Israeli inhaled therapy cuts deaths from acute respiratory distress in a controlled trial

An inhaled treatment developed in Israel has met its main goal in a mid-stage trial for acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, a life-threatening lung condition with no approved drug of its own. Nano24, a Tel Aviv biotech company founded in 2020 to develop research from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, presented the results on 20 October 2026 at the CHEST annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Phoenix.

The phase 2b study enrolled 90 patients with ARDS from any cause and assigned them at random, two to one, to the therapy or a placebo, inhaled twice a day for five days on top of standard care. After a week, 85% of treated patients were free of respiratory failure, compared with 33.3% on placebo. Over 28 days, 6.7% of treated patients died against 30% in the placebo group, and at six months the figures were 13.3% and 43.3%. The average hospital stay fell from 14.4 days to 6.5. No serious side effects were linked to the drug, though the company notes the trial was too small to rule out rarer risks.

The therapy, EXO-CD24, uses exosomes, tiny natural packets that cells use to send messages to one another, engineered to carry a protein called CD24 that calms runaway inflammation. Breathed straight into the lungs, it is designed to damp the damaging immune storm while leaving the body able to fight the infection. Prof. Nadir Arber of Tel Aviv Sourasky founded the company, and Dr. Shiran Shapira, its chief scientist, presented the data. MIT's Robert Langer, a co-founder of Moderna, chairs its scientific advisory board. More than 260 patients have now received the drug in trials or on a compassionate basis.

ARDS can follow pneumonia, sepsis, influenza, COVID-19 or major trauma, and even with ventilators and intensive care it kills a large share of those who develop it. A Columbia University lung specialist who plans to join the next trial called the results encouraging, and Nano24 says it will now seek to run a larger international phase 3 trial, which will be needed before any regulator can approve the treatment.