“Don’t talk to me about wound care.”

Remarked a major European investor at a healthcare conference last year. Wound care? Not important? Not interesting? Not investable? As the Chief Financial Officer of SolasCure, a company pioneering novel solutions in this space, I found this viewpoint not only surprising, but also revealing.

Here’s the reality: wound care is still a major global healthcare challenge. Chronic wounds, such as diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, and venous leg ulcers, affect an estimated 100 million patients globally. The human cost is enormous, leading to pain, reduced quality of life, and, in some cases, amputations. The economic burden is equally staggering, with annual treatment costs estimated to exceed $30 billion in the US alone. And yet, despite the scale of the problem and the clear financial incentive to develop clinically effective treatments for chronic wounds, both clinical advances and the investment capital to drive therapeutic innovation have been disappointingly limited.

Only a handful of advanced wound care therapies have been approved over the past two decades, and even fewer have achieved widespread clinical use. This lack of innovation creates both a vacuum, and an opportunity.

So what is the disconnect and why would an investor say, “Don’t talk to me about wound care”?

While it’s true that wound care is often seen as fragmented, slow-moving in terms of innovation, or overly dependent on commoditised dressings and devices. This perception overlooks the fact that the clinical need is urgent, the market is substantial, and crucially, the science is finally, and rapidly, catching up. Biotech innovation, precision medicine, and a growing understanding of wound pathophysiology are opening doors that were previously closed.

For those investors prepared to look deeper, this is a space ripe for disruption and there is a readiness to pay for innovative solutions. For example, US skin substitute sales rose from $1 billion to $8 billion in five years from 2019 [1]. While the drivers behind this growth and the clinical impact may be debatable, there is a clear demand for new wound healing products. Despite this, R&D wound care budgets and venture investments remain disproportionately low in comparison to other therapeutic areas.

At SolasCure, we are turning the tide, having invested over $30 million to date in developing a novel therapeutic approach to drive meaningful clinical improvement for patients with chronic wounds. If you are interested in learning more about SolasCure, or if you would like to share similar experiences you  have had whilst trying to drive change in wound care, please get in touch.

Author: Oliver Schofield, Chief Financial Officer

Oliver is an experienced biotech startup CFO having started his career in Management Consulting at KPMG. He is a CIMA certified accountant with an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.

References

1. Firth, S. (2025, March 15). Experts sound the alarm on pricey skin substitutes in wound care industry. Journal of Medicine. National Association of Medical Doctors. Retrieved August 22, 2025, from https://www.namd.org/journal-of-medicine/3385-experts-sound-the-alarm-on-pricey-skin-substitutes-in-wound-care-industry.html