Ondine partners with Mela to evaluate Steriwave in NHS ICUs

Ondine Biomedical Inc. has teamed up with Mela Solutions to assess its Steriwave nasal photodisinfection technology in National Health Service intensive care units. The collaboration will rely on Mela’s Medicus platform, integrated in 90% of NHS ICUs, to allow hospitals to measure Steriwave's performance against their own standards.

The partnership aims to involve 6 to 10 hospitals with over 30 ICU beds each, potentially serving up to 20,000 critical care patients per year. Mela will tailor its data platform to evaluate workflow integration, clinical impact, and cost metrics. The UK NHS oversees around 300 adult critical care units and 5,000 ICU beds, with approximately 4,000 beds in England.

This move follows Ondine’s Phase 3 LANTERN trial, which demonstrated a 40.5% drop in surgical site infections across 18 Canadian and U.S. hospitals. Additionally, a separate 227-patient study at Royal Columbian Hospital showed a significant reduction in nasal pathogen levels and a 39.5% decrease in ICU pneumonia cases. Carolyn Cross, CEO of Ondine Biomedical, emphasized the impact of healthcare-associated infections, estimating they cost the NHS billions annually and consume nearly 20% of bed days.

Edward Willans, Mela Solutions’ Managing Director, expressed enthusiasm about leveraging Mela’s ICU data infrastructure to expedite the evaluation and adoption of Steriwave across the NHS. Steriwave is currently available in the UK through Ondine’s distributor, Mölnlycke Health Care.