Biomedical startup targets post-op care
Jeff Millin, a seasoned entrepreneur, knew a good thing when he saw it three years ago.
The good thing? An infection-fighting bandage that would soon become the basis for the company FM Wound Care, a spinoff from Michigan Technological University.
Founded by Megan Frost, an associate professor in biomedical engineering, the company has created nitric-oxide-infused bandages and wound dressings designed to greatly reduce the risk of infection, especially in patients post-surgery.
Millin and Frost came together after the sale of Pioneer Surgical Technology, a Marquette, Mich.-based maker of metal and synthetic implants, where Millin was CEO. Following the deal, Millin was asked in 2014 to evaluate a range of emerging technologies at Michigan Tech to see which had market potential.
“A couple of ideas really stood out,” he said. “Megan’s could not only get to market quickly, but it could be game-changing.”
She got the idea for the company after suffering a serious infection following oral surgery in 2011. Treatment for the infection required her to use a peripherally inserted central catheter, which also is known for sometimes hosting serious infections.
Frost was cleaning the site daily and changing the bandage and thinking about how unsanitary, dangerous and in need of improvement the process was. Her solution? Figure out a way to infuse polymers with nitric oxide, a free-radical gas that has antimicrobial properties and is benign in the human body. Strips of the infused polymers would serve as bandages and wound dressings.
“It’s analogous to the way bleach kills bacteria, but much gentler,” she said.
The idea could have broad appeal, according to Millin. “Hospitals are infection factories. Patients are always getting infections post-surgery,” he said.
“But you put this dressing on and you’re going to be free from infection for seven days,” Millin said. “This will change the way post-operative healthcare will be done.”
Millin served as an adviser to Frost for six months, then co-founded the company with her, taking the role of FM Wound Care’s CEO. Frost is chief technology officer.
Frost and Millin reached a licensing agreement with the school, put in seed funding and raised a follow-on angel round of investment that Millin said will fund the company for a year and a half. The technology has also been awarded National Science Foundation grants.
“If things go as planned, at some point we’ll need a significant amount of funding,” Millin said. He has already begun to reach out to venture capitalists to tell them about the technology and let them know he may come calling.
“Jeff is a tireless and driven executive with experience leading high-growth companies. He scaled Pioneer from an emerging startup to a diversified, multinational medical-device company,” said Michael Gross, a managing director of Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Beringea, one of the venture-capital firms that invested in Pioneer.
FM Wound Care, which has one patent pending, is a member of the Houghton/ Hancock Smart-Zone incubator, with its lab in Hancock, Mich.
Frost said it is still unclear what steps will be required for approval by the Food and Drug Administration. “Because we’re using materials that are already well-understood, we may not have to have human trials,” she said.
The Smart-Zone has hired what are called bio-navigators to help FM Wound Care and other companies through the FDA approval process.
“Best case, we could be on the market next summer,” she said. ●