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The company also announced that it has closed £350,000 ($570,000) of seed funding from a consortium of business angels. The funding will be used to optimise the company's product for licensing and clinical use.
CamStent's first surface coating product, which was developed at the University of Sheffield Department of Chemistry by Professor Nick Williams, Professor Charles Sterling and Dr Ian Barlow, has been engineered to protect medical catheters from colonization by urinary tract microorganisms. The results of the recent study, carried out at the University of Brighton School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences by Dr Ian Cooper and Dr Anna Gilford, have demonstrated the product's ability to reduce the number of live organisms adhering to exposed surfaces by 90 percent. Such a reduction is sufficient to interrupt the process underlying urinary tract infections, which account for up to 40 percent of all hospital-acquired infections.
Catheter-Acquired urinary tract infections affect about half of all hospitalised adults who have urinary catheters in place for longer than a week, leading to extended hospital stays and significant additional medical expenses. Over 100m catheters are used by hospitals worldwide each year, but current antimicrobial products fail to decrease infection rates in long-term use, creating a ready market to improve outcomes and decrease costs.
The funding round was over-subscribed and attracted a broad base of investors including London Business Angels, The Yorkshire Association of Business Angels, and the Cambridge investment community. Paul White and Richard Milne have been appointed to CamStent’s Board as non-executive directors to support the company’s growth through the next phase of development.
CamStent is focused on building revenues through the development and licensing of its proprietary coatings platform. The first application of its proprietary technology will be to coat urinary catheters for the prevention of urinary tract infections. |
