Ondine raises $3.6m to help commercialise Steriwave

Life sciences company Ondine Biomedical has successfully raised CAD 4.91m ($3.62m), it announced on Wednesday, bolstering its efforts to commercialise its photodisinfection technology aimed at reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

The AIM-traded firm said its technology served as an alternative to topical antibiotics, and effectively eliminated various pathogens including bacteria, viruses, and fungi, while avoiding the development of antimicrobial resistance.

In a significant achievement, Ondine said it had met and exceeded its 2023 target by more than doubling the number of hospitals implementing its Steriwave photodisinfection technology.

The advancement was said to be particularly critical in light of statistics from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which indicated that HAIs afflicted more than two million patients annually in the United States, leading to more than 90,000 deaths and incurring healthcare costs exceeding $30bn annually.

Ondine said its photodisinfection technology had garnered substantial interest worldwide, with discussions underway with more than 75 hospitals in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, and Canada.

“We have put great efforts into improving our commercial activity sales process, which has increased the speed of the average sales cycle from contact to deployment by 50%,” said chief executive officer Carolyn Cross.

“We have appointed distributors in the UK, Spain, and Mexico and are gaining real momentum.”

Cross said the fact that many hospitals were recommending Steriwave to other hospitals was “particularly encouraging”.

“We believe this momentum will continue to increase, and commercial sales will become more significant in 2024.”

At 1204 GMT, shares in Ondine Biomedical were down 5.56% at 8.5p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.