IN THE NEWS

Memphis-based Molecular Design International has secured U.S. distribution rights to
Bionext's wound protection product, a biocellulose device that creates a physical barrier and 
helps prevent infection to wounds.

BioNext is a Brazil-based company that manufactures the product and has sold it in five other countries, including China and Italy. The product is gas permeable and impermeable to bacteria. Also, it only needs to be applied once, where other wound care products must be applied multiple times over the duration of the wound, says Bill Purcell, MDI’s founder and chairman. Once the wound is healed, the film can simply be washed away.

BioNext’s biocellulose device can work on stage one and two wounds, which typically include bedsores, diabetic ulcers and first- and second-degree burns. The healing process for burns has been clinically proven to happen in a week with the product. Its limits would be battlefield wounds, which are considered stage three wounds.

Despite that, BioNext’s usefulness in the healing of bedsores is one reason Purcell is exploring the possibility of offering it to the VA Medical Center at Memphis. MDI is working with Huntsville, Tenn.-based S&L Products and Services, a disabled veteran-owned medical equipment and supply distributor.

A Memphis scientist thinks he's fixed the problem, and the feds like it so much that they're giving him $1 million to further the idea.  A dutch company is so impressed that it has already asked to help commercialize it when the time comes.

"Aging makes the skin extremely thin," says chemist Bill Purcell, a retired UT professor and founder of Molecular Design International.  "All retinoids are irritating.  You don't want to take an elderly person and slap something on them that turns them red and makes their skin peel."

His compound stimulates collagen production and thickens the skin.  It may also have applications in wound healing.  Phase I results were so promising that the National Institutes of Health awarded the grant under its Small Business Innovation Research Program, which began in 1982 to encourage small business biotech. 

Topical retinoids have demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of photo-aging; their use is often limited by their potential to induce irritation," says Alan Moshell, director of the NIH Skin Disease Program.  "A non-irritation topical retinoid would be of value in the treatment of aging skin and potentially other conditions such as acne."

In creating his drug, Purcell started with a retinoid used to treat Kaposi's sarcoma, a form of skin cancer often appearing in AIDS patients.

"It looked like an exotic molecule, so I said let's use some baling wire and see if we could fix the fence," Purcell says. 

He's worked with immunologist James Varani in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan to build the molecule and study it.  Much of the grant money will fund two more years of animal studies in Varani's lab.  Another collaborator is California's Stanford Research Institute, where the drug's toxicology profile will be developed. 

Both aspects are needed before Purcell can approach the FDA with an Investigational New Drug application, which allows Phase III human trials.

Both Varani and Stanford have contractual arrangements, but no stake in the drug.  Purcell over the years has seen many enthusiastic scientists gradually cede control of their ideas, a few percentage points at a time, in the quest for funding. 

Only his name and his company's name appear on the patent, and he likes it that way.  Whatever drug company might eventually distribute the compound, Purcell says he will maintain ownership - except for one long string that will always be attached.

"When the federal government funds your research they retain royalty-free rights," he says.  "So if they want to make an ointment out of this and give it to the troops, it's theirs to do so."