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Salve for the Wound Care Market

Wound care, once known as an investment graveyard, is changing. An advanced wound care market that once focused high-end technology on the small and difficult market of burns has now recognized an opportunity in chronic wounds, an enormous and growing market driven by the demographics of aging, and that segment has recently witnessed a dramatic success story. In 2004, the most successful medical device IPO was that of wound care company Kinetic Concepts.

Those who wish to form start-ups in wound healing will have a lot of explaining to do to potential investors. The sector has pretty much come to be viewed as a financial sinkhole; decades of research have produced no stunning successes and a lot of notable failures. Companies with tissue-engineered skin substitutes have found the field challenging; both Organogenesis Inc. and Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc., after more than a decade in development, did reach the market with cell-based grafts for chronic wounds, but ended up filing for bankruptcy. (Advanced Tissue Sciences is now in liquidation, but Organogenesis is just emerging from Chapter 11.) Ortec International Inc. , which is awaiting PMA approval for its cell-based skin substitute for use in venous stasis ulcers, has spent more than $100 million since its inception in 1991 to get to this point.

Growth factors have been equally problematic. Human Genome Sciences Inc. , targeting chronic venous ulcers with keratinocyte growth factor-2 (Repifermin) last year dropped development of the product for lack...

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