject to suboptimal or ineffective dosing. At Discovery Labs, we are simplifying the delivery of aerosolized respiratory medications by introducing the inhaled therapy directly at the patient interface and minimizing the number of connections in the ventilator circuit. Our novel ventilator circuit / patient interface connectors have the potential to improve delivery of the intended dose and reduce possible drug wastage, thereby lowering the costs of administration. Our lead aerosol delivery product candidate is a series of ventilator circuit / patient interface connectors called AFECTAIR^®.

Recent News

SURFAXIN (lucinactant) is an investigational drug, and is under review by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Several published and presented pre-clinical and clinical studies are referenced throughout this website; however, approved and final prescribing information for SURFAXIN is not available at this time. Our initial AFECTAIR device has been registered with the FDA but is not commercially available at this time.