Technologies
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“NIGHTINGALE” Compact Air Plasma Jet for Wound Healing
Technology Overview
Cold atmospheric pressure air plasma jet, as called “NIGHTINGALE” for this certified medical device version, generates reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS), which effectively kill bacteria and stimulate the wound healing process. This advanced plasma jet will significantly improve the chronic wound treatment process, commonly required by bedridden and type-2 diabetes patients. With long-term treatments, these cause large burden in healthcare systems. The technology owner aims to provide this cutting-edge product to local hospitals, homecare and patients and their families. As NIGHTINGALE is already certified, we are seeking a co-founder and partnerships to start formal clinical trials for demonstrating the technology’s potential and extending impact to community.
Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages
This atmospheric air pressure plasma jet or “NIGHTINGALE” is electrically driven by direct-current pulse-modulation signal in kHz frequency. This advanced technology efficiently controls the gas temperature below 40 degree Celsius while producing reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. The controlled condition is well suited for chronic wound healing. The developed air plasma jet consumes relatively low power leveraging on freely available ambient air. It costs less than a dollar per patient per month. When the wound was healed faster by this cost-effective plasma jet, it not only reduces pain for patients and their families but also improve their quality of life. Cost of normal wound dressing will significantly drop as well as the time of taking care. For technological standard, the device will be complied with the class-2 electrical medical device standard, IEC 6001-1 and bio compatible standard. Regarding an existing technology, it is found that multi-drug resistance bacteria are more difficult and longer to find new drug to kill. Basically, most drug effectiveness level are in large compound molecules. However, plasmas mostly provide atomic and single molecular species, which are much more reactive. This consequently overcomes one of the main issues of an existing technology.
Potential Applications
Our primary application area is local healthcare hubs or secondary hospitals, which cover most outskirt areas. The technology sees added potential due to large number of transferring long-term care patients from tertiary hospitals. The household or family units will be a secondary application area in which we expect to provide the product after gaining traction in the primary application. The existing product is a table-top type, which is designed to be used at healthcare centers, suitable for hospital-based patients. However, there are also a significant number of bedridden patients at home, and we expect to develop a handheld version for this market. This version would strongly depend on how the battery or power source could be developed. The market size which is conservatively calculated from the sale of one unit per secondary hospitals in Thailand equals to 300,000,000 THB. This does not include home unit market yet.
Customer Benefit
As NIGHTINGALE is an emerging technology, it not only offers an alternative wound healing technique but also business opportunities such as
- Collaborative clinical trial to extend the technology potential in various community
- Establishing wound healing business model like long-term wound care service with rental device.
This technology takes surrounded air as a consumable product. As a direct comparison, it is much cheaper than other plasma-wound healing devices which uses expensive Helium and Argon gas tanks. Only low electric power is required for operation. Moreover only a few-dollars cost of air filter is required for monthly replacement. For indirect comparison, our statistics show that the time required for wound healing on average can be reduced to about 50 days compared to the average 210 days to closure of leg ulcers. This significantly saves time and costs for patients requiring wound-care.