Mandar’s wife, Priti used to have a lot of neck pain in the evening.  So Mandar used to apply Bengay on Priti’s neck.  While Bengay helped her to some extent, her skin was getting very irritated with Bengay.  So, he used to mix up Bengay with moisturizing lotion, a bit of water and about 0.5% of preservative to prevent microbial growth.  This routine was working well for quite some time. One day while Mandar was mixing the concoction, he accidentally added too much preservative.  He did not think much about it, mixed it up and applied it on her neck that evening.  
 

After a few minutes of application, Priti jumped out of the chair and asked Mandar, what was new concoction he was applying on her?  He told her that there was nothing new.  She did not agree.  She kept saying that there is something different about today’s concoction, as her neck muscles relaxed completely.  Then Mandar told her that he accidentally added too much preservative.  She told him that it is the preservative that is relaxing her muscles at higher concentration.  Then Mandar made the concoction accurately at different concentrations of this preservative and identified that 5% concentration is ideal for muscle relaxant activity.  Normally this preservative is used at 0.5% concentration.  Now they call this preservative, PI-111 for muscle relaxant activity.

After this discovery, Priti being an Occupational Therapist, tried it on a few of her patients with informed consent and got excellent results.  So, they filed a patent for topical use of this new muscle relaxant.  It should be noted that when Mandar filed for the patent, he was in between the jobs, because J&J had shut down the Morris Plains, NJ facility, where he used to work. Shortly after filing the patent application, Mandar got a job as VP of R&D in another company and could not pay much attention to this. The patent was granted, however not much activity was there, till he left the job in 2023 to develop this product further.  Since leaving his job, they have established proof of principle based on animal studies and filed two additional patents regarding combination products. Further, they have determined its mechanism of action, which is blocking voltage gated sodium channels Na V 1.4 and 1.9. Na V 1.4 is responsible for skeletal muscle relaxation and Na V 1.9 is responsible for pain sensation. PI-111 is the only compound in the world that can relax the muscles and also stop the pain sensation (analgesic effect). Hence, in June 2026, they have filed an additional patent regarding this, extending the patent life of the product. With the latest patent addition, the total number of granted patents and filed applications comes to 4, boosting its IP strength.