Continuous Production of Organic Peroxyacid Antimicrobial Agents for Wound Care Using a Selective Plasma Oxidation Reactor

The prevalence of healthcare associated infections is a critical issue in the medical community resulting in compromised patient healthcare and billions of dollars in corrective costs Chronic non healing wounds affect approximately million people in the US each year with an estimated annual cost of $ $ billion As such new methods are needed for producing antimicrobial agents to treat microbes resistant to existing anti microbial agents in healthcare settings In this Phase I SBIR proposal Symbios Technologies plasma technology will be applied toward the production of anti infective solutions In collaboration with CHD Bioscience Symbios will develop and optimize a Selective Plasma Oxidation Reactor SPOR for the alternate production of CHD s flagship product VERIOXTM VERIOX is a proprietary blend of peroxyacid compounds that demonstrates antimicrobial effects against a wide range of microbial contaminants and is greatly promising as a commercial anti infective healthcare product However the current VERIOX batch manufacturing process is cost safety and efficiency limited since it reacts hydrogen peroxide with high concentrations of pyruvic acid at C Due to high HOOH levels and low temperatures the production of VERIOX is currently cost prohibitive and CHD has a difficult time identifying contract manufacturing organizations To overcome such issues the Symbios SPOR represents a critical advancement to allow for production of commercially relevant volumes of VERIOX in a safe continuous and low cost fashion Use of the SPOR does not require external addition of HOOH due to plasma production of oxidant species additionally the SPOR can be employed in a continuous flow configuration to prevent the safety concerns associated with batch production Preliminary evidence suggests that the Symbios platform is able to convert pyruvic acid to peroxyacid despite the presence of iron containing surfaces that compromise peroxyacid stability Thus this Phase I proposal will include a upgrading the reactor to eliminate iron surfaces followed by b optimization of the system for peroxyacid production and analysis of the SPOR produced solutions compared to VERIOX c preliminary disinfection efficacy studies and d economic modeling to inform commercial scaling of the SPOR Overall use of the Symbios SPOR platform as an alternate manufacturing platform will enable mass production of VERIOX in a safer and more cost effective manner which will enable the commercial readiness of VERIOX in the healthcare space Phase I work will set up nicely for Phase II where a more in depth compositional analysis will be performed along with additional efficacy studies employing animal wound healing models Because there is a great unmet need for new anti infective products and scalable methods of manufacture Symbios Technologies Inc is working in collaboration with its partner CHD Bioscience Inc to develop a Selective Plasma Oxidation Reactor SPOR that can replace the current manufacturing platform for CHD s antimicrobial and wound healing product VERIOX The current VERIOX production method is severely limited by cost and safety issues where the Symbios SPOR technology will enable production of commercially relevant volumes of VERIOX in a safe continuous and low cost fashion as supported by preliminary evidence The VERIOX product a proprietary blend of peroxyacid compounds shows great efficacy against a wide range of microbial contaminants and is greatly promising as an anti infective healthcare product thus the ability to enable commercial readiness of VERIOX will represent a marked improvement in the healthcare space