Ondine Biomedical, Inc

Ondine Biomedical Inc. is a proud supporter of the mission and goals of the PanAmerican Photodynamic Therapy Association. Launched last month, the Association’s purpose is to galvanize the basic science and expertise of photodynamic therapy in the Americas. This will help encourage the study and practice of PDT in the treatment of animal and human diseases.

Many of you may not know that photodynamic therapy has been around for centuries. In fact, the earliest recorded treatment using a photosensitizing agent and a light source occurred in ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago. Vegetable and plant substances were used as photosensitizers and sunlight was used as the light source. Patients suffering from skin diseases such as vitiligo had the photosensitizers topically applied to the damaged area, and the resulting photochemical reaction restored their tissue to a healthier state. In some cases, it even helped repigment their skin to its normal color.

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Ventilator-associated pneumonia is one of the most common and deadliest forms of healthcare-associated infections.  In the U.S alone, more than one million patients in healthcare facilities require mechanical ventilation every year. Up to 1 in 4 of these patients are reported to develop ventilator-associated pneumonia and up to half of them will die.¹

Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT), commonly known as Photodisinfection, is a non-invasive technique that used to study the reduction of biofilm in the lumen of an endotracheal tube. When patients undergo mechanical ventilation, an endotracheal tube is inserted into their throat to assist with breathing. This tube has long been recognized as a major factor in a patient’s risk for developing biofilm infections. For patients that require mechanical ventilation, such as those in ICUs, the biofilm can dislodge from the endotracheal tube and enter the lungs directly, often resulting in difficult-to-treat pneumonia.

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December 14, 2010 was a really special day for me. I was in my office when I got the news – I had been accepted to Harvard Business School’s MBA program. Now, as my time at Ondine comes to an end, I’ve been asked to recount my story, and how I got to the enviable position of being able to leave a job that I love for an unbelievable opportunity.

I began at Ondine in January of 2008 after returning from a backpacking trip around Western Europe. I had secured the internship the summer beforehand, and viewed it as the perfect opportunity. I had always been interested in business, but I was convinced that I would be attending dental school, having written the entrance examinations during my undergraduate degree. Ondine, having a commercially available dental product, was the hybrid I was looking for. So, armed with only my UBC degree in Cell Biology and Genetics, I set off to see what business was all about. Read more »

I’ve talked before about how photodisinfection works, but I want to take a moment to clarify what I think are the three most common myths about the technology we’re working on here at Ondine.

It’s Not That New

Our products are often met with scepticism because people are unfamiliar with photodisinfection as a treatment, or even as a science.  Truth be told, photodisinfection has existed for over 100 years[i], and the research behind it has a solid foundation in the literature extending back well over 20 years.  Check out this short reference list if you don’t believe me. So why, with all this research, is photodisinfection only creeping into the marketplace now?  The simple answer is that, until Ondine, most companies have been a little hesitant to put the work in to make it a success.  Photodisinfection requires a lot from a company: an engineering team for a light source, a microbiology team for the preclinical tests, a chemistry team for the careful formulation of the photosensitizer and a regulatory team to get the product cleared for use in trials and approved clinical use.  When you add in quality control, finance, administration, and sales and marketing, you can see the inherent challenges facing a company. You can trust me that the science is there (and growing), and Ondine has proven that it has what it takes to make these products a reality.

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We are thrilled to announce that the FDA has approved a human clinical study to investigate the use of photodisinfection to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). VAP occurs when a lung infection develops in a patient ventilated with an endotracheal tube and continues to be the #1 cause of healthcare-associated infections in intensive care units. In the U.S alone, more than 1.3 million patients are mechanically ventilated every year. Of these patients, 10%-20% will develop ventilator-associated pneumonia, and up to half of them will die.

“A successful VAP study would represent a key step towards the commercialization of this new application of photodisinfection which utilizes Ondine’s patented technology and products…(our technology) has been proven to be highly effective at eliminating biofilms in ex vivo models, it is therefore ideally suited for the elimination of endotracheal tube biofilms resulting in the prevention of VAP” says Carolyn Cross, Chairman & CEO of Ondine.

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Today, we celebrate our first blogging milestone – our 100th post. It’s incredible to see how far we have come, and exciting to imagine where we soon will be. You, the readers and followers of Ondine’s blogs, have played the central role in getting us here; your encouraging words, insightful comments, and guest blog posts have helped us tremendously throughout this process. Thank you so much.

Our goal has always been to make important points in bite-sized, digestible sound bites for today’s fast paced world. Our first one hundred posts have helped lay the foundation for this, and our next steps involve creating more engaging, relevant and compelling content. This will come in the form of videos, graphics, testimonials and case studies from the field.

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Carolyn Cross, Chairman & CEO of Ondine Biomedical Inc, understands too well the importance of supporting women in business.  This week, the Vancouver Sun Newspaper highlighted her involvement & support for this week’s Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) International Conference. This is a unique event that connects highly successful women from around the world in promoting the advancement of women across all industries. The WPO is an exclusive membership organization for women presidents of multimillion-dollar companies. Collectively, members of the WPO have 24,000 years in business, generate $14 billion in annual revenues, and employ 105,000 employees.

Carolyn Cross, Chairman & CEO of Ondine Biomedical Inc, was featured in today's Vancouver Sun Newspaper

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World Health Day is celebrated on the 7th of April every year to mark the establishment of the World Health Organization (WHO). Each year, the WHO selects a key health issue and encourages people from around the world to hold events and promote actions that will improve health. It is very fitting for Ondine then that this year’s World Health Day theme is “Combating Drug Resistance.” We have spent the last 70 years using and misusing antibiotics to treat and prevent common infectious diseases. Today, we have entered an era where bacteria have developed the ability to become resistant to most antibiotics, rendering them almost useless. It is therefore imperative that non-antibiotic solutions to fight infections are developed in order to preserve the next generation of effective medicine. Read more »

“Healthcare-associated infections are one of the biggest causes of avoidable harm and unnecessary death in the developed world” – World Health Organization

Healthcare-associated infections kill more than 99,000 people every year

Over the next few blog posts, we’ll be discussing a group of infections known as healthcare-associated infections, or HAIs. In the US alone, more than 99,000 people die each year from these infections¹. While this cost on human life is high, the financial toll is equally staggering . The World Health Organization has called the HAIs one of the biggest causes of avoidable harm and unnecessary deaths in the developed world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that HAIs add $35-$45 billion in costs to the US healthcare system each year². As such, healthcare-associated infections have become a costly public health concern that demands immediate attention.

HAIs occur when a patient acquires an infection during the course of treatment at, or a visit to, a healthcare facility. After a patient acquires a HAI, the ramifications are often excessively expensive and deadly. In fact, HAIs are responsible for more deaths each year than car accidents, breast cancer, anorexia or AIDS. On average, they add 19 days to a patient’s hospital stay, and increase medical expenses by more than $45,000³. Read more »

Ten years ago when I would mention my theory in public, my esteemed colleagues would give me either a heaven-bound roll of the eye or a terse shake of the head…depending on the audience. Ten years ago, my theory was considered radical, serving only to demonstrate my lack of scientific background. Ten years later, this theory is getting some traction and I am pleased to see a number of key researchers validating my beliefs^1,2,3.

My theory: The changing composition and characteristics of the bacteria with which we coexist, are causing directly or indirectly our major systemic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers, arthritis, etc. To restore normal health, requires a 2 part process. First, we need to target the removal of the bad bacteria. Second, we need to replace them with the original (good) bacteria, reinstating  the ‘normal’ compositions and concentrations.  Widespread killing of all bacteria, therefore, as in the case of systemic antibiotics, only addresses the first element of this proposed protocol but not the second part, as antibiotic use clearly does not do much to restore the original composition of bacteria needed to promote good health. Read more »