NIH Awards Imbed Biosciences $800K SBIR Grant to Kill Bacteria in Biofilms

MADISON, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Imbed Biosciences, Inc. (Imbed) announced today that it has been awarded $800,000 in a Commercialization Readiness Pilot (CRP) grant by the National Institute for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) to support late-stage development of a next-generation wound dressing that can kill bacteria hidden inside the biofilms in wounds and accelerate wound healing. The competitive award comes on the heels of the successful completion of animal studies by the company under prior Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Biofilms are colonies of bacteria on a surface that are insensitive to systemic antibiotics and topical antimicrobials. Chronic wounds, burns, surgical wounds, and all surgical implants are prone to development of mature biofilms that can delay healing by several months and lead to septic shock or amputations.

“This new grant will support late-stage development of an advanced version of our FDA-cleared Microlyte® Matrix product, which will contain a unique combination of silver and gallium metal ions,” said Ankit Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of the company and Principal Investigator on the grant. “The microscale architecture of Microlyte® Matrix, which intimately conforms to a wound surface, will facilitate the synergistic action of the two metal ions to penetrate biofilms and kill multispecies bacteria hidden inside.”

“This novel antibiofilm dressing could significantly improve healing in high-risk surgeries and reduce the use of antibiotics and painful surgical debridement, saving billions of dollars in healthcare costs,” said Dr. Michael Schurr, MD, a critical care surgeon at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC and a co-investigator on the grant.

Other investigators on the grant include Dr. Gaurav Pranami and Dr. Jeff Dalsin at Imbed, and Prof. Jonathan McAnulty of Surgical Sciences and Prof. Charles Czuprynski of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

About Imbed Biosciences, Inc.

Imbed is a privately held biotech company registered with FDA as a medical device manufacturer with an ISO 13485 certified quality management system. The company has a portfolio of products in the market and in development based on its patented Microlyte Matrix technology to combat local pain and infections in complex wounds. The research is funded in part by NIH grant #SB1AR079347. For more information, please visit www.imbedbio.com.