Pune start-up invents gun that sprays skin solution, fastens burn injury healing

Doctors treating patients who have suffered major burn injuries often encounter unavailability of sufficient healthy skin from the patient’s body. Healthy skin of the patient is harvested and grafted over the areas that have suffered burn injuries. The healthy skin is stretched to cover as much area of the injury but it may not always be long enough to cover up the entire injury.

So, the surgeons bandage the remaining injured area, which remains highly susceptible to infections if due care is not taken. This skin grafting process continues till the entire injury is covered with matching healthy skin harvested from the same patient’s body.

The interval between two skin harvesting is typically three weeks, so the treatment can run into several months in case of major injuries. Sometimes, matching cadaver skin is facilitated from skin banks which is used in case the patient’s body is unable to generate new and healthy skin within stipulated time. But with fewer skin banks in the country and Covid-19 pandemic hitting skin donations, availability of skin often remains a challenge.

Moreover, the medical treatment and hospitalization for burns victims require multiple follow-up visits to distant hospitals, making it a costly affair, draining out the victim’s family emotionally and financially.

Pacify Medical, a four-year-old start-up incubated at Venture Center in Pune, could offer a promising intervention through its Skin Spray Gun both by reducing the hospitalisation period and the overall costs involved in the treatment.

“Patients who suffer from burn injuries often need to undergo multiple surgeries and are made to stay put for several days of hospitalization,” says Saiprasad Poyarekar, CEO, Pacify Medical.

It was after joining as a project research assistant at Biomedical Engineering and Technology Innovation Centre (BETIC) at College of Engineering, Pune in 2017, that Poyarekar learned about the several challenges in treatments involving burn injuries. Once the problem was identified, for the next two months, Poyarekar and two associates were involved in in-depth research, prototype making and testing of the gun with guidance from Venture Center.

On the operations of the gun, he says, “Instead of taking a single sheet of skin and trying to stretch it as much to cover the injury and repeat the process, using our intervention, we harvest a small size (about 5cm by 5cm) of healthy skin of the patient. This is then shredded into tiny pieces and soaked in a solution. The plastic surgeons then use the gun, filled with this solution, to spray on the injuries. In one shot, this solution covers the entire injury. New skin then regrows within a few days and the requirement for a repeated skin harvesting does not arise.”

The benefit, Poyarekar says, is that the patient’s stay at the hospital, treatment costs, requirement of multiple surgeries and healing time all get reduced significantly.

On a pilot basis, this gun has been in use at a government hospital in Pune. So far, the gun has been used while treating two patients at this hospital since 2021.

“One patient has recovered whereas the treatment of the other patient is continuing. We need at least six months to understand how the intervention worked,” he says.

About 95 per cent of the raw materials for manufacturing the gun, which is done in three to four weeks, are available in India. Thus, this medical device is currently manufactured and assembled in Maharashtra under Rs one lakh per unit.

Through the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) – an ecosystem to promote innovation in Defence and Aerospace to provide solutions to Indian Military – this start-up team is currently in talks with the medical teams of the Indian Air Force.

As a mechanical engineer and a design expert, experimenting and deciphering designs around him has been Poyarekar’s passion and that has now become his profession.

Venture Center, Poyarekar says, has nurtured his ideas from time-to-time.

“The Venture Center team mentored the company in winning the highly competitive Biotech Ignition Grant. This grant helped the company make its first functional prototype and show results. Pacify Medical is also mentored by Venture Center under the Atal Innovation Mission PRIME program, under which it has helped the company get investor and market ready. The company has benefited immensely from the Regulatory and Information Facilitation Center at Venture Center to guide its regulatory strategy,” said Dr V Premnath, director, Venture Center.

“There may be several college students and youngsters aspiring to become entrepreneurs like me but are not aware of the ways to get here, the funding opportunities and fellowships. Whenever I interact with youngsters, I tell them about BIRAC, Venture Center and BETIC like avenues,” Poyarekar concludes.