”After years of research we suddenly realised how to combine our findings. It was a eureka moment.”
The Amferia story:
Amferia was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, when three PhD researchers who had been collaborating for five years had the idea to combine their findings. In 2016, after several conversations among themselves, Amferia founders Saba Atefyekta, Anand Kumar Rajasehkaran and Martin Andersson conceived a new class of antimicrobial material while working at Chalmers University of Technology .
The approach was to utilise antimicrobial peptides—a potent antimicrobial molecule that Saba Atefyekta was investigating for biomaterial applications — in combination with a new amphiphilic hydrogel developed by Anand Rajasekharan for his PhD research on synthetic bone.
Within the first two weeks, we noted that the idea was sound and worked perfectly, which is a rarity in science”
During a conference visit to Montreal in May 2016, Saba, Anand and Martin dove deeper into discussions and realized their combined research had uncovered potential for real-world biomedical applications. ”After all these years of research we suddenly realised how to combine our findings. It was a eureka moment,” said Saba.
Excited by their discoveries, Saba and Anand returned to the lab and initiated the first trial runs, synthesizing the material and testing it on bacteria. “Within the first two weeks,we noted that the idea was sound and worked perfectly, which is a rarity in science,” said Anand.
After months of trials and more trials focused on optimizing the commercial viability of the product, the founders knew their idea had life beyond the lab and science publications. They knew they could develop a new, innovative product to target and kill bacteria in medical applications.
The team immediately reached out to the innovation arm of Chalmers University and filed for a patent. Then they engaged in intense market research, while continuing further experiments on resistant bacteria.
By late 2017, the first patent was filed, the hydrogel had been proven to kill bacteria — including numerous resistant bacteria — and was safely used in biological environments without toxicity. Most importantly, the founders agreed their first product using the new technology should address wound care.
By late 2017, the first patent was filed, the material proven to kill bacteria including numerous resistant bacteria
With further support from Chalmers innovation Office and a seed funding from Chalmers Ventures, Amferia was officially incorporated in September 2018. Both Anand and Saba, completed their PhDs and jumped on board to continue their full-time journey, translating fundamental research into new products for human and animal health.
Today Amferia is a talented team of seven, with dedicated personnel for business development, sales, clinical development, product development and production.
Protected by strong patents granted in Europe, the U.S. and China
Patent portofolio:
Amferia’s innovation is protected by three strong patent families. The basic patent is already in force in China, the U.S. and Europe, and pending in several other countries. Ongoing R&D continues to generate new patent applications.
Currently, strong patent protection extends over Amferia’s core technology and key intellectual property, creating the potential for rapid and robust growth into human and animal health care. Because the patents extend to both the U.S. and Europe, Amferia is poised to enter partnerships that enable market leadership well into the future.
Amferia's patent families
— Antimicrobial hydrogel technology (Application nr. 17512773) was filed in 6 countries and granted in Europe, the US and China, pending in the remaining countries. The patent is the foundation of Amferia's innovation and claims a new amphiphilic antimicrobial material, a device comprising the antimicrobial material and a method to produce the same.
— Mesoporous elastomer technology is Amferia's second patent family that claims a tough and nanostructured elastomeric material for various medical device applications.
— Utilizing antimicrobial technology in spray form was filed in 2020 and is currently granted in Sweden (1951495-9) and expected to be granted in other countries by early 2023. Utilizing the Amferia antimicrobial technology in spray form that can be applied to deeper wounds, bleeding wounds and surfaces for rapid disinfection.
Amferia has been recognised by numerous organisations for its innovative research, entrepreneurial drive, business traction in multiple sectors and swift progress towards clinical translation.
Anand Rajasekharan, PhD, CEO & Co-founder. Anand holds a PhD in Materials Science from Chalmers University of Technology and is one of the inventors of the material platform serving Amferia’s healthcare technology.
Saba Atefyekta, PhD, Sales Director & Co-founder.Co- inventor behind Amferia’s technology. Holds a PhD in Materials Science from Chalmers University and her thesis describes the antimicrobial platform of Amferia’s technology. Today, she leads business development in human and animal health.
Martin Andersson, PhD, R&D Director & Co-founder. Fifteen years’ experience in biomedical research with 100 scientific publications. He has previously started a med-tech company for bone implants with successful implementation of products into the market. Professor, Materials Science at Chalmers University.
Ingvar Karlsson, CFO. Previously CFO from both public and private companies covering life science and medtech, automotive and premium consumer goods spanning over 40 years.
Daniel Hagberg, PhD, CTO. Ten years experience in product development and manufacturing from the speciality chemicals and healthcare industry. PhD in Materials Science from Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Rojan Modaresi, DVM, PhD, Product Manager, Animal Health. Responsible for Amferia’s wound products for animal care and works at the interface between product development and customer interaction at veterinary clinics across Europe. Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and PhD in Microbiology from Urmia University, Iran.
Edvin Blomstrand, PhD., Research Engineer. Responsible for the product design and device optimization for wound care applications. Skilled in material design, antimicrobial testing and cell-material assessment. PhD in Materials Science from Chalmers University.
Board of Directors
Agneta Edberg, Chair. Previously Nordic Senior VP of Mylan, COO Bactiguard, Marketing Director at Pharmacia, Pfizer and CEO NM Pharma and several life science board assignments
Björn Engström. Previously Co-founder and Copywriter at Forsman & Bodenfors, several board assignments in scale-up companies and experienced in life-science marketing
Saba Atefyekta, PhD, Co-founder. PhD in Materials Science from Chalmers University and co-inventor of Amferia Technology
Martin Andersson, PhD, Co-founder. Professor in Materials Science at Chalmers University and co-inventor of Amferia Technology. Co-founder of Promimic AB, an bone-implant scale-up.
Ulrika Åberg. Investment manager at Almi Invest, previously IP lawyer at Mölnlycke Health care.
Alexandra De Wever Treschow, PhD, Experienced CEO of life science companies, presently CEO of NordX Pharma, previously at Aprovix AB, PhD in Gene Therapy
Jonas Bergman, Investment manager at Chalmers Ventures, previously CEO of life science company Integrum, and consultant at Triathlon AB
Advisors
Dr. Christian Nees, Clinical Advisor Animal Health, Veterinary surgeon with 35 years of experience in surgery and wound care. Previously the head of Animal Health Hospital in Weingarten (Kleintierzentrum Weingarten), Germany.
Amferia AB is happy to announce the appointment of Ingvar Karlsson as the Chief Financial Officer. Ingvar has extensive background in financial management within a broad area including the life-science industry.
Ingvar has a solid background as the CFO from both public and private companies covering Life science and Medtech, Automotive and premium consumer goods spanning over 40 years. Today, he works both on the Board of cutting-edge life-science SME’s as well as provide service as CFO for their successful growth. Ingvar’s extensive knowledge in financial management, supply chain processes and capital planning of life science companies, will be important for Amferia’s scale-up journey in both human and animal wound care.
Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia − “It is an honour to work with Ingvar, whose impressive knowledge of the field and guidance greatly strengthens Amferia’s position as a competent and cutting-edge SME with precision in its numbers. We look forward to jointly grow the company, as we set our sights on global growth of Amferia both in human and animal wound care.
Ingvar Karlsson, CFO of Amferia − “I look forward working with the team at Amferia. The company has a very interesting journey ahead. Amferia is en route towards internationalization and distribution of its products through partnerships in multiple countries. I am glad to work with companies like Amferia improving healthcare for both humans and animals. ”
Amferia selected as one of Sweden’s best, young deep technology companies by Ny Teknik’s prestigious 33-listan
November 20, 2023
The significance of the list is that Amferia, as one among the 33 young Swedish companies is deemed to have high potential to become future growth companies. The companies selected to be on the list after rigorous evaluation by the jury, are judged to be innovative, have scalable business models and have the potential to grow quickly on the Swedish and global market.
Infections are a difficult healthcare problem, exacerbated by antibiotic resistance. Amferia’s innovative antimicrobial material is an effective, safe and sustainable way to address life threatening bacterial infections, especially within the filed of medical devices. This is equally important in both human and animal health, and we are bringing products built on our technology rapidly to the market.
The recognition by Nyteknik is an important achievement for Amferia attesting to our measured yet rapid progress of a deep technology breakthrough innovation to the clinic. And most importantly, our deepest gratitude to our collaborators in the clinics who clearly saw the need and importance of our technology in addressing an acute global healthcare threat.
Our colleague Edvin Blomstrand now holds a PhD in Materials Science from Chalmers
September 26, 2023
Amferia is thrilled to announce that our exceptional Research Engineer, Edvin Blomstrand, has successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled "Amphiphilic Hydrogels Functionalized with Antimicrobial Peptides for Wound Care" at Chalmers tekniska högskola. He now proudly holds the esteemed title of Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science. During his PhD journey, Edvin's contributions have played a pivotal role in shaping our product development at Amferia. We couldn't be more excited to have him continue this remarkable journey with us. With him on board, we are prepared more than ever to pursue our goals, push the boundaries of innovation, and make a meaningful impact in our field.
Join us in congratulating Dr. Blomstrand on this brilliant achievement, and we look forward to the amazing things to accomplish together in the future!
A warm welcome to Amferia’s new Board Members
September 4, 2023
We are proud to introduce the addition of three remarkable individuals to our Board of Directors. Each new member brings a wealth of diverse experience and knowledge to our team which will further strengthen Amferia’s position in addressing antibiotic resistance and infection management.
Alexandra De Wever Treschow has over 15 years of leadership experience within life science management and consulting including 4 years as CEO of diagnostics company Aprovix. Prior to that, Alexandra was managing partner of Stockholm-based inRikta Analys. She is co-founder and currently serves as CEO of NORDx Pharma. She holds a PhD in Gene Therapy from Karolinska Institutet and an MBA from Quantic School of business and Technology, USA.
Ulrika Ågren is presently an Investment Manager at Almi Invest focusing on medtech, healthtech and greentech. Ulrika has over 20 years of experience in the med-tech industry with specialisations in intellectual property, innovation portfolio management, project management and business development. She is a certified board member and previously worked for global medtech companies such as Mölnlycke Health Care where she was Global IP Director and the biotech company Cellartis (now Takara Bio). Before joining Almi Invest Ulrika coached HealthTech startups at Sahlgrenska Science Park.
Jonas Bergman serves as an Investment Director at Chalmers Ventures. He brings with him great insight into the operations of med-tech companiesand how they can create long-term value. Jonas has a Master ofScience in Engineering fromChalmers University of Technology and has been CEO of both listed and unlisted life-sciencecompanies for many years. He has also worked as a management consultant forover 7 years with a particular focus in Biotech.
Amferia’s first human clinical study published
June 26, 2023
We are thrilled to share that our dedicated team at Amferia in collaboration with Chalmers tekniska högskola has published a randomised controlled study in the Journal of Wound Care that demonstrates the outstanding antibacterial performance of our hydrogel wound dressing. We studied our wound dressing on intact human skin as a model to evaluate the speed and efficacy of the dressing to kill bacteria — and the results were truly remarkable!
By utilizing the Amferia Antimicrobial Hydrogel technology, we eradicated bacteria when placed in contact with skin within a short period of three hours.
By utilizing the Amferia Antimicrobial Hydrogel, bacteria was eradicated within three hours.
These findings demonstrate the potential of our antibacterial wound dressing to significantly reduce the risk of infection in wounds, offering new possibilities for improved patient outcomes. This study lays the foundation for our future clinical studies in human wounds.
Amferia raises SEK 15.4 million to launch innovative antimicrobial wound care dressing
January 27, 2023
The financing was raised from Almi Invest, Chalmers Ventures, and with several angel investors to support launch of Amferia’s first product, a wound care dressing with a patented hydrogel that actively combats infections and kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Amferia's innovative, anti-microbial solution can be used on wide-ranging wounds from simple skin injuries, post-operative wounds to chronic wounds and trauma / burn wounds. The WHO predicts that antibiotic-resistant infections, including those from wounds could become one of the leading causes of both illness and death over the next ten years.
“I am grateful to all our committed investors: Every year, nearly 1 million people die globally because of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria and at least a quarter of those infections begin with a simple wound on the skin. Amferia's wound care solution is a game-changer and will save lives. The resistance problem is even more challenging within the animal health sector.”, says Agneta Edberg, Chairperson of Amferia.
Amferia's wound care solution is a game-changer and will save lives.
Amferia's patented material, an antimicrobial amphiphilic hydrogel, has been developed through several years of research in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology and contains molecules inspired by body’s own immune system. The material instantly kills all bacteria (even antibiotic resistant) by binding to and disrupting their cell membranes, all without damaging the body’s own cells or entering the bloodstream. The first product from this technology is a hydrogel wound-care dressing for dry-to-low exuding wounds, while the material is also being investigated for development in several other areas, including sprays for deep wounds, and coatings for implants and a variety of catheters. In September of 2022, Amferia launched its first wound dressings for animal health in Sweden and plan on expanding across Europe during 2023. In parallel, the company is preparing to file for regulatory clearance in the US for human health.
The wound care market currently generates sales for over US $ 2 billion globally with a projected CAGR of 5 %. However, existing alternatives on the market often contain antibiotics that carry the risk of causing resistance or antiseptics that may harm body cells and negative environmental impact.
We already have our first product on the market for animal wound care in Sweden
“The investment enables us to perform three key tasks: scale up and launch our products for animal health in Europe, file for FDA clearance of the application for human health and thirdly initiate more clinical studies in both market segments. This ambition is supported by the fact that we already have our first product on the market for animal wound care in Sweden”, says Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia.
Pre-clinical research on new antimicrobial spray and coating technology published
January 26, 2023
Amferia announced today that it has, in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology, published two important scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals that describe the pre-clinical studies of its platform technology, Amphiphilic Antimicrobial Hydrogel as sprays and coatings for various medical device applications.
Amferia’s platform technology is an amphiphilic antimicrobial hydrogel material that can rapidly bind and kill all types of bacteria, even resistant bacteria, without harming the body. In an effort to enable further applications of this material, Amferia collaborated with Chalmers University of Technology to test and develop the patented technology as sprayable formulation and as coatings fight off bacterial infections in medical devices.
Today, the extensive pre-clinical data from this research has been published in two scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals*. The research was built on the formulation of the Amphiphlic Antimicrobial Hydrogel as small discrete particles, which were then further developed as sprayable form for wound care and as a coating on existing materials like silicone catheters. The results from these studies show powerful antimicrobial effect, safety to human cells while being stable in biological environments such as serum.
The material has been shown to be effective against many different types of bacteria, including those that are resistant to antibiotics
Martin Andersson, Professor at Chalmers University and Co-founder of Amferia − “Our innovation can have a dual impact in the fight against antibiotic resistance. The material has been shown to be effective against many different types of bacteria, including those that are resistant to antibiotics, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), while also having the potential to prevent infections and thus reduce the need for antibiotics,.”
The research was undertaken based on the strong potential of Amferia’s technology, but also based on a clear need from the human and animal health care system on fighting infections in the context of deep infected wounds as well as for various medical devices such as urinary catheters. Amferia and Chalmers will continue to collaborate on this research and are planning to further study the use of the new formulations in clinical settings, both for human and animal care.
We are seeing the great potential of our technology going beyond wound care into the realm of broader medical devices
Anand Rajasekharan,CEO of Amferia − “This is an important achievement for Amferia as we are seeing the great potential of our technology going beyond wound care into the realm of broader medical devices such as coatings and sprayable systems. Our current product is a wound dressing and we look forward to follow-up the same with these pipeline products that will have a stronger impact for addressing antibiotic resistance.”
Agneta has a solid background from the global Life science and Medtech field spanning over 30 years in leading roles such as; Sales &Marketing Director of Pharmacia (Pfizer), Senior VP and CEO of Mylan NordicPharmaceuticals, CEO of NM Pharma and more recently as the COO of Bactigaurd that manufactures a variety of antimicrobial device. Today, she works on theBoard of cutting-edge life-science SME’s guiding the companies for future success. Agneta’s extensive knowledge in the life science industry will be important for Amferia’s scale-up journey in both human and animal wound care.
Anand Kumar Rajasekharan, CEO of Amferia − “It is an honour to work with Agenta, whose impressive knowledge of the field and guidance greatly strengthens Amferia’s position as a competent and cutting-edge SME. We look forward to jointly achieve the upcoming key milestones such as the first product launch for animal health, FDA and CE regulatory processes for human health and establishing a successful sales and marketing foundation for Amferia.”
Agneta Edberg − “Amferia is a company every board person wishes to work for. The technology offers a paradigm shift in wound care with nontoxic properties still killing bacteria, even the resistant ones. In a world where antimicrobial resistance is an increasing challenge to humanity, I am grateful to be a part of reducing that threat”
Amferia at the European Wound Management Association (EWMA) congress 2022 in Paris
May 17, 2022
EWMA is an important congress that brings together clinicians and healthcare industry for important discussions within wound care for humans and animals. Amferia is eager to present our science, antimicrobial technology and introduce our first wound dressings for animal and human wound care. We welcome all attendees to our stand located in
room 252A at the congress venue, Palais des Congrès de Paris, to know more about Amferia and clinical evidence for human and animal wound care as well as for an introduction to our soon-to-be launched wound dressings for animal wound care. We also invite all attendees to our scientific talk at the symposium for Veterinary Wound Healing Association (VWHA) on 24th May at 08:45 hrs room 252A.
US patent granted
May 9, 2022
Amferia AB announced today that it has been granted the foundational patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)for its innovative antimicrobial material based on an amphiphilic antimicrobial hydrogel. The company is now in its final stages of product development for wound care applications and aims to launch the first product within animal health during 2022.
