Tampa, Florida, United States – The Newswire – March 27, 2024 - CTT Pharmaceutical Holdings, Inc. (OTC:CTTH) has signed an agreement with Johns Hopkins University for a NIH grant utilizing our patented technology to create fast acting, low dose nicotine strips as a smoking cessation product. The NIH grant is up to $15 million dollars and would fund human trials over a 3 year period. Johns Hopkins would conduct the human trials for smokers looking to quit during this process, which would be done as a Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 model. CTT Pharma will be involved with the human trials and create dissolvable nicotine strips that would be used to help the participants quit in these studies. The main objective of these trials would be to successfully wean smokers off of cigarettes using our patented technology and to do so in a manner where the nicotine dissolves in the mouth in seconds.

Johns Hopkins University has been the highest NIH awarded university for many years and continued that trend in 2023 as they led all U.S. universities and colleges in total National Institute Health(NIH) funding, receiving over $842 million in awards. CTT believes their knowledge and expertise will help gain the necessary funding to help give smokers and nicotine consumers a new option to quit.

The World Health Organization states, “The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing over 8 million people a year around the world. More than 7 million of those deaths are results of direct tobacco use while 1.3 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.”  Furthermore, the CDC says, “Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States. This is nearly one in five deaths.”

The CEO of CTT Pharma, Ryan Khouri, stated “This partnership is a step in the right direction as it could ultimately allow smokers the ability to choose a low dose, fast dissolving nicotine strip for a smoking cessation product. I believe there’s a real need for our technology as current oral nicotine products stay in the mouth for an excessive amount of time. I’m confident in our ability to create a superior product that will help society and look forward to this opportunity.”

CTT Pharma – 813-606-0060