Bactiguard has appointed Ewa Ställdal as Senior Advisor with start in April 2009. Ewa Ställdal, 59, is the Executive Director of the Swedish Foundation for Health Care Sciences and Allergy Research (the Vårdal Foundation), founded by the Swedish Parliament 1994. Ewa Ställdal worked as senior advisor in matters regarding medical education and research at the Ministry of Education for eight years 1979-1987. In 1987 she was appointed Director of the Department of Education and Research at Karolinska Institutet. In 1994 Ewa Ställdal was appointed Executive Director of the Vårdal Foundation and holds a number of positions on boards and in organisations within the academic world and the business life.
In 2003 Ewa Ställdal was appointed Honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Sahlgrenska Akademien at the University of Göteborg in Sweden.’
– It is with pleasure we start this close co-operation with Ewa Ställdal as Senior Advisor. The strengthening of Bactiguard with such a well-reputed person as Ewa Ställdal constitutes an important step in Bactiguard’s development. She will contribute great expertise and a broad network to Bactiguard. In this way we will strengthen Bactiguard’s position in the global cooperation and work against the serious increase of health care acquired infections, says Christian Kinch, partner and CEO of Bactiguard.
– By actively strengthen the co-operation between research and technology, research results can be implemented quicker in practical health care internationally and at the same time support Swedish innovations. That is why I look forward to working as Senior Advisor to the innovative company Bactiguard, says Ewa Ställdal.
Urinary tract infections constitute a very high percentage (30-40%) of all healthcare-related infections. By using Bactiguard® coated catheters, the risk of urinary tract infections is reduced by up to 40%. In Sweden, 30,000 patients annually are treated for urinary tract infections at a cost of SEK 880 million. Approximately 300 of these patients die as a result of urinary tract infections and, among older patients, mortality is three times higher than among other patients, which makes this one of the most common causes of premature death.
The use of catheters coated with an anti-bacterial surface can, in any event, avert 100 deaths and save the Swedish healthcare system at least SEK 290 million net per year.
In the US, 85% of hospitals already use Bactiguard®. Bactiguard’s coating prevents approximately 3,900 deaths from healthcare-related infections there and saves the American healthcare system half a billion dollars each year. Several healthcare institutions in Sweden are now beginning to use BIP Foley and the goal is clear – to reduce healthcare-related infections and thus the number of unnecessary deaths and the suffering and financial costs which result from healthcare-related infections.
Bactiguard BIP Foley
BIP Foley is a urinary tract catheter covered with Bactiguard’s unique, extra thin coating, which is only several atoms thick. Small quantities of precious metals, such as gold and palladium, interact to provide an anti-microbial effect which efficiently delays growth of bacteria and other microbes on the treated surface.
Bactiguard has now progressed from supplying only the actual coating to supplying its own finished products produced in-house and under its trade mark. The first is the BIP Foley urinary tract catheter which will be followed by products with Bactiguard’s coating within areas such as blood catheters and respiratory aids.
The coating has been in use since 1995 and is to be found on products registered with both the FDA and the Japanese Department of Health, as well as on CE classified products.
In the US and Japan, the coating is sold under licence through the American medical technology company Bard, which uses it on its catheters.
Bactiguard – a Swedish company and invention
Bactiguard® is based on a Swedish invention and the company was founded in 1978. The coating has been in use since the middle of the 1990s but it is only now that Bactiguard is going the whole way and launching its own products.
Bactiguard has co-operated for many years with the American medical technology company CR Bard Inc., whose Bactiguard®-coated urinary tract catheters are market leaders in the US and Japan. This co-operation will continue while, at the same time, Bactiguard will go from being a licensor of certain technology to a fully fledged medical technology company.
Bactiguard’s rapidly growing Swedish operations are conducted in Stockholm and Småland, with full scale analysis and microbiology laboratories as well as production facilities with cleanrooms. In addition, Bactiguard has manufacturing in China in order to begin developing the enormous market there.
Bactiguard is also an official infection control partner in a co-operation programme between China’s Ministry of Health and Sweden’s Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and a similar arrangement is now being prepared with India’s Ministry of Health. These countries have shown enormous interest in Bactiguard’s technology.
Last year approximately 14.5 million patients used products with Bactiguard’s coating and, since the start, 80 million people have been protected by Bactiguard’s coating.
For more information, contact:
Christian Kinch, CEO, Bactiguard: +46 8 440 58 80
Ewa Ställdal, +46 8 440 58 80
www.bactiguard.se