Business Spotlight: Corryn Biotechnologies

Based in Swansea, Corryn Biotechnologies is a medical technology company developing advanced wound care products.

Corryn Biotechnologies joined GlobalWelsh’s Business membership programme in 2024. We caught up with co-founder and director, Dr Luke Burke, to talk about their ground-breaking wound care technology and how it has the power to transform lives all over the world…

What does Corryn Biotechnologies do?

We are a company focused on chronic and complex wound care. I, myself, am a type one diabetic. This doesn't make me very special or interesting as there are around four hundred million of us worldwide. Around a quarter of us will suffer from a chronic wound in our lifetime. These are wounds which fail to progress under good quality care, and carry an up to twenty-per-cent chance of an amputation. Shockingly, the mortality rate for these patients five years after an amputation is worse than that of cancer. Clearly, this is a huge clinical problem. 

There are very few advanced wound care products making it to market and even fewer in Europe and the UK. So, we founded Corryn to bring a new and novel technology to chronic and complex wound care. Our mission is to create bespoke wound dressing solutions for every wound and for every patient. 

"The technology of wound care is yet to move into the twenty-first century... The dressings being used are just not fit for purpose meaning needless deaths and amputations."

Tell us about your product and what makes it unique?

The technology of wound care is yet to move into the twenty-first century. Essentially, in many countries around the world, wounds are still being treated the same as when Florence Nightingale was around. The dressings being used are just not fit for purpose meaning needless deaths and amputations.

We have created our own advanced wound care applicator device which produces materials very similar to the matrix that exists in your body right now between your cells. This means that the body responds very well to it. It's entirely painless to apply because it's sprayed onto the wound at the point of care and then it slowly breaks down over time. This is called a “resorbable” dressing, and it lasts between fourteen and twenty-one days, at which point either the wound is closed or a second dressing can be applied.

Whilst there are similar materials on the market in the US, ours is unique because of how it’s applied straight onto the patient. Usually patients are given a pre-produced material which is a set-size and in a packet, this can be both expensive and inefficient. So what we're doing is we're taking that technology and we are playing a different way. With our product the cost is much, much lower. Taking it from thousands of dollars down to the hundreds of dollars price point.

"We’ve been introduced to a number of great contacts through GlobalWelsh, especially in the United States, with market knowledge and connections we could really benefit from."

Where are you on your business journey right now?

We closed our pre-seed funding round in April last year which enabled us to develop our technology. Through our developments we have attracted a further £550,000 in equity funding from our existing investors, the Development Bank of Wales and other deep-tech UK funds. This, combined with the Welsh Government's Smart, Flexible Innovation Support grant, which is providing an additional £300,000, will allow us to bring this technology to a clinical stage. Most importantly, the funding will enable us to create further advanced R&D positions and start scaling the business internationally. 

Of course, as a medical device there is a long journey of safely developing a product to ensure it’s safe, effective, and suitable. So there are several regulatory hurdles to get our device to patients – which is, of course, our ultimate goal. 

What does the next few years look like for Corryn Biotechnologies?

We are aiming to initiate our first clinical trial at the end of next year which would enable us to seek approval to sell directly to healthcare providers, such as NHS trusts, which is really exciting. We're already developing relationships with innovation centres in Wales. There is the fantastic Welsh Wound Innovation Centre, who are world-leading as the world's first national wound healing centre. We've got close ties with them already and aim to continue working with them to complete our first clinical studies. 

We are also looking at the US and European markets as well via various grant funding. We have my co-founder Fabio, who’s based in Ohio, so we've already got boots on the ground in the United States and we’re excited to start exploring this market which is of course a huge export opportunity for us.

"We have created our own advanced wound care applicator device which produces materials very similar to the matrix that exists in your body right now between your cells. This means that the body responds very well to it."

How has being a business member of GlobalWelsh helped you so far?

I was born, raised and educated in Swansea but I left Wales for career opportunities, like many people do. Coming back to Wales to start my business, after being away for so long, I needed to build my network, find other people in the field and find initiatives that support us. That was a big reason for us joining GlobalWelsh, to plug into the business network in Wales and the Welsh network around the world. 

We’ve been introduced to a number of great contacts through GlobalWelsh, especially in the United States, with market knowledge and connections we could really benefit from. In time, we’ll be looking for further connections in other markets around the world and the GlobalWelsh Connect platform will be the perfect tool to do this. 

Connect with Luke on GlobalWelsh Connect >>