I was fortunate enough to be given a guest ticket to the...

I was fortunate enough to be given a guest ticket to the conference today.

The only presentations I attended was the last bit of one of Professor Harding's presentations (Multidisciplinary Team Working: Myth or Reality) and the presentation following by Professor Zee Upton and Professor Helen Edwards (Wound Management Cooperative Research Centre - An Australian Collaborative Research Initiative to Transform Wound Outcomes)

Even though I am not or have not been involved in the health care industry I found the presentations very enlightening. Made me feel like getting back into the corporate world!

I had an opportunity to have a brief discussion with Prof. Harding. It appears that all the results are now in and being analysed and that the results should be released as anticipated before the end of this month. The discussions indicated that the tests were still consistent with previous results.

The joint presentation by Prof. Upton and Prof. Edwards was very interesting.

A couple of the initial points highlighted were:-

* Diabetic amputations world wide are estimated to be one every 30 seconds!

* Wound treatment is the second most commonly billed medicare item.

* The chronic cost for wounds in Australia is estimated at $2.6 billion.

* Wound care is 30% of the total of diabetic treatment costs.

There was also an opportunity for me to have a brief discussion with Prof. Upton.

She is one very busy lady and has now been in the wound care business for 10 years. She wears many hats at work and is a very proactive person who is passionate about her work generally and specifically VitroGro.

She is expected to travel everywhere next year for TIS but needs to let them have a reality check on her available time!

The Wound Management Innovation Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) has been a baby for her and it has developed extremely well in my opinion. The organisation has an external board and their interesting web site is .

There is a lot of work being done to further the development of VitroGro and still many hurdles to overcome.

It appears that sales of VitroGro should commence in the EU and England by the 2nd Qtr of next year. By association some time after that, Australia, NZ and Canada should be included without the need for further regulatory processes in these countries.

The announcement of a 'business partner' was expected by the end of this Qtr but there may be some slight delay there - or not. This is the quirkiness of the business world where everything is not just 'cut and dried' to move forward.

The USA and some other countries have their own unique issues to be confronted but it is expected that they will be progressively resolved over 2012.

These are my ramblings and are just indicative comments. Do not take these as gospel as to have been 'written in blood'.

I will be in Brisbane next week and have been given an invitation to visit the QUT campus at Kelvin Grove to have a look at the research centre for VitroGro.

I was fortunate enough to also speak to one or two other people while I was there.

Interesting times ahead and I believe that there will be a lot of news over the next 18 months.

DYOR

Regards............