#WAAW: Mini-interview Colzyx

This alliance was initiated by Pfizer, Novo Nordisk and Pharma Denmark, and is now gathering a mix of actors. But all over the Nordics, the innovative power is gearing up to put new products, therapies and preventive measures on the market that all help tackle AMR from various angles. Who are the people behind these innovations and why are they committed to work ungodly hours to fight what has been referred to as a ‘silent pandemic’? In a series of mini-interviews, Helena Strigård highlights different Nordic companies sharing what part of the solution they bring to the table and how their impact can be leveraged globally. Today it is Swedish Colzyx’s turn.

Jens Hansson, Acting CFO and BD, Chairman of the Board, Colzyx, how could your company help tackle AMR?  

Colzyx has established a patented technology around collagen VI and from that developed a wound dressing, Woundcom, for rapid wound healing of hard-to-heal wounds (a.k.a. chronic wounds). These types of wounds, e.g. venous leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers, are almost always colonized by bacteria and are typically treated with therapies using long courses of antibiotics. Unfortunately, the antibiotics treatment is poorly effective, leading to healing-times of months and years most often. With the number of chronic wound patients measured in tens of millions globally, this of course poses a major risk of causing AMR to occur.

Experiments in vivo (porcine) using our product Woundcom confirms that the combination of collagen I and VI accelerates the wound healing of infected wounds dramatically (up to 4 times faster) without the use of antibiotics. Further, in vitro assays on Colzyx’s technology have showed strong antimicrobial effect on all bacterial strains it has been exposed to, also on multi-resistant ones. The wound dressing is formulated using only elements of collagen I and collagen VI, i.e. naturally occurring substances in the human body that have evolved in e.g. mammals over millions of years. The risk of developing antimicrobial resistance towards our technology is therefore low.

What obstacles are you facing that prevent your solution to gain a greater impact? 

Colzyx has just launched its wound dressing for rapid wound healing into the veterinarian wound care market for companion animals in the USA and to be followed by the EU. The feedback from the vet clinics have been overwhelmingly positive – both regarding the clinical effect and the way our wound dressing lessens the need for antibiotics, which is a major issue with veterinarians globally. We will now build up a sales and marketing organization to expand our traction in the animal care market and gain greater impact on the AMR scene.

However, to get market access to human care markets we need to get Woundcom FDA-cleared and CE-marked. We are currently in the process of securing additional funding to facilitate the submission of an application to the FDA as a first step towards market access. We will also be needing commercial partners to bring the wound dressings to the patients.

You are one of the many entrepreneurs committing your time and energy to break through with your products, can you share your WHY? 

The early results of Colzyx’s collagen VI based technology hold the promise to bring real impactful benefits to patients through improved quality of life and to society through lowered treatment costs. Our everyday passion is to make sure that Colzyx’s products finally reaches its patients to realize that impact – to humans and animals alike.