Development of self-administered diabetic wound healing therapy
Innovate UK
Kromix Therapeutics Ltd
This project involves the development of a remarkable innovation which offers a potentially transformative treatment for life-threatening skin ulcers, by instructing the body to re-engineer its own blood vessel networks to promote healing.    Why do skin ulcers arise? The skin normally forms a robust and essential barrier to protect us from a myriad of harms in the environment. An ulcer forms when the skin barrier is breached and does not heal. The body's blood vessel networks are vital to successful skin healing: by conveying oxygen and nutrients via the bloodstream to the site of the ulcer or wound. The quality of those networks is therefore crucial to the success of healing.    Patients with diabetes are at risk of developing a serious, potentially life- threatening type of skin ulcer -- diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) - that often results in intensive, hospital-based treatment or even limb amputation in the most severe cases (11,000 amputations per year at a cost to the NHS of nearly £1 billion). Their skin healing mechanisms are impaired through damage to blood vessels as well as to nerves that makes them more susceptible to injury.    A healthy blood vessel supply to damaged skin is essential to healing. The body, in its enthusiasm to stimulate blood vessel growth as part of the healing response, may encourage too many small, ineffective blood vessel byways to be formed, without enough of the main highways that are considerably more effective at delivering the essential oxygen and nutrients for healing.    This innovation centres on a new approach to wound healing with the use of a technology that has been shown to stimulate the regrowth of skin over an ulcer, by re-engineering the blood vessel networks so the main highways are favoured over the plentiful, but too often ineffective, byways. This new treatment intelligently re-engineers blood vessels to encourage healing.    The technology is exciting in that it could be ready for clinical trials in DFU patients within 1 -2 years. The treatment would be easily applied as a cream to the skin by the patients themselves, keeping them out of hospital and avoiding serious life- threatening complications. If it is successful in DFU it may have wider application to other serious wounds, potentially offering enormous health benefits and savings to the health budget.
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