Partnerships and Elected Officials

On Wednesday of this week, we shared a press release (and social media news release) on a newly formed partnership with Michael Cress and his specialized team of healthcare industry experts. In the PR, our official words were "Michael Cress to advise BNG on effective busines optimization in the hospital and healthcare arena." Said a bit differently, we will leverage the skills and experience of Michael and his team to help us navigate the business opportuities for Ygiene and Ogiene in the hospital industry. Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) kill more people in the US each year than AIDs, Breast Cancer, and automibile accidents combined. Just ask the CDC. It's a big problem in the healthcare industry. We feel we can help. And we are extremely enthusiastic to work with Michael and his team to position BioNeutral and Ygiene to do just that.

Welcome Michael - looking forward to working with you.

Earlier today, we announced that our chief scientist, Dr. Andy Kielbania, has been elected to BioNeutral's Board of Directors, effective November 30, 2010. Andy joined the Bio team in 2005, has 35 years experience in the specialty chemical field, including expertise with coatings, adhesives, personal care, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and is the inventor of 21 patents. In our own words, "after more than five years of dedicated service to the Company, and tremendous contributions to our science, technology and platform for growth, we are pleased to add Dr. Kielbania to our Board of Directors. Andy has been instrumental in our progress to date, and we will benefit from his expertise in the years to come as we transition from product development to commercialization." Welcome and congrratulations, Andy.

Agreements and Lab Testing

We pushed two PRs to the wires this week. We also created two social media news releases from the same content. Both releases center on our Ygiene platform, and the partnerships we hope to cultivate.

Picking the latter release first, independent testing company MicroChem Labratory concluded that Ygiene™ Hospital Grade antimicrobial eliminated tuberculosis in under five minutes. 5 minutes! Though many Westerners see tuberculosis as a disease of the past, it's not-so globally. Our friends at Wikipedia report the following: One third of the world's population is thought to be infected with M. tuberculosis, and new infections occur at a rate of about one per second. The proportion of people who become sick with tuberculosis each year is stable or falling worldwide but, because of population growth, the absolute number of new cases is still increasing. In 2007 there were an estimated 13.7 million chronic active cases, 9.3 million new cases, and 1.8 million deaths, mostly in developing countries. Big numbers, however you slice it. A platform like Ygiene that can completely erradicate tuberculosis is an could play a vital part in addresing this global epidemic.

Our other release, hitting the wires this past Monday, announced that we have signed a “Stand Still” agreement with a leading pharmaceutical company, DFB Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (DFB).  DFB has developed patented sterilant technology and recently developed a FDA approved, patented high level disinfectant product for the endoscopy market. CEO H. Paul Dorman said “We believe BioNeutral's Ygiene and Ogiene technology may have opportunities in a number of markets, with the hospital, professional human and animal health care market as one of the most promising areas." Working - even at such an embryonic stage - towards a partnership with a proven pharmaceutical company like DFB is a testament to the game-changing properties of Ygiene.

Some Buzz on Disinfectants, HAIs, and The NFC East

We discovered an online "buzz aggregator" called Addictomatic. The application scours the web for content related to the search term you type-in. Addictomatic searches youtube, twitter, google blogs and several other online channels and neatly showcases them. It's an interesting application, giving you a real-time snapshot of the digital conversations (ie. .Buzz) happening on a given subject.

We played around with it some. This is what comes up when you search "Hospital Acquired Infections." From MRSA outbreaks to RID and NDM-1. It's a super-fast compilation of mostly relevant news and video. One of the finds that stood out was a Second Opinion (via PBS) short on Bacteria in Hospitals. Restaurants are required to be inspected. Not so with hospitals. Take way: Superbugs and the pressing need to fight them are on the rise. We at BioNuetral are looking forward to being a big part of this fight.

Another query on 'EPA and Disinfectants' resulted in a slew of information ranging from pesticides and healthcare to EPA approvals and antimicrobial wipes.

On a lighter note, the Dallas Cowboys are imploding (rejoice Giant fans) while Jerry Jones parties in Vegas.

AHRQ Awards $34M for HAI Fight

An article was published this past Friday. We re-tweeted it. Here's the beginning paragraph:

HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced the award of $34 million for projects focused on preventing one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States - healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). This new funding will help improve the quality of care delivered to patients and expand the fight against HAIs in hospitals, ambulatory care settings, end-stage renal disease facilities and long-term care facilities.

This is significant for a couple of reasons:

1. It validates - yet again - this ever-growing, under-acknowledged US health threat.
2. It sheds more light on recent trends that have made this collective HAI clean-up effort a criticality. "For example, with the dramatic growth in surgery being performed in ambulatory surgical centers and a rise in the number of these surgery centers in the U.S. over the last two decades - from 336 in 1985 to 5,047 in 2007 - ensuring safe practices within these settings has become more critical, particularly since federal inspections have identified breaches in standard practices to prevent infections in over 60 percent of ASCs."

A complete list and brief descriptions of institutions and projects funded in fiscal year 2010 under the $34 million announced today - 22 projects in all - is available here.



Daily Finance Article

On October 17, AOL's DailyFinance published an article entitled Eight Deadly Superbugs Lurking in Hospitals.  The article, written by Nikhil Hutheesing, explores the idea of our hospitals becoming a dangerous place to spend time, specifically because Superbugs are on the rise. "Superbugs have been plaguing hospitals in the U.S. and around the world since the creation of antibiotics. As more antibiotics are used, superbugs acclimate to them, and become stronger."

The resulting commentary has been robust.

Both Dr. Phillip Tierno, Chief Advisor to Bioneutral and internationally recognized germ expert, and Dr. Andy Kielbania, Bio's Chief Scientist, were asked for comments. From Dr. Tierno, "2.5 million infections annually worldwide which result in about 100,000 needless deaths and cost billions of dollars in additional treatments." Under the paragraph header "A Promising New way to Kill Superbugs," Dr. Kielbania introduced Ygiene, and how it has been engineered to "quickly and inexpensively help hospitals to kill superbugs... killing them faster and more cost effectively than alternative methods."

Have a look at the full article - and comments - to get a feel for just how daunting this epidemic is.