Antimicrobial paint-on bandages for Digital Dermatitis

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Bandages have two primary roles: firstly, they cover a wound to stop it getting dirty and infected and secondly they allow any ointments or other applied treatments to be 'locked in', so that they don't get rubbed off and can have their effect where needed. However, bandages do not do well in the wet- such as the bath, the shower or just outside in the rain. They generally should not touch the wound directly but, instead, a sterile dressing is used and all of this is time consuming to take off and replace, on a regular basis, as the wound heals. Our company, NoBACZ Healthcare Ltd, has developed liquids that can be painted or squeezed directly onto wounds where they rapidly set, forming robust barriers that naturally degrade and shed over time and can be re-applied as required. These paint-on bandages do very well in the wet as they repel water, do not need an under dressing and are designed to repel bacteria. They could be used for any trauma wounds or surgical wounds in humans or animals, but we have identified a particularly unmet need in a disease of dairy cattle, called 'digital dermatitis'. Here, cattle get painful ulcers on their feet, which are infected with slurry-dwelling bacteria, and these are terribly hard to treat. The cost to the farming industry in the UK alone is about £60 million per annum. Worldwide it is well over a billion pounds per annum. In a small study at the University of Cambridge farm, we showed that these liquid bandages adhere well to digital dermatitis wounds, have no obvious adverse effects, promote healing and overcome associated lameness one week after a single application. We now plan to show in a large farm trial that there is a convincing case on the grounds of treatment effectiveness, animal welfare and economics for the adoption of our liquid bandages by the dairy farming community, worldwide, for the management of digital dermatitis.