The FDA has approved Covalon Technologies‘ ColActiveAg, an antimicrobial silver / collagen wound dressing:
The Silver Collagen Antimicrobial Gel Sheet is a hydrated denatured porcine collagen produced by polymerization. It maintains a moist environment at the wound surface that aids in granulation tissue formation, epithelialization, and enables healing to occur at a rapid rate. The sustained release of ionic silver into the wound creates an effective barrier to fungal penetration and is effective as a method to reduce infection of partial and full thickness wounds.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned while covering the medical technology beat, it’s that wound dressing ‘breakthroughs’ are a dime a dozen. But this company may be more than a one-hit wonder; they’re developing their antimicrobial coating for widespread use on medical devices:
Covalon offers a dip-coating process using ultraviolet light to induce the ‘growth’ of polymers on medical device surfaces. The low-energy, surface modification process can be applied to a variety of polymers including, but not limited to, silicone, polyurethane, polyvinyl chlorides and others. When activated by ultraviolet light our initiator reagents yield highly reactive intermediate molecules that remove a hydrogen atom from the polymer surface… The high reactivity of the initiator intermediates make covalent coating attachment adaptable to many polymer medical devices… Therapeutics are introduced in a dip-coating process, post-polymer matrix formation.
The potential is there for foley catheters, prostheses, and more to have built-in antibiotic or drug-delivery coatings. Neat.
More at Covalon…