TauTona’s Pullulan-Collagen Hydrogel Wound Dressing Promotes Dermal Remodelling
Great news from the wound healing world!
Our manuscript, “Pullulan-Collagen Hydrogel Wound Dressing Promotes Dermal Remodeling and Wound Healing Compared to Commercially Available Collagen Dressings,” has been published recently in Wound Repair and Regeneration (Volume 30, Issue 3, May/June 2022).
In this study, our data indicated that the material properties of hydrogel dressings can significantly influence healing time, cellular response, and the resulting architecture of healed scars. Specifically, our pullulan-collagen hydrogel dressing accelerated wound closure and promoted healed tissue with less dense, more randomly aligned, and shorter collagen fibers.
Given the challenges in wound healing, we’re especially proud of the progress of the TauTona Wound Dressing (TWD) as we prepare for commercialization. Currently, TWD is in the final phase of the FDA review to get clearance.
Saving lives
There are limited interventions in wound care, especially in the chronic wounds space. Emerging technologies, such as small molecule drugs, biologics, and cell therapies have the potential to improve wound healing but lack efficient delivery systems. TWD is an advanced wound care device that can be used either as a wound dressing or as a scaffold for therapeutics and drug delivery. This is supported by 10 years of research on this product at Stanford University’s Labs and with significant biocompatibility testing conducted per FDA requirements. The combination of TWD delivery mechanisms with effective therapeutic approaches could offer impactful opportunities for wound care and regenerative medicine in general.
Innovations
TWD is the first advanced wound care device based on a pullulan crosslinked matrix. Pullulan has gained a lot of interest over the past few decades due to its excellent physicochemical properties and high biocompatibility. The unique properties of pullulan make it a potent candidate for biomedical applications, such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, molecular chaperon, blood plasma substitute/expander, and wound healing. Due to these distinctive properties and potential applications, its demand continues to rise. The worldwide market of pullulan is expected to grow and reach 130 million US$ in 2024.
How TWD stacks up against leading marketed collagen wound dressings:
TWD offers many performance and usability advantages over traditional collagen wound dressings:
- After hydration TWD transforms into a cohesive hydrogel that maintains a three-dimensional architecture and mimics healthy, unwounded skin
- Locks in exudate and prevents leaks and maceration
- The relative ease of use (easier application and removal process in a clinical setting)
- Swells more after hydration, delivering moisture to facilitate wound healing (See “Why Moisture is Critical in Wound Healing”)
TWD is cost-effective:
Pullulan is produced by the fungus Aureobasidium pullulans via a fermentation process with further isolation and purification through downstream processing. The overall process is fast, easy, and scalable making pullulan production costs more attractive when compared to collagen manufacturing costs, which include tissue harvesting and processing, multiple steps of extraction, and purification. TWD is composed of 95% pullulan and 5% collagen, making this device far more cost-effective than other collagen-based devices, which usually contain more than 50% collagen. In short, TWD offers the benefits of collagen at a polysaccharide price.
Additionally, pullulan can be produced by bioconversion of the agri-food waste, offering an important advantage of environmental pollution reduction by developing new sustainable ways of production.
Summary
At TauTona Group, we set out to develop new solutions in regenerative medicine that address unmet clinical needs in healthcare. With TWD, we foresee significant improvement in the treatment of chronic wounds and look forward to our next steps.
To learn more, visit www.tautonagroup.com.
