Spraying a liquid suspension of a patient’s own stem cells onto severe burns and wounds for rapid, scar-free healing is the backbone behind SkinGun technology from RenovaCare, Inc.
“Our goal is to bring to market the world’s most advanced technology for skin repair,” says company president and CEO Thomas Bold. “The prospect of spraying a patient’s own stem cells onto burns and wounds is a promising alternative to today’s painful and disfiguring skin-grafting procedures.”
SkinGun covers up to 100 times its donor skin sample. “This is why the donor skin sample can be so small compared to the injured treatment area,” Bold tells Cosmetic Surgery Times.
Over the past several years, physicians in Berlin, Germany, and Pittsburgh, Penn., have successfully treated dozens of burn patients using the FDA-pending device.
The hospital-based procedure, which takes less than 90 minutes, is performed without anesthesia and consists of working with stem cells, “which are liberated from the skin sample, suspended in a water-based solution and gently sprayed onto the wound,” Bold says. “The body’s natural inclination is for its stem cells to rapidly grow and close the wound.”
Once the isolated (keratinocyte progenitor) cells are sprayed with the SkinGun, they form small “islands” across the wound. “These islands grow outwards, ultimately connecting to each other to create a protective epithelial skin layer that covers the wound,” Bold says.
Experts believe the formation of this pink-colored layer marks the moment of re-epithelialization, at which point the risk of infection is reduced and the patient’s wound is effectively healed. “Beyond this stage, cosmetic healing takes place, naturally, to produce a scar-free result where skin color, tone and pigment is restored,” Bold says.
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Patients heal scar-free with full mobility in their joints and are discharged from the hospital within a matter of days.
Preclinical studies show that SkinGun achieves 97% cell survival.
“Our combined addressable near-term market for burns and wounds is estimated at $45 billion,” Bold says.
SkinGun is also applicable for cosmetic procedures targeting skin pigmentation disorders, scar treatment and other-related conditions. “We are talking about regenerative medicine and the real future of medicine,” Bold says.
