Amferia has recently signed an exclusive Animal Health Private Label License and Purchase Agreement with Orkla Wound Care covering the Nordic region, Germany, Spain and Portugal for a period of 3 years with a possibility for extension.

Anand Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia — “Orkla Wound Care’s market leadership in wound care will spearhead Amferia’s vision of addressing antibiotic resistant wound infections in animal health. We are inspired by this partnership, which will bring our innovation together with a leading brand to a market where there is considerable need for new solutions. Amferia’s innovation has already received strong interest and positive feedback from veterinarians from across Europe, who immediately notice the potential of our new antimicrobial material within wound and infection management.”

The joint partnership with Orkla Wound Care will enable Amferia’s technology, through Orkla leading brand Snögg Animal Care, to reach the wider European veterinary market where wound care and infection prevention is of prime importance. This has been intensified with the growing threat of antibiotic resistant infections. Amferia and Orkla Wound Care’s partnership will build on extensive data and feedback from Amferia’s clinical testing across Europe. The joint efforts will aim to market the products under the brand Snögg Animal Care from 2024.

Maria Lundman Hedberg, CEO of Orkla Wound Care — “We are excited about our collaboration with Amferia and bringing their innovative products to market under the brand Snögg Animal Care.  Amferia's pioneering antimicrobial wound dressing aligns seamlessly with our dedication to providing cutting-edge solutions to veterinarians through our Snögg Animal Care range. This collaboration strengthens our position as a leader in wound care, both for humans and animals.

About Amferia                                                                                                                        

Amferia's antimicrobial amphiphilic hydrogel kills bacteria, even resistant bacteria without harming the body. The material was developed through several years of research in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology and the first product from this technology platform is a wound-care dressing for dry-to-low exuding wounds. Amferia's innovative, anti-microbial solution can be used on wide-ranging wounds from simple skin injuries, post-operative wounds to chronic wounds and trauma / burn wounds. The WHO predicts that antibiotic-resistant infections, including those from wounds could become one of the leading causes of both illness and death over the next ten years. The material is being investigated for continuous development in several other areas, including sprays for deep wounds, and coatings for implants and a variety of catheters. Read more about the products, team, technology and publications at www.amferia.com

About Orkla Wound Care

Orkla Wound Care has a long tradition of developing, manufacturing and distributing market leading products within wound care and first aid. Orkla Wound Care is a part of the Orkla group, a public listed company on the Norwegian Stock Exchange, known for its active portfolio management targeting fast-growing consumer segments and markets.

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For more information, please contact:                                                                                    

Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO, Amferia AB, anandk@amferia.com, +46 762 981 238.                    

Maria Lundman Hedberg, CEO, Orkla Wound Care AB, maria.lundman-hedberg@orkla.se, +46 706 398 661

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Amferia AB is happy to announce the appointment of Ingvar Karlsson as the Chief Financial Officer. Ingvar has extensive background in  financial management within a broad area including the life-science industry.  

Ingvar has a solid background as the CFO from both public and private companies covering Life science and Medtech, Automotive and premium consumer goods spanning over 40 years. Today,  he works both on the Board of cutting-edge life-science SME’s as well as provide service as CFO for their successful growth. Ingvar’s extensive  knowledge in financial management,  supply chain processes and capital planning of life  science companies, will be important for Amferia’s scale-up journey in both  human and animal wound care.  

Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia − “It is an honour to work  with Ingvar, whose impressive knowledge of the field and guidance greatly strengthens Amferia’s position as a competent and cutting-edge SME with  precision in its numbers. We look forward to jointly grow the company, as we set our sights on global growth of Amferia both in human and animal wound care.

Ingvar Karlsson, CFO of Amferia − “I look forward working with the team at Amferia. The company has a very interesting journey ahead. Amferia is en route towards internationalization and distribution of its products through partnerships in multiple countries. I am glad to work with companies like Amferia improving healthcare for both humans and animals. ”

The significance of the list is that Amferia, as one among the 33 young Swedish companies is deemed to have high potential to become future growth companies. The companies selected to be on the list after rigorous evaluation by the jury, are judged to be innovative, have scalable business models and have the potential to grow quickly on the Swedish and global market.

Infections are a difficult healthcare problem, exacerbated by antibiotic resistance. Amferia’s innovative antimicrobial material is an effective, safe and sustainable way to address life threatening bacterial infections, especially within the filed of medical devices. This is equally important in both human and animal health, and we are bringing products built on our technology rapidly to the market.

The recognition by Nyteknik is an important achievement for Amferia attesting to our measured yet rapid progress of a deep technology breakthrough innovation to the clinic. And most importantly, our deepest gratitude to our collaborators in the clinics who clearly saw the need and importance of our technology in addressing an acute global healthcare threat.

Amferia is thrilled to announce that our exceptional Research Engineer, Edvin Blomstrand, has successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled "Amphiphilic Hydrogels Functionalized with Antimicrobial Peptides for Wound Care" at Chalmers tekniska högskola. He now proudly holds the esteemed title of Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science. During his PhD journey, Edvin's contributions have played a pivotal role in shaping our product development at Amferia. We couldn't be more excited to have him continue this remarkable journey with us. With him on board, we are prepared more than ever to pursue our goals, push the boundaries of innovation, and make a meaningful impact in our field.

Join us in congratulating Dr. Blomstrand on this brilliant achievement, and we look forward to the amazing things to accomplish together in the future!

We are proud to introduce the addition of three remarkable individuals to our Board of Directors. Each new member brings a wealth of diverse experience and knowledge  to our team which will further strengthen Amferia’s position in addressing antibiotic resistance and infection management.  

Alexandra De Wever Treschow has over 15 years of leadership experience within life science management and consulting including 4 years as CEO of diagnostics company Aprovix. Prior to that, Alexandra was managing partner of Stockholm-based inRikta Analys. She is co-founder and currently serves as CEO of NORDx Pharma. She holds a  PhD in Gene Therapy from Karolinska Institutet and an MBA from Quantic School of business and Technology, USA. 

Ulrika Ågren is presently an Investment Manager at Almi Invest focusing on medtech, healthtech and greentech. Ulrika has over 20 years of experience in the med-tech industry with specialisations in  intellectual property, innovation portfolio management, project management and business development. She is a certified board member and previously worked for global medtech companies such as Mölnlycke Health Care where she was Global IP Director and the biotech company Cellartis (now Takara Bio). Before joining Almi Invest Ulrika coached HealthTech startups at Sahlgrenska Science Park.

Jonas Bergman serves as an Investment Director at Chalmers Ventures. He brings with him great insight into the operations of med-tech companiesand how they can create long-term value. Jonas has a Master ofScience in Engineering fromChalmers University of Technology and has been CEO of both listed and unlisted life-sciencecompanies for many years. He has also worked as a management consultant forover 7 years with a particular focus in Biotech.

We are thrilled to share that our dedicated team at Amferia in collaboration with Chalmers tekniska högskola has published a randomised controlled study in the Journal of Wound Care that demonstrates the outstanding antibacterial performance of our hydrogel wound dressing.  We studied our wound dressing on intact human skin as a model to evaluate the speed and efficacy of the dressing to kill bacteria — and the results were truly remarkable!

By utilizing the Amferia Antimicrobial Hydrogel technology, we eradicated bacteria when placed in contact with skin within a short period of three hours.

By utilizing the Amferia Antimicrobial Hydrogel,   bacteria was eradicated within three hours.

These findings demonstrate the potential of our antibacterial wound dressing to significantly reduce the risk of infection in wounds, offering new possibilities for improved patient outcomes. This study lays the foundation for our future clinical studies in human wounds.

You can now access the article via the link:  https://lnkd.in/eTV7nMZg

The financing was raised from Almi Invest, Chalmers Ventures, and with several angel investors to support launch of Amferia’s first product, a wound care dressing with a patented hydrogel that actively combats infections and kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Amferia's innovative, anti-microbial solution can be used on wide-ranging wounds from simple skin injuries, post-operative wounds to chronic wounds and trauma / burn wounds. The WHO predicts that antibiotic-resistant infections, including those from wounds could become one of the leading causes of both illness and death over the next ten years.

“I am grateful to all our committed investors: Every year, nearly 1 million people die globally because of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria and at least a quarter of those infections begin with a simple wound on the skin. Amferia's wound care solution is a game-changer and will save lives. The resistance problem is even more challenging within the animal health sector.”, says Agneta Edberg, Chairperson of Amferia.

Amferia's wound care solution is a game-changer and will save lives.

Amferia's patented material, an antimicrobial amphiphilic hydrogel, has been developed through several years of research in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology and contains molecules inspired by body’s own immune system. The material instantly kills all bacteria (even antibiotic resistant) by binding to and disrupting their cell membranes, all without damaging the body’s own cells or entering the bloodstream. The first product from this technology is a hydrogel wound-care dressing for dry-to-low exuding wounds, while the material is also being investigated for development in several other areas, including sprays for deep wounds, and coatings for implants and a variety of catheters. In September of 2022, Amferia launched its first wound dressings for animal health in Sweden and plan on expanding across Europe during 2023. In parallel, the company is preparing to file for regulatory clearance in the US for human health.

The wound care market currently generates sales for over US $ 2 billion globally with a projected CAGR of 5 %. However, existing alternatives on the market often contain antibiotics that carry the risk of causing resistance or antiseptics that may harm body cells and negative environmental impact.

We already have our first product on the market for animal wound care in Sweden

“The investment enables us to perform three key tasks: scale up and launch our products for animal health in Europe, file for FDA clearance of the application for human health and thirdly initiate more clinical studies in both market segments. This ambition is supported by the fact that we already have our first product on the market for animal wound care in Sweden”, says Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia.

Amferia announced today that it has, in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology, published two important scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals that describe the pre-clinical studies of its platform technology, Amphiphilic Antimicrobial Hydrogel as sprays and coatings for various medical device applications.

Amferia’s platform technology is an amphiphilic antimicrobial hydrogel material that can rapidly bind and kill all types of bacteria, even resistant bacteria, without harming the body. In an effort to enable further applications of this material, Amferia collaborated with Chalmers University of Technology to test and develop the patented technology as sprayable formulation and as coatings fight off bacterial infections in medical devices.

Today, the extensive pre-clinical data from this research has been published in two scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals*. The research was built on the formulation of the Amphiphlic Antimicrobial Hydrogel as small discrete particles, which were then further developed as sprayable form for wound care and as a coating on existing materials like silicone catheters. The results from these studies show powerful antimicrobial effect, safety to human cells while being stable in biological environments such as serum.

The material has been shown to be effective against many different types of bacteria, including those that are resistant to antibiotics

Martin Andersson, Professor at Chalmers University and Co-founder of Amferia − “Our innovation can have a dual impact in the fight against antibiotic resistance. The material has been shown to be effective against many different types of bacteria, including those that are resistant to antibiotics, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), while also having the potential to prevent infections and thus reduce the need for antibiotics,.”

The research was undertaken based on the strong potential of Amferia’s technology, but also based on a clear need from the human and animal health care system on fighting infections in the context of deep infected wounds as well as for various medical devices such as urinary catheters. Amferia and Chalmers will continue to collaborate on this research and are planning to further study the use of the new formulations in clinical settings, both for human and animal care.

We are seeing the great potential of our technology going beyond wound care into the realm of broader medical devices

Anand Rajasekharan,CEO of Amferia − “This is an important achievement for Amferia as we are seeing the great potential of our technology going beyond wound care into the realm of broader medical devices such as coatings and sprayable systems. Our current product is a wound dressing and we look forward to follow-up the same with these pipeline products that will have a stronger impact for addressing antibiotic resistance.”

*The scientific article on the formation of antimicrobial hydrogel particles as sprays and its in-vitro efficacy, safety and stability is published in Cross-linked lyotropic liquid crystal particles functionalized with antimicrobial peptides, Blomstrand et. al. 2022

*The scientific article on the utilisation of these particles as coatings on silicone materials is published in MultifunctionalSurface Modification of PDMS for Antibacterial Contact Killing andDrug-Delivery of Polar, Nonpolar, and Amphiphilic Drugs, Stepulane et. al. 2022

Agneta has a solid background from the global Life science and Medtech field spanning over 30 years in leading roles such as; Sales &Marketing Director of Pharmacia (Pfizer), Senior VP and CEO of Mylan NordicPharmaceuticals, CEO of NM Pharma and more recently as the COO of Bactigaurd that manufactures a variety of antimicrobial device. Today, she works on theBoard of cutting-edge life-science SME’s guiding the companies for future success. Agneta’s extensive knowledge in the life science industry will be important for Amferia’s scale-up journey in both human and animal wound care.

Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia − “It is an honour to work with Agenta, whose impressive knowledge of the field and guidance greatly strengthens Amferia’s position as a competent and cutting-edge SME. We look forward to jointly achieve the upcoming key milestones such as the first product launch for animal health, FDA and CE regulatory processes for human health and establishing a successful sales and marketing foundation for Amferia.”

Agneta Edberg − “Amferia is a company every board person wishes to work for. The technology offers a paradigm shift in wound care with nontoxic properties still killing bacteria, even the resistant ones. In a world where antimicrobial resistance is an increasing challenge to humanity, I am grateful to be a part of reducing that threat”

EWMA is an important congress that brings together clinicians and healthcare  industry for important discussions within wound care for humans and animals. Amferia is eager to present our science, antimicrobial technology and introduce our first wound dressings for animal and human wound  care. We welcome all attendees to our stand located in

room 252A at the  congress venue, Palais  des Congrès de Paris, to know more about Amferia and  clinical evidence for human and animal wound care as well as for an  introduction to our soon-to-be launched wound dressings for animal wound  care. We also invite all  attendees to our scientific talk at the symposium for Veterinary Wound  Healing Association (VWHA) on 24th May at 08:45 hrs room 252A.