Gel-E
College Park, Md.
Founded: 2013
Wound care, hemostatic devices and associated products may not have the flash of their technological competitors in medtech, but are just as innovative. College Park, Md.–based Gel-E is looking to make waves in the hemostatic and wound treatment fields with its platform of wound care products designed around its proprietary, self-assembling biopolymer, which it claims create rapid coagulation with inherent anti-microbial properties.
Gel-E is developing a number of different applications utilizing its hemostatic technology, including strips, films, bandages and gels designed for use both externally and internally.
The company touts significant improvements over commercial chitosan-based hemostatics, and was featured as a top innovator in the late Stephen Hawking’s BBC series. The company also recently won a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop products aimed at prolonged field care.
“Gel-E is on an arc to bring disruptive new hemostatic and wound treatment products to clinic, OR and backyard. We rely on a programmable advanced materials platform to design products that can solve unmet clinical needs for a broad array of human bleeding events,” Larry Tiffany, the company’s president, told Medical Design & Outsourcing.
“At the core, Gel-e is an advanced materials company. We’re building a materials platform, and while it has found FDA-cleared applications in hemostasis and wound treatment, we view these early products as the beginning of a robust pipeline,” said chief scientific officer Matthew Dowling.
–Fink Densford, Associate Editor