Head lice affects 50 million people worldwide every year, with up to 12 million children infested annually in the US alone. In addition to the direct discomfort, children and parents suffer embarrassment and lost work time due to the Zero Tolerance policy adopted by most US schools.

Current treatments for lice infestation consist of creams based on pesticides or silicon, which require extensive preparation and create a high level of discomfort. In addition, the current solutions have a low efficacy in killing lice eggs (“nits”), so a second treatment is required after 8-10 days. Nevertheless, the TAM for lice treatments is estimated at over a billion $USD, evidence to the large extent of the problem.