New product for advanced treatment of chronic wounds

Insense Ltd, a UK biotechnology company, announced successful clinical trial results for "Oxyzyme", a new product for advanced treatment of chronic wounds.

Chronic wounds typically arise from circulatory problems in the elderly, pressure sores from immobilized patients and complications of diabetes. Many of these wounds do not heal for months or years, if ever. They present a growing and costly problem for healthcare providers.

The Oxyzyme system provides unique capabilities in preparation of the wound bed for healing. The system, contained within a hydrogel dressing, cleans the wound, produces oxygen, which has been shown to play a vital role in healing, and releases small amounts of iodine to kill bacteria and other microbes. Oxyzyme works like no other woundcare treatment, by active production and release of multiple factors which are known to be important to wound healing.

The clinical trials were conducted under the supervision of one of the leading international woundcare experts, Prof. R. Gary Sibbald, head of the Toronto Wound Healing Centres. The trials showed improvement and healing of a surprisingly large number of wounds in just four weeks. Some wounds had been present for over a year. Generally, new products in such trials would be considered successful if a third of the wounds treated improved. In the case of Oxyzyme two thirds of the wounds treated in the Toronto trials improved.

According to Dr. Sibbald, "The Oxyzyme platform is a fundamentally new approach to moist wound healing that shows exciting promise in difficult to heal chronic wounds."

A variant of Oxyzyme, with increased antimicrobial potency, is due to enter clinical trials later in the year. Laboratory tests have demonstrated the potential effectiveness of these products against several strains of wound bacteria, including MRSA.

Results from rigorous, independent testing of the antimicrobial action of these dressings were recently presented at the prestigious Symposium on Advanced Wound Care in San Diego, California (April 21-24, 2005).

http://www.insense.co.uk/