Kerecis' Omega3 product now covered by Medicare in all 50 US States
Kerecis, the company using fish skin to heal human wounds and tissue damage, will present results of eight studies of its technology at the Symposium for the Advancement of Wound Care (SAWC) meeting to be held April 5 to 9. The company also announced that Medicare now reimburses for its fish-skin treatment nationwide.
The company received investment from NSA Ventures in 2010. In 2014, a group of Icelandic investors, led by founder Guðmundur F. Sigurjónsson, acquired NSA Ventures’ stake in the company.
Kerecis Omega3 is intact fish skin that is rich in naturally occurring Omega3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. When grafted onto damaged human tissue such as a wound, the material provides a template for cellular ingrowth that facilitates healing and regeneration.
Absence of disease transmission risk allows the Kerecis fish skin to be processed in a gentle manner preserving structure and content. The result is that Kerecis Omega3 is more similar to human skin than any other skin substitute on the market today. This has relevance in wound closure as shown by multiple clinical trials, including a double-blind, comparative, randomized control trial (N=162) where fish skin favorably compared with mammalian skin substitutes. Furthermore, fish skin is rich in Omega3, which possesses multiple health benefits.
“Our scientific results show that our technology improves wound care,” said G. Fertram Sigurjonsson, CEO of Kerecis. “We continue to expand our scientific program and are reporting the results of some of our research here at the conference. Fish skin is incrementally gaining recognition as an effective wound treatment technology, and we expect its use to accelerate given the national coverage by Medicare.
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