Bernd Liesenfeld, PhD, President of Quick-Med Technologies, introduces the company’s antimicrobial platforms, NIMBUS and Stay-Fresh.
Quick-Med Technologies, Inc. provides innovative, green antimicrobial technologies designed to offer the best combination of safety, efficacy, durability, sustainability, and cost on the market. Our patented antimicrobial technologies are NIMBUS and Stay-Fresh. These products fully eliminate even highly resistant bacteria fast enough to prevent bacteria from interfering with wound healing, such as by forming a biofilm.
The unifying mission for NIMBUS and Stay-Fresh is a cleaner future for planet earth and humanity’s next generations. Both technologies are FDA-cleared and have significant histories of safe and effective use globally for medical and non-medical applications on and in a variety of surfaces.
NIMBUS®
The BIOGUARD dressing line was developed with partner Derma Sciences using NIMBUS technology as the active antimicrobial. NIMBUS is a long-chain cationic quaternary polymer that is bound to gauze and commercialised for medical uses including wound dressings. NIMBUS was specifically engineered with multiple features that do not permit bacteria to form resistance to it.
NIMBUS molecules are very large, and the many repeat units yield a high charge density that disrupts the bacterial cell wall – since bacteria cannot easily adapt their cell walls, they cannot build resistance to this mechanism. The NIMBUS molecules are bound to the surface of the treated article, which means the potency at the surface does not decrease over time and the product remains highly effective. Finally, the large size of the molecule precludes ingestion into bacteria, which is one common first step towards bacteria generating resistance to an agent. These properties make NIMBUS highly effective against resistant pathogens such as MRSA and VRE, in addition to common organisms of concern to public health such as Staph., Pseudomonas and E. coli species). Bioguard gauze was shown to kill >99.9% of bacteria between 30 and 120 minutes, and provide durable protection for many days.
FDA has recognised NIMBUS as the only non-leaching antimicrobial technology cleared in wound dressings, ensuring excellent biocompatibility and safety by not shedding any toxic or irritating chemicals into wounds or onto skin. For the European MDR environment, this feature can provide advantages over leaching alternatives by allowing expedited clearance pathways.
NIMBUS has both a low chemicals cost, and simple application procedure, while providing the highest quality efficacy, durability and safety. While agents such as silver, triclosan and antibiotics each have had bacterial resistance issues documented. Studies of quaternary ammonium molecules similar to NIMBUS also showed efficacy for SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19.
Stay-Fresh®
Stay-Fresh is a green antimicrobial that sequesters hydrogen peroxide (HP) into a zinc oxide binder, allowing very small local concentrations of HP to have strong and durable efficacy. Stay-Fresh can be applied to almost any surface with extreme durability, withstanding over 500 scrubbing cycles (hard surfaces) or over 100 laundering cycles (fabrics) without losing efficacy when properly applied. The combination of safe and effective ingredients reduces the need for water and sanitisers and provides assurance that the environmental profile of the products is unbeatable.
Stay-Fresh has documented >99.999% kill against common pathogens including Staph. Aureus, E. coli, Pseudomonas, as well as resistant organisms of public health concern such as MRSA, VRE in FDA submitted standard tests. It has also proven very effective against odour-causing bacteria, as well as moulds, yeasts, and even viruses. Stay-Fresh is already cleared and commercialised in medical and consumer textiles as well as surface coatings.
Per our mission, this product is environmentally sustainable. The only degradation products of HP are water and oxygen, while zinc oxide is a major component in sunscreens, in diaper creams, and is even used as a nutritional zinc source supplementing breakfast cereals and breads. HP is bio-safe, naturally occurring, and has been called ‘nature’s own antimicrobial’ due to its prevalence in biological systems. HP is the chemistry that the human body utilises to prevent infections (occurs in saliva) and spoilage (occurs naturally in milk). This compound also helps the body overcome invasive bugs, as HP is secreted by white blood cells to fight infections.
Stay-Fresh has a long history of safe use in FDA-cleared medical product, and in consumer textiles, and QMT supports partners through regulatory and product development, as well as production implementation and post market validation.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 20th edition of our quarterly publication.
