”After years of research we suddenly realised how to combine our findings. It was a eureka moment.”

Introducing Amferia wound dressing for animal care — binds and kills bacteria without harming the body

How antimicrobial hydrogel can revolutionize clinical treatments

Binds and kills 99.99% of bacteria without harming the body – even resistant bacteria

How antimicrobial hydrogel can revolutionize clinical treatments

Human care:

Amferia’s innovative, flexible hydrogel can be adapted to many medical applications. One of the first products we’re developing for our antimicrobial platform is a wound care dressing.

The soft, flexible Amferia antimicrobial hydrogel can be integrated with wound dressings of various shapes and sizes. The product we’re developing will be shelf-stable for up to eighteen months—and, when applied to wounds, will bind and kill bacteria for up to five days before dressings need to be changed.

Other potential treatments showing early promise include pre-surgery skin cleansing, spray-based products for wound care, and coatings for medical devices such as catheters and implants.

As antibiotics continue to be less effective against certain resistant bacterial strains, the potential market for this technology is enormous.

The potential market for this technology is enormous

Amferia’s hydrogel is a flexible solution that can be potentially adapted to multiple applications where killing bacteria is critical—with the added advantage that it kills even resistant bacteria. A few examples of potential applications are listed below. Some we are already developing. Others, we’re actively seeking partners to develop with us.

Read about the science behind Amferia >

Antimicrobial hydrogel wound dressing

Wound Care:

Amferia’s first product for human care is our antimicrobial hydrogel wound dressing. Amferia is developing several dressing formats that feature our patented hydrogel, starting with a non-adhesive hydrogel dressing for acute wounds, while pipeline products cater to the numerous needs within wound care while keeping the antimicrobial property intact.

When applied as a solid wound dressing pad, Amferia’s antimicrobial hydrogel can bind and kill 99.9% of bacteria, providing an effective, clean environment for wound recovery.  

The global advanced wound care market is estimated to be 7 billion USD today and growing at a rate of 5% annually.

Amferia’s proprietary hydrogel acts as the contact layer to the wound, binding and killing bacteria while providing a moist environment conducive for wound healing.

Today, Amferia has ongoing clinical investigations in Europe and we are seeking CE marking and FDA clearance on this product.

The global advanced wound care market is estimated to be 7 billion USD today and growing at a rate of 5% annually.

Antibacterial patches prior to surgery

Pre-surgery:

Another potential application for Amferia hydrogel comes in the form of a patch that can clear the skin of bacteria before a surgical procedure. A recent study we conducted on human skin demonstrated that Amferia hydrogel kills up to 99.99% bacteria on skin surface within the first three hours of application.

Adhering a protective hydrogel patch to the incision site prior to surgery eradicates skin flora, providing a bacteria free site of surgery. In emergency wards, where patients may be waiting in a non-sterile environment prior to surgery, a bacteria-killing patch can reduce complications and potentially save lives.

Sprays applied directly on wounds or skin

Antibacterial sprays:

The flexible nature of our hydrogel platform allows us to apply the patented bacteria-killing hydrogel in many forms—including an aerosol spray. Small particles of the antimicrobial hydrogel can be dispersed through an aerosol to cover broader areas of the skin and wounds. A pipeline product being developed at Amferia is a spray that can be applied directly to wounds or skin, especially deep wounds with high bacterial presence.

The spray system enables the same antimicrobial mode of action as the wound dressing while ensuring high surface area, which will enable eradication of bacteria from deep and uneven wounds.

This scientific basis for this product has been evaluated scientifically and published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Coated on medical devices like catheters

Antibacterial coatings:

Short-term implantable medical devices such as urinary catheters are widely used in hospitals and nursing homes to relieve urinary retention and incontinence.

In these types of medical devices, the most common and life-threatening complication is catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), which affect over 10 million patients every year with high economic cost and patient suffering. Antimicrobial resistance has made it difficult to treat CAUTI via conventional antibiotics.

With an increasingly ageing population and rising costs to treat CAUTIs, a strong need exists for innovative anti-bacterial catheters that prevent bacterial colonisation on the catheter walls.

In collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology, Amferia has begun ongoing research into enabling our technology as a whole catheter or as coatings to existing catheters. The base technology, amphiphilic antimicrobial hydrogel may be developed into tough silicone-like materials or can be tailored as coatings to silicone surfaces. Both these prospects are being tested today as proof-of-concepts and published in scientific articles.  

Get in touch for partnership, licensing and distribution

Partnership:

Amferia is interested to engage in discussions with companies who have business interest in utilising our innovation in possible product combinations through partnership structures. Within wound care, Amferia has the possibility to offer finished or semi-finished products for commercial or distribution partnerships.

Please contact: Saba Atefyekta, Sales Director and Co-founder

Read about our patents >


Wound dressing ready for production

Production:

Amferia is working in partnership with a manufacturer to produce a high volume of Amferia wound care dressings. Amferia currently operates a clinical production site in Mölndal, Sweden, for testing and evaluating these products. Informed by those results, we are building capacity for a high volume production of wound dressings with an established partner.  

Addressing antibiotic resistance the sustainable way

Antibiotic resistance:

Over time, harmful bacteria continue to evolve. In what is rapidly becoming a health care crisis, many bacteria have already developed antibiotic resistance (ABR). Simple infections such as skin wound infections can become lethal. Today, across the world, many types of bacteria have evolved to an extent where none of our antibiotics are effective against them.

For example, Methicillin Resistant Staph. Aureus (MRSA) evolved from an ordinary bacteria. It has become what’s known as a “superbug,” resistant to many common antibiotics. A skin infection involving MRSA can develop life-threatening complications. MRSA is only one of many superbug strains. At current rates of microbial evolution, WHO warns, drug-resistant infection may kill more people than cancer by 2050.  

Innovations such as Amferia’s focus on addressing antibiotic resistance through relying less on antibiotics and more on the roles of good hygiene, education on antibiotic use and smarter antimicrobial technologies that do not increase the risk of new resistance. 

Using bio-inspired materials derived from our immune system to kill bacteria comes with numerous advantages. These materials can target bacteria without harming our own cells. They offer potent local action at the site of an infection, with no leaching into the body or environment.

In this context, Amferia’s innovation and wound care dressing is more than a plaster, but rather a new platform that aids and supports the mitigation of antibiotic resistance. 

Pre-clinical research on new antimicrobial spray and coating technology published

January 26, 2023

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 Edberg appointed chairperson

July 28, 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”

Amferia at the European Wound Management Association (EWMA) congress 2022 in Paris

May 17, 2022

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.

US patent granted

May 9, 2022

Amferia AB announced today that it has been granted the foundational patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)for its innovative antimicrobial material based on an amphiphilic antimicrobial hydrogel. The company is now in its final stages of product development for wound care applications and aims to launch the first product within animal health during 2022.

Top 100 research based innovations of 2021

May 26, 2021

Amferia’s technology recognized as one of the top 100 research based innovations of 2021 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Amferia & Triolab announce partnership to launch innovative wound care products for animal health

May 6, 2021

The joint partnership with Triolab will enable Amferia to reach the large Swedish veterinary market where wound care and infection prevention is of prime importance, which has been intensified with the growing threat of antibiotic resistant infections. Amferia and Triolab’s partnership will build on extensive data and feedback from Amferia’s ongoing product trials across Europe. The joint efforts will aim to market the products to selective veterinary clinics across Sweden during 2021 and further expansion in 2022.

Amferia raises SEK 6.2 million in pre-seed investment

January 22, 2020

Almi Invest, Chalmers Ventures, along with the British investor Corithinan Properties Ltd. and Let’s Deal Founder Alexander Hars have invested a total of SEK 6.2 million in the Gothenburg-based med-tech company Amferia, who has developed a wound care product with a patented material that actively combats infections and kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

“Every year, 700,000 people die globally as a result of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria and almost half of the infections begin with a simple wound on the skin. Amferia's wound care solution is a game-changer and will save lives”, says Louise Warme, Investment Manager at Almi Invest.

Amferia establishes R&D operations at AstraZeneca’s BioVentureHub

October 28, 2019

Amferia is very excited to move into the BioVentureHub, given the strong benefits of operating in a flourishing environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure dedicated to medtech and life science companies. We are also eager to be around so many experts within life science ranging from established to early-stage companies researching in biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics. Amferia looks forward to be part of, learn and grow in this supportive and exciting community.

At the Annual Veterinary Hygiene Conference 2019

October 24, 2019

We had the pleasure to attend the annual Veterinary Hygiene Conference in Knivsta, Stockholm. One of the primary questions of this conference was about handling antibiotic resistant infections in animal wound care – a fast growing problem in Sweden and Globally. Many interesting & enlightening discussions with expert veterinary clinicians taught us a lot about the needs and challenges in animal wound care and how Amferia might expand its innovative solutions to help veterinary healthcare. Thanks for a great conference VVHF.

Amferia wins the Start-up of the Year award at Venture Cup Sweden 2019

September 20, 2019

The Jury's motivation for choosing Amferia as the winners! “With its disruptive solution, the team has the opportunity to shake several industries as they tackle one of humanity’s greatest global threats. By addressing a world problem, millions of lives will be saved. By changing the behavior of the consumer, there is also the potential to reform the market.”