From a Multidrug Resistant Infection Nightmare, Comes a Novel Wound Care Platform

Turn Therapeutics CEO Bradley Burnam founded his company after his own horrific experience with a multidrug resistant infection. He developed an infection while he was in medical device sales and working in the field. Burnam believes he might have touched a surface in a medical facility and carelessly touched his left ear, unknowing that he was about to go down a path that required multiple hospitalizations and 20 surgeries for a severe skin infection with Klebsiella gram negative bacteria.

This ongoing experience left a good portion of his ear as an open wound due to treatment. The topicals they were packing his abscess with just wouldn't help the wound close. While he was dealing with this, he realized medical science had unmet needs within wound care.

He decided to read up on topicals and wound care. He then went about developing his own treatment in a makeshift lab in his garage.

He bootstrapped the project with some help from his family, and from it, Burnam developed a delivery system called PermaFusion, which is a novel petrolatum-based, liquid-in-oil suspension technology that fuses liquid and oil.

“We've figured out a way to harness a delivery system that we call PermaFusion, in a physical form that feels like Neosporin. So, it's essentially a familiar format, a familiar feel, but without a resistant active ingredient—and it's non-toxic,” Burnam said.

Turn is working on developing products for infection control, skin, and wound care. As Burnam explains it is a “liquid antiseptic.”

In the infectious disease space, Turn has developed its XEAL antimicrobial dressing, which is a single-use, sterile gauze dressing impregnated with the company’s Hexagen formula. It allows for additional wound management by combining the benefits of their non-cytotoxic antimicrobial formula with the protective elements of non-adherent, porous gauze. XEAL can be utilized for acute and chronic wound management, as well as post-surgical incisions.

One of Burnam’s main goals is to reduce health care-associated infections, and he is working toward helping others avoid the same experience he did.

Contagion spoke to Burnam recently at the World AMR Congress about his evolution from patient to wound care entrepreneur.