Profile / Life Sciences
David Weber
The biotech operator betting that sleep apnea is a reflex problem, not a plumbing problem.
David Weber, PhD - President & CEO, Mosanna Therapeutics
The biotech operator betting that sleep apnea is a reflex problem, not a plumbing problem.
David Weber spends his days on a deceptively simple idea: no one has sleep apnea while they are awake, because the body keeps the airway open on its own. The whole point of Mosanna Therapeutics is to keep that reflex working after the lights go out.
Weber is the President and CEO of Mosanna Therapeutics, a Redwood City, California biotech company that came out of stealth in June 2025 with an $80 million Series A. The company is developing MOS118, a nasal spray taken at bedtime that aims to restore the body's natural airway control during sleep. It is a pharmaceutical answer to a condition that has, for decades, been treated mainly with machines, masks, and mouthpieces.
That framing is the heart of Weber's pitch. Obstructive sleep apnea has long been treated as a mechanical failure - the airway collapses, so you prop it open with pressurized air. Mosanna approaches it differently, as a problem of nerve signaling and muscle tone. During waking hours, pressure-sensing nerves in the upper airway keep the dilating muscles active. During sleep, that reflex weakens in people with OSA, and the airway gives way. MOS118 is designed to keep those muscles engaged when they would otherwise go slack.
Weber came to the company with more than 30 years across drug development, capital formation, and corporate strategy - a career that has quietly circled the same theme. He has spent much of it on locally delivered therapeutics, medicines aimed at one specific place in the body rather than the whole system. The ear. The eye. Now the airway. Mosanna is, in that sense, a natural fourth act rather than a departure.
No one has sleep apnea while awake, because our bodies instinctively keep the airway open. Mosanna simply helps to restore this natural reflex during sleep.
Instead of forcing the airway open from the outside, Mosanna's approach tries to reactivate the body's own control system. Weber describes it as a non-invasive, non-mechanical solution built to fit into daily life - a spray before bed rather than a device worn all night.
Pressure-sensing nerves keep the upper-airway muscles toned, so the airway stays open without conscious effort.
In OSA, that muscle-activating signal weakens during sleep. The airway narrows and can collapse, interrupting breathing.
The bedtime nasal spray is designed to keep those airway muscles engaged through the night, targeting the cause rather than the symptom.
The $80 million round is earmarked to push MOS118 from Phase 1 into Phase 2 clinical trials, the stage where the science meets larger groups of real patients. It is backed by a deep syndicate of life-sciences investors, a signal that seasoned funders are willing to test whether the reflex thesis holds up.
Weber's career did not start in a boardroom. He began in 1990 as a senior scientist in healthcare product development at Procter & Gamble, working within its Oral-B Laboratories. The scientist's instinct never really left; he holds a PhD in medical microbiology from Creighton University School of Medicine, along with bachelor's and master's degrees in biological sciences from Wichita State University.
Over the following decades he moved into leadership at a string of drug-delivery companies. At Oculex Pharmaceuticals he served as acting CEO during work tied to an ophthalmic implant later known as OZURDEX. At MacuSight he was President and CEO, advancing a sustained-delivery formulation of sirolimus for serious eye disease and securing a strategic licensing deal in Asia. Then came Otonomy, where he led the company through a public offering and the advancement of multiple clinical-stage programs, including the FDA-approved OTIPRIO.
The pattern is consistent enough to be a philosophy. Weber gravitates toward therapies that put the medicine exactly where it is needed - and toward diseases where the standard of care leaves patients frustrated. Sleep apnea, where many people abandon their CPAP machines within months, fits that description almost perfectly. If the therapy people are supposed to use is one they quietly stop using, the real innovation is a treatment they will actually keep.