SRT-100 skin treatment (Sensus Healthcare Inc.)
5 February 2018. Two companies taking different approaches to treating keloids — visible raised skin scars — are integrating their therapies to develop an anticipated treatment that removes and prevents the recurrence of these scars. Intellectual property and financial aspects of the collaboration between Sensus Healthcare Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida and BirchBiomed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada were not disclosed.
Sensus Healthcare offers radiation treatments to treat skin disfigurations from scars and cancer other than melanoma, including removal of keloids. These raised scars generally produce more excess tissue than the original wounds to the skin, such as burns, cuts, severe acne, chickenpox, or in some cases surgical scars, tattoos, and cosmetic skin piercing. In addition, people of color are often more susceptible to keloids. They can grow slowly over time, become itchy or painful, and if near a joint, impede freedom of movement. Treatments tend to vary from person to person, with some therapies aimed at relieving discomfort from the keloid, rather than the scar itself.
Sensus’s main technology is called superficial radiation therapy that emits low-power X-rays. The company’s radiation devices send X-rays into the top layers of skin to destroy only keloid-producing cells, leaving remaining skin cells untouched. Sensus says its FDA-approved device, the SRT-100, can be used in outpatient settings. The company cites data showing up to 90 percent of keloids return after removal surgery, but when combined with SRT-100 treatments, recurrence rates drop to as low as 10 percent.
BirchBiomed is a spin-off enterprise from University of British Columbia in Vancouver, commercializing research by surgery professor Aziz Ghahary and company co-founder Ryan Hartwell. Their research discovered mechanisms for slowing production of excess tissue cells at the molecular level, making it possible to block the physiological processes causing keloids and other disfiguring scars. BirchBiomed’s lead product is a topical cream called FS2 that the company tested so far in an early-stage safety trial with 40 healthy volunteers.
Sensus and BirchBiomed plan to integrate the use of their SRT-100 and FS2 products to provide a treatment regimen to both remove keloid scars and prevent their return. Joe Sardano, president and CEO of Sensus Healthcare says in a company statement, “BirchBioMed has the means to provide cost-effective products that will work in conjunction with Sensus’s SRT to prevent and/or eliminate scarring.”
Birch Biomed’s CEO Mark Miller adds, “This is especially revolutionary given that expensive cosmetic treatments on the market show little, if any, efficacy in treating scars. Medical alternatives are also costly, painful for the patient and focused on healing wounds, not on preventing and eliminating scars altogether.”
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