GARGRAVE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WOUNDCHEK™ Laboratories announced today that it has successfully completed the spin out of the diagnostics business from Systagenix and has signed a non-exclusive global distribution agreement with Kinetic Concepts, Inc. (KCI), the acquirers of the Systagenix advanced wound care business.
The newly formed WOUNDCHEK™ Laboratories business, owned by One Equity Partners LLC (OEP), is based principally in the United Kingdom and will continue to focus 100% on the development of novel wound diagnostics products to help improve therapeutic outcomes in wound care.
Jack Wilkens, CEO of WOUNDCHEK™ Laboratories, added: “Our vision is to provide clinicians with better, accurate, timely, actionable, and easy to access information, leading to improved therapeutic outcomes through point of care wound diagnostics. With the cost of ineffective wound care treatment estimated at $20-25 billion1 annually, wound diagnostics is expected to help deliver a significant reduction of the cost to healthcare systems associated with poor targeting of treatment, delayed healing, and avoidable complications.”
Current development efforts are centred on three critical questions, identified by clinical experts as the primary pieces of diagnostic information needed to direct treatment pathways in the majority of chronic wounds: ‘Does the wound have elevated protease activity?’, ‘Is there an active infection?’, and ‘Is there adequate tissue oxygenation?’.
WOUNDCHEK™ Protease Status, the world’s first point of care test to detect elevated protease activity (EPA) in chronic wounds, was launched in 2012 in Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa. The distribution agreement with KCI can allow customers continued access to this ground-breaking new wound diagnostic test that is already helping clinicians target appropriate therapies on the right wounds at the right time.
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1. Data based on savings calculated with the WOUNDCHEK economic model, UK version, with AQP VLU data inputs. – Nherera L. et al. Quantifying the economic value of diagnostics in wound care in the UK. Poster, EWMA 2013.
Disclaimer
WOUNDCHEK™ Protease Status is not currently cleared by FDA for sale within the US market.