Dance Biopharm today said it rebranded as Aerami Therapeutics and will move its headquarters to Durham, N.C.

The rebranding comes as the company seeks strategic partners for its Dance 501 inhaled human insulin. The company also hopes the rebranding will help progress into pivotal registration studies and expand to include inhaled therapeutics for endocrinology diseases.

Aerami said the rebranding will help it focus beyond diabetes to include more chronic conditions for better treatment efficiency using its smart inhaler. It plans to add new programs in hypoparathyroidism and human growth hormone deficiency to its pipeline. Each program could enter clinical development in 2020.

“We are proud to launch Aerami, which is derived from a combination of Greek and Latin words. ’Aero’ means air/wind and ’ami’ means friend/friendly. The new brand reflects our commitment to provide patients living with chronic diseases, a patient-friendly alternative to routine injections, with our gentle mist inhaler,” CEO Anne Whitaker said in a news release. “Our initial focus going forward is on rare and severe diseases in the endocrinology, respiratory and cardiovascular space. We have launched new pipeline programs in hypoparathyroidism and human growth hormone deficiency, which could benefit from the frequent pulsatile administration of inhaled parathyroid hormone and HGH, respectively, afforded by our smart inhaler. In addition, we are targeting advancing our inhalable pre-meal GLP-1 receptor agonist into the clinic in 2020, subject to additional funding, for treatment of Type 2 diabetes patients who are not meeting their HbA1c goals with their current oral anti-diabetic treatments.”