Could Cincinnati become the city that sleeps better?
An Australian company has planted its U.S. office in Over-the-Rhine with hopes of soon building a staff and a local manufacturing plant dedicated to the belief that the solution to your snoring problem is a little plastic gizmo that you stick up your nose at night.
“We could have gone to New York, y’know, the city that never sleeps,” said Michael Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Rhinomed. “But we want to make Cincinnati the city that sleeps better.”
Rhinomed of Melbourne, Australia, landed in Cincinnati a year ago with plans to expand in the U.S. market with two versions of its patented nasal stent – for athletes and for sleepers. The company’s website offers the cheeky promise: “Divorce Lawyers Hate it.”
Johnson and Shane Duncan, Rhinomed’s vice president of global sales and marketing, said they hope to find property in Southwest Ohio in the next year to build a plant run with robotics, then Rhinomed will bring over at least some manufacturing from China.
Bad sleep’s a public-health problem
Rhinomed’s research shows their stents can open nasal passages and increase airflow as much as 38 percent. More air through the nose can keep a sleeper from mouth breathing, which creates the condition that generates window-rattling snores – driving bed partners into other rooms just to get some sleep.
This year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared insufficient sleep a public health problem. A 2011 CDC survey found that nearly half of Americansreport that they snore. It’s not an easy problem to solve. A snorer should seek medical attention to rule out obstructive sleep apnea, where the airway gets blocked during sleep and the sleeper temporarily stops breathing.
“Our research is showing that 75 percent of users report getting more air and having their snoring reduced,” Johnson said.
The Rhinomed technology is different because the stents can be adjusted for fit, and each stent has a gripper pad that keeps the device in place. Rhinomed first tried its technology with people who need maximum air flow while awake: athletes.
That product is called Turbine. U.S. cyclist Kristin Armstrong wore a Turbine while racing to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. British champion Chris Froome wore a Turbine in three Tour de France victories, and Froome now is a Rhinomed adviser – “that’s why the Turbine is yellow,” Johnson said, in homage to the yellow jersey wore by the leader in the world’s most famous bike race.
Using a slightly softer polymer than for Turbine, Rhinomed developed Mute, for sleep.
Last year, the British chain Boots added Mute to its more than 2,500 pharmacies through the United Kingdom. To roll out the product, Rhinomed gave Mute to the loudest snorer in the United Kingdom, who clocked in at 111 decibels, equal to a low-flying aircraft. After she used the device, her husband proclaimed that he’d finally gotten a few nights of uninterrupted sleep.
This year, Rhinomed has sold Mute in the United States through Walgreens and Duane Reade. Each device can be used up to 10 nights. Mute and Turbine come in packs of three, sized small, medium or large, for $27.50. A “starter pack” with one of each size, is $19.95.
Growth, Johnson said, has been explosive, and the company’s annual revenue for 2015 was $1.01 million.
The idea of nasal stents for snoring is not new, said Dr. Ann Romaker, associate professor of medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and director of UC Medical Center’s Sleep Medicine Center.
“The problem is that many noses are tender,” she said. “I like whatever the patient is comfortable with and is willing to use on a regular basis. I don’t think there’s a one size fits all with any device. Some people do better with Breathe-Right strips, but some people get adhesive burns from that. I think it’s wonderful to have a variety of options.”
Next steps for the company
When Rhinomed officials decided to open an office in the United States, they looked at both coasts but decided they wanted to be in the middle of the country. At about the same time, Duncan and his wife moved to Cincinnati so that she could take a job with biotech startup Enable Injections, which makes wearable injection devices.
Enable Injections is a portfolio company of CincyTech, which is housed in the same Over-the-Rhine building as Cintrifuse. Duncan met Cintrifuse officials, and he and Johnson said they realized Cincinnati was where they wanted Rhinomed to be.
“Cintrifuse exists to nurture companies like us,” Johnson said. “We don’t know anywhere else where in the first months, we could talk with people from Kroger or Procter & Gamble or Children’s Hospital.”
Naashom Marx, Cintrifuse’s director of customer connections, said Rhinomed probably won’t be in the Union Hall for long. “Definitely, we’re just a launch pad. We don’t expect them here for five years. We hope to be able to find that next spot for them.”
The company officials said they’re ready for their product to shake up sleep. “Retailers are starting to wake up to the sleep market. Pharmacists are starting to wake up,” Johnson said. “The sleep area is hot.”
