This text is part of the special Quebec engineering booklet
Personalized treatment for each person who wants to quit smoking is the goal of the Ditch Labs project. The team behind it is one of the six finalists in the Acfas Business Geniuses competition.
Ditch Labs, which was founded by Olivier Bourbonnais and Laurent Laferrière, wants to help every patient quit smoking by combining a smart nicotine vaporizer called DitchPen™, a self-care mobile app and artificial intelligence.
“We are inspired by certain mechanisms of the electronic cigarette, but it is different because we heat an aerosol. There is a liquid that contains nicotine and another that does not, and we [l’équipe de Ditch Labs] We can modulate the patient’s dosage by adjusting these two reservoirs. Over the weeks, we will gradually reduce the dose of nicotine, until there is no more at all. The idea is to carry out a gentle weaning in patients, but by reproducing the gesture of smoking, ”explains the research director of Ditch Labs, Christelle Luce, who is also a psychologist specializing in addictions.
The latter recalls that, unlike the electronic cigarette, the DitchPen ™ is a medical treatment, and it will therefore have, for its clinical trials, to submit to international standards as well as to the rules of Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration. (FDA) American.
“What I want to emphasize is that we are extremely rigorous when it comes to research and development. It’s not a gadget, but a medical treatment that we are developing,” she says.
Not just a vaporizer
In the DitchPen™ inhaler, there is a “little computer” that allows the patient, like at Ditch Labs, to understand their habits.
“We are able to check how each person is going to use their inhaler, the length of their puffs, their inhalation strength, the time of day, for example, when they use it the most. The inhaler is linked to a mobile application, and in it there is a self-care program containing several articles on addiction, strategies for quitting smoking. There are also exercises and tips,” says Ms.me Luce, who recalls the importance of taking into account the psychological aspects of addiction.
It is also Ditch Labs which, using a questionnaire and artificial intelligence, will assign a personalized cessation curve to each patient. For example, a person who smokes 40 cigarettes a day will not have the same withdrawal curve as someone who smokes six cigarettes a day.
“It is not the patient who will be responsible for reducing their nicotine intake, the vaporizer will regulate itself. It is really us who have established specific weaning curves according to the consumption habits of the patients,” she adds.
Once the nicotine supply from the DitchPen™ is zero, patients cannot keep it for more than two weeks.
“At the end of the treatment, when there is no more nicotine, patients will not be able to continue using it indefinitely. Remotely, we will be able to deactivate the DitchPen™, so that patients do not develop another addiction. In any case, it is required by Health Canada and the FDA that the treatment has an end, otherwise the use of the DitchPen™ becomes chronic”, explains Ms.me Luce, who hopes that within three to four years healthcare professionals will be able to prescribe the DitchPen™.
Whether or not it wins the Geniuses in Business competition, the Ditch Labs team hopes to be able to do its first clinical study by the end of the year.
“We have our prototype and we are starting tests at the Center de recherche industrielle du Québec. We are going to test our aerosols there. We are extremely motivated,” concludes Mr.me Luce.