Healing from within: Biotech and the future of wound care

In the past year, skin substitutes for wound care have made health care headlines not for miraculous healing of patients, but for massive Medicare spending that paid millions of dollars for dubious treatments.

The situation stands out as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has led a major crackdown on health care fraud. It has prompted major policy shifts by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

But there’s also a chance that scrutiny may distract from other pressing issues in health care:

• There are numerous patients who genuinely need care for wounds, including diabetic foot ulcers, and their number likely will grow
• Primary care likely will be part of their treatment journeys
• Skin substitutes are not the only option for them

PolarityBio is a company developing a treatment that is not a substitute for a patient’s skin, but a regeneration of it. The Salt Lake City-based firm has conducted clinical trials and is pursuing U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its process that uses a patient’s own skin to generate SkinTE, a wound therapy that the patient’s body won’t reject.

Ned Swanson, M.D., is president and chief medical officer of PolarityBio. He spoke with Medical Economics about the medicine and business of biotechnology research in a sector that remains vital to patients, while still being under the watchful eyes of government regulators.