Covalon started out 20 years ago as a medical research lab that created patented, breakthrough, lifesaving infection control technologies that have really turned heads in the medical community. Understanding that patients, particularly vulnerable ones, require gentler functionally nuanced specialized products, Covalon leverages its world-class scientific expertise and patents portfolio to design and deliver compassionate care solutions to patients through health care providers.
It’s not just hype when we refer to our technology as breakthrough. Over the years, Covalon’s technology has been validated, adopted, and licensed for a variety of uses by a number of the world’s largest and most sophisticated global medical companies including Smith and Nephew, Molnlycke, McKesson, Medline, Bard, and Becton Dickinson and is used in major hospitals in the United States, Canada, and internationally.
Infections are a huge worldwide problem and therefore a market opportunity worth billions of dollars annually. Health care providers are increasingly recognizing the need for investing in better technologies to lower long term costs and burden on health care practitioners. The $8.9 billion global infections and chronic wounds market is growing at alarming rates.
Not only do infections result in billions in costs to patients and healthcare systems, but infections also continue to cause thousands of deaths and disabilities each and every year. In the United States which is our primary market, if a patient gets an infection during their hospital stay, the hospital is responsible for paying for the treatment, which can cost $50,000 per occurrence.
Covalon has taken our base breakthrough technologies and created three patented product platforms:
- Advanced collagen wound care dressings
- Silicone infection protection dressings for pediatric, acute hospital, and surgical use
- Medical coatings that can prevent infections from the use of advanced medical devices
Each of these technology platforms provide unprecedented benefits and advantages compared to other competitive products for:
- Patients
- Doctors and nurses
- Hospitals, Clinics, Home-care owners, and administrators
- Investors
Covalon brought to market a family of patented collagen matrix dressings that help chronic and infected wounds including diabetic ulcers (including diabetic foot ulcers), pressure ulcers, venous ulcers (including venous leg ulcers), donor and graft sites, traumatic wounds healing by secondary intention, dehisced surgical wounds, and first and second-degree burns, heal faster, with less complications. Other products being routinely used by advance wound care clinicians were unable to help many patients avoid amputations because their wounds wouldn’t heal. Millions of patients have benefited from Covalon’s family of collagen dressings – by avoiding countless amputations of toes, feet and lower limbs, and have been able to live a normal life. Our patented dressings begin from a collagen base, which is biocompatible with the human body, and contain beneficial materials, such as antimicrobials, EDTA and other ingredients that help to the patient’s own body to accelerate the wound healing process. Covalon’s patented manufacturing process for creating our collagen matrix results in products that have certain clinical advantages over other dressings, such as open binding sites for destructive enzymes, effective antimicrobial activity, and exudate management properties that help chronic wounds heal.
Covalon’s patented antimicrobial silicone adhesive platform was developed and forms the basis for a family of pre-surgical, post-surgical, and vascular access dressings that are designed to kill 99.99% or more of any bacteria or yeast that come into contact with the antimicrobial silicone adhesive. Covalon recognized that almost all adhesive dressings used in Intensive Care Units in major hospitals utilized skin damaging acrylic adhesives that caused significant pain and trauma for patients and were unable to protect patients form infections. Our IV Clear dressing is the world’s only dual antimicrobial silicone adhesive dressing and has helped thousands of patients to avoid infection, while being gentle during dressing changes. The soft silicone adhesive provides greater patient comfort, does not macerate or damage the skin, and was shown to be up to 10 times less painful upon removal when compared to acrylic adhesives commonly used in other companies’ medical dressings. Our line of dressings is a much better choice for patients with vulnerable skin conditions, including pediatrics.
A major source of infection for patients in hospitals and while at home are medical devices, such as catheters and IV lines that are inserted into patients, while they undergo medical procedures, or recover from diseases, such as cancer. Covalon developed several patented medical coating platforms, including CovaCoat, a proprietary photochemical process that permanently alters the surface of a variety of medical devices, to improve functionality and performance, including making them antimicrobial. Using our patented coating technology platform, we partner with medical device companies, to customize their existing medical devices to incorporate or improve a number of device specific properties by making them lubricious, antimicrobial, biocompatible – to make them better and safer for patients. Medical companies can charge premiums for their medical devices and open new market segments, while helping to prevent complications with the use of their products in patients.
Being particularly focused on serving vulnerable patient populations, our patented products are being used by most of the top 10 pediatric oncology institutions in the US and by a majority of the top 10 US pediatric hospitals. We have a growing cohort of key medical opinion leaders that have become champions of our products, and we are reaching more and more major hospitals in the US every quarter, which is a key area of focus for our growth.
Very few small medical companies have the clinical and technical success that Covalon has earned over the past two decades. Covalon has been helping millions of patients heal better, minimize pain, and avoid infections. We are proud of the difference our solutions have made in patients’ lives and are progressing on the path to becoming standard of care in the markets that our innovative products compete.