Nose out profits from beating bugs
ONDINE is another pioneering medical devices firm, whose technology could save thousands of lives. Every year, more than half a million people in the UK develop hospital acquired infections, such as MRSA.
They stay in hospital for longer, have to be operated on more than once and in the worst cases, do not survive. The numbers are even greater in America, where approaching two million patients a year are infected, with almost 100,000 dying as a result.
Hospitals have been trying for years to combat the problem, which has become worse as resistance to antibiotics has become far more widespread. Ondine Biomedica has developed a way to knock these infections on the head, using a process known as photodisinfection that is simple, wellpriced and extremely effective.
Ondine shares are just 25p but should increase materially in value as awareness of its technology increases and regulatory hurdles are overcome.
The company is based in Vancouver, Canada, but the idea behind photo-disinfection was conceived by a UK professor of microbiology, Michael Wilson, working at University College London in the 1990s. Wilson was looking at gum disease but Ondine has since developed the technology with a focus on MRSA and similar infections.
One of the big mysteries around these diseases is why they are so prevalent in hospitals, particularly among patients who have undergone major surgery. Doctors and nurses wash their hands and wear masks, and operating theatres are kept clean, yet patients fall ill.
Research indicates that the humble nose could play a key role. Dark, warm, moist and relatively undisturbed, the nose is a veritable breeding ground for bugs.
Healthy people can handle them but vulnerable patients are less robust and when they breathe in bad bugs, they succumb.
Ondine has a solution – a liquidsoaked swab that is brushed around the tip of the nostrils. This is followed by a slim device being inserted into the nose for just two minutes. It is tiny enough to cause minimal discomfort but powerful enough to kill viruses, bacteria and fungi with one blow.
Vancouver General Hospital has been using Ondine’s treatment, known as Steriwave, for ten years on patients undergoing major surgery. And recent research showed that infection rates halved among those who used it, while mortality rates were slashed by almost 60 per cent. Steriwave even works on Covid-19, taking rates down to virtually nil at a large food processing plant in Canada last year. It is also in use at Guy’s Hospital in London and interest is growing rapidly among NHS Trusts.
But Ondine chief executive Carolyn Cross believes that the company’s greatest opportunity for growth lies in the US, the world’s biggest healthcare market. Cross is applying to the US health watchdog, the FDA, for regulatory approval but she is already working closely with America’s largest hospital group, HCA Healthcare.
HCA is helping Ondine with the clinical trials needed to push Steriwave over the regulatory finish line and is keen to use it on every patient undergoing major surgery across its 189 hospitals.