PRINCETON, N.J., June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Derma Sciences , a provider of advanced wound care products, announced today that it is launching two new formulations of its key product line, MEDIHONEY(TM) Wound & Burn Dressings, this week. The new products consist of 100 percent Active Leptospermum Honey packaged in a tube, and a patented colloidal sheet referred to as a Honeycolloid(TM). These two new formulations will greatly enhance the brand’s utilization in variety of wounds, including lightly draining wounds, wounds that are difficult to dress due to their anatomical location, and wounds on patients that are sensitive to pain at dressing changes.
CEO Ed Quilty stated, “We are very excited about these two new products hitting the market. Our customers have been requesting a MEDIHONEY version dispensed from a tube. This will help them to reach and dress difficult areas. It also provides a dressing to be used when the wound is not draining. The Honeycolloid is based on one of the patents we licensed from our global commercialization partner, Comvita New Zealand, Inc. This dressing is the most sophisticated in the line, combining ease-of-use attributes with strong clinical benefits. The Leptospermum honey is intrinsically bound within the dressing, allowing the honey to stay at the site of the wound longer even in the presence of exudate. This is a key challenge with honey based dressings used on exudating wounds. Additionally, although decreasing the pH of a wound has been proven to have significant healing benefits, quickly reducing the pH of a wound can cause slight transient stinging in a small percentage of patients. This happens with several popular wound care products including enzymatic debriding agents and honey-based dressings. With the Honeycolloid formulation, even though it is comprised of 80 percent honey, the pH modulation takes a longer amount of time, thus reducing the chance of any transient stinging. For patients with painful leg ulcers, this will be a real benefit.
“We have already come a very long way in establishing MEDIHONEY as a strong up-and-coming brand in the United States and Canada” Quilty added. This week’s Wound Ostomy and Continence Nursing annual conference held in Orlando was a huge success for Derma Sciences. Awareness of the brand is very strong among clinicians, and we should see a spike in an already impressive rate of clinical evaluations. The addition of these new formulations, especially the patented Honeycolloid dressing, adds to the brand and further distances us from any other potential competitors.”
All major distributor customers have loaded the new products into their information systems, and sales to them will begin immediately.
About Derma Sciences
Derma Sciences is a global manufacturer and marketer of advanced wound-care products. Its key product, MEDIHONEY, is sold throughout the world by Derma Sciences and Comvita New Zealand -- the licensor of the patented honey-based technology -- and is the leading brand of honey-based dressings for the management of wounds and burns. The product has been shown to be effective in a variety of wounds and burns, and was recently the focus of a large-scale randomized controlled trial on leg ulcers. Derma has two products in development: the BIOGUARD(TM) line of barrier gauze dressings, and DSC127, the company’s novel angiotensin analog for accelerated wound healing and scar reduction. The barrier technology was licensed from Quick-Med in Q1 of 2007 and is pending its initial FDA marketing clearance. DSC127 was licensed from The University of Southern California in Q4 of 2007 and is entering into a Phase II study, with anticipated initial patient enrollment to begin in Q3 of 2008. For more information about Derma Sciences, Inc., visit its home page on the Internet at http://www.dermasciences.com.
CONTACT: Edward J. Quilty, Chairman and CEO of Derma Sciences Inc,
+1-609-514-4744, equilty@dermasciences.com; or Investors, Rudy Barrio,
r.barrio@allencaron.com, or Media, Brian Kennedy, brian@allencaron.com,
both of Allen & Caron Inc, +1-212-691-8087, for Derma Sciences
Web site: http://www.dermasciences.com/
