Bill Reeves began Allied Medical thirty years ago in order to bring innovative medical technology to market. Before coming to the New Mexico Small Business Assistance (NMSBA) Program for assistance, Reeves and partner Dr. Bob Quick spent $1.25M in clinical trials to demonstrate their device’s ability to decrease healing time using silver nano-technology delivered by a DC micro-current. While the studies showed the device’s remarkable healing ability, the company wanted to understand the interaction between the silver and the applied DC micro-current.
Silver is known to be a strong anti-microbial agent that can also lead to decreased scarring and inflammation. Though prolonged, high-level use of silver preparations as health supplements rarely causes problems, long-term exposure to colloidal silver may cause discoloring of the skin and silver toxicity can lead to severe health issues. For these reasons, it is crucial to measure the silver content and species delivered from medical devices.
In order to quantify exactly how much and what type of silver Allied Medical’s device emits, the NMSBA Program enlisted Darren Branch. Branch is an electrical engineer in SNL’s Biosensors and Nano-Materials Department who researches the interface between biology and synthetic chemistry. He conducted the fundamental research to help Allied Medical understand the types of silver ions present and how the current affects the silver ions created by the application of Allied Medical’s device.
The comprehensive characterization has quantified total silver content of the wound healing device and its ability to release ionic and colloidal silver into solution. The knowledge gained from silver analysis conducted by Branch will enable the company to optimize the device’s operating parameters to best stimulate healing. With the assistance NMSBA provided, Allied Medical can now embark on the rigorous scientific path towards FDA approval and marketing the technology to the public.
