PolyNovo Limited (ASX:PNV) CEO, Paul Brennan discusses burns and surgical wounds development and commercialisation of its Novosorb and BTM technologies PolyNovo Limited
(ASX:PNV) spun out of the CSIRO in 2004. Our first product to market is what we call the BTM, which is Biodegradable Temporising Matrix. So it regenerates a layer of your skin, if you’ve lost that through trauma, surgery or burns. The polyurethane itself has a unique safety profile, which is why regulators like our product. And the results we get with patients is extraordinary. And this is a really exciting time for us, as we commercialise now in the US.
NovoSorb is the name of our polymer – that’s the base material. Novopore is the name we give to our foam base; the foam base forms a scaffold or matrix, within the BTM. Traditionally or currently in the market, matrices are made of animal by-products, or human tissue that’s denatured. We’re unique in having 100 per cent synthetic product. And what that does is enable use of the matrix, in areas such as burn and surgical wounds, where traditionally the biological products either struggle, or are too expensive to be applied.
The BTM has had a long development process, as you’d expect if it’s going to be implanted into a person. There’ve been over 40 patients done, with what’s called a free flap repair of their forearm and also, nine major burn cases in Adelaide. And then there is another five patients that have been done so far in the CE Mark trial. And we’ll be starting our US trials in June in the US burn centres.
So the BTM is quite radical in regenerating the dermis layer of the skin and resulting in minimal scarring, and a good cosmetic and functional outcome for our patients. We’ve got a platform of products based on the NovoSorb technologies, but the first one is the BTM. And that is now available for sale in the US market. We just need to appoint a distributor in the US and we’re working through that process, at the moment. And likewise, we have other markets such as New Zealand and South Africa that’ll be coming online shortly, as well. So that’s our first commercial product.
Soon as in within the next few years, we should have our breast sling repair product and our hernia product, entering a commercialisation phase. We’re still at prototype phase for those products. So we’ve got a long pipeline of products to develop over the next 10 years, and we’ve got a very bright future. Other applications for our product are in the range of orthopaedics. We have an agreement with Smith & Nephew, a large orthopaedic company globally and that’s the bone void filling.
Then we’re developing other products, as I’ve said in breast sling, hernia, are looking at a 3D breast form and also looking at pelvic floor repair. And we might be entering some more animal studies on antimicrobial eluting polymer coatings, for implantable devices.
Very busy past 12 months with capital raising last year, we’ve currently got $11.5 million in the bank. So we’ve got cash flow through to 2018 without revenue, but we do anticipate commercial revenues to start before then. And our market cap is around $160.8 million at the moment. So we’re in a good financial position and on the cusp of achieving our commercial revenues. We anticipate being cash flow positive within the next 12 months. As we commercialise into the US, we’re anticipating getting cash at the time of appointing a partner, and then commercial revenues from sale of products, which we’ll make in Port Melbourne.
This time next year, PolyNovo will hopefully have a very robust commercial stream coming through, for demand for our BTM from surgeons across the US market. Plus we’ll be in more than three other markets around the world. And we hope to be in a position where our dermal matrix is really transforming the dermal space in regeneration technologies.
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