Therapeutic Bandage Products was created by Dr. Silbart early last year, who is an Allied Health professor at UConn. Colleen Ross and Jenna Marteka are undergraduates at UConn, who both came onto the project earlier this year. Jenna studies Molecular and Cellular Biology and has taken lead on the host/pathogen interaction studies while Colleen is a Biomedical Engineering student and studies the composition of the micro-needle technology which is utilized in our product.
The business was created in response to a need for a better treatment for MRSA patients, and was inspired by an article Dr. Silbart read explaining the pains of patients and the frustration of wound care specialists in treating them. Current treatment includes high doses of antibiotics intravenously or orally, which is promoting antibiotic resistance which is a growing problem for the hospital community and beyond. Our device caters to advanced wound care by administering therapeutics through micro-needles to treat wounds including chronic non-healing wounds and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The product itself is a small patch which has biodegradable micro-needles which are loaded with therapeutics.This means of treating skin disorders is much more targeted and efficient in delivering the drug load. The technology of the product are still being tested as we are in the very early stages of pre clinical data, but the research we have thus far is very exciting and promising. At the core of the company, we are focused on helping patients, delivering a more efficient and effective method of controlling these conditions, and over all improving the quality of life for patients who were diagnosed with MRSA. Our next step is testing the prototype on porcine explanted skin in order to demonstrate the payload capabilities of the micro-needles.
Through participation in CCEI this summer our team hopes to better understand the path to market and prepare for product launching in the coming years. While the product will likely not be on the market for several years, the information we learned here will be crucial in being successful.