A Madison-based biotech company is looking to bring a wound-healing product to a larger market after closing a $2 million funding round.
Imbed Biosciences’ MicroLyte Ag Antimicrobial Matrix has been cleared by the FDA for treatment of injuries including burns and ulcers, as well as surgical wounds and skin grafts. According to Ankit Agarwal, the company’s co-founder and CEO, thousands of patients have been treated with the product.
“With this new funding, we will be building up our product distribution channels to expand our reach throughout the United States,” he said.
He says the product is available through three health systems’ formularies, which are lists of pre-approved medications that doctors give their patients. And it’s reimbursed by Medicare Part B.
It’s currently only offered at hospitals in North Carolina, the Chicago area and Wisconsin, but Agarwal says the latest funding will support efforts to reach hundreds of others. He says the company will hire a new sales force, to go “deep and wide” into major hospital systems.
The Series A investment round was organized by a Cincinnati-based investment advisor called Formidable Asset Management. William Brown, owner and CEO of Formidable, says Imbed’s MicroLyte product could “transform the standard of care for hundreds of millions of patients with complex wounds.”
Including this latest round, Imbed has raised about $4.3 million since 2014 in angel and venture capital. Besides that, the company has also secured about $2.5 million in federal grants from the National Institutes of Health, supporting product development and research.
Agarwal says Imbed will pursue more funding through a Series B round after getting the MicroLyte product into more hospitals.
Made of a thin synthetic polymer, the product can be laid over the site of a chronic wound to speed recovery and also protect from bacteria and other pathogens that can complicate the healing process. The “bioresorbable” matrix never needs to be removed, as it’s absorbed by the body over time.
The matrix is only 20 microns thick. By comparison, a human blood cell is about 5 microns across.
The product is coated with a patented silver nanotechnology, which kills all surface bacteria that come in contact and also prevents other pathogens from arising in deeper tissues. The “Ag” in the product’s name comes from the symbol for silver.
Co-founder Dr. Michael Schurr is chair of general surgery at Mountain Area Health Education Center and a trauma surgeon at Mission Health Hospital in North Carolina. In practice, he says the matrix “has provided a strong foundation for tissue regeneration in many complex contaminated wounds that did not respond to months of standard-of-care.”
Imbed Biosciences has been developing antimicrobial coatings for wound dressings and medical devices since it was founded in 2010. Agarwal developed the technologies underpinning the product during his postdoctoral research at UW-Madison.
The company also offers a product for wound recovery in pets, called MicroLyte Ag Vet.
See more on the MicroLyte system: http://microlyteag.com/
See an earlier story on Imbed: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=309624
–By Alex Moe
WisBusiness.com
