Team:ITESM-Guadalajara/Product

OUR PRODUCT

Overview

Biophrame Technologies is committed to be one of the most innovative high biotech companies in Mexico, providing quality and affordable raw materials that can help the development of the health industry in Mexico.

Initially we are going to focus on producing Chitosan with pharmaceutical grade to be used as raw material in health industry; however, thanks to the enormous uses Chitosan has in many industries, our production process provides significant opportunities to expand our market beyond, through the development of new products where Chitosan provides added value.

Chitosan definition, applications and properties

Chitosan is a biopolymer derived from chitin (a naturally occurring polysaccharide widely distributed in nature, especially exoskeletons of some animals such as shrimps and insects) with a unique chemical structure as a linear polycation with a high charge density, hydrogen bonding, reactive hydroxyl and amino groups that help Chitosan display excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity, physical stability, hemostatic activity and processability properties, which has attracted the attention of scientists and industries for its utilization in many applications of technical interest (Raafat & Sahl, 2009).

Chemically, Chitosan is a copolymer composed by β-(1→4)-2-acetamido-D-glucose and β-(1→4)-2-amino-D-glucose units (see figure below), where the relative amount of GlcNAc and D‐glucosamine (GlcN) monosacharides may vary giving different degrees of deacetylation (75–95%), molecular weights (MWs) (50–2000 kDa), viscosities, pKa values, etc (Raafat & Sahl, 2009).

Health Applications

Chitosan is widely used in health industry for diverse applications.

Other Applications

Besides the health industry, chitosan is used in many other industries.

Safety of purified chitosan

The safety of purified chitosan has been widely reported in humans (Decarlo, Ellis, Dooley, & Belousova, 2013):

1. FDA Approved Devices: purified Chitosan is present, as a secondary and principal component, in multiple US FDA-approved Class I medical and dental devices. For example it can be found in various finished product forms of the FDA 510(k) Premarket Notification cleared Class I products like: HemCon Bandage, HemCon Dental Dressing, HemoHalt Hemostasis Pad Wound Dressing, Aquanova Super-Absorbent Dressing, CELOX Topical Hemostatic Granules in Soluble Bag, and ChitoGauze (Decarlo, Ellis, Dooley, & Belousova, 2013).
2. Purified Chitosan is considered as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) Food Additive: Chitosan is considered as a GRAS food additive at the level of “self-affirmed” (Decarlo, Ellis, Dooley, & Belousova, 2013).
3. Cosmetic and Consumer Skincare Products: Chitosan, its salt forms (like lactate, glycolate, ascorbate, etc.) and some of its organic derivatives are listed among the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI). It is important to mention that chitosan has not yet been evaluated by the Cosmetics Ingredients Review (CIR); however, it is considered by the scientific community as safe raw material for skincare and cosmetic products (Decarlo, Ellis, Dooley, & Belousova, 2013).

First Generation Product

The first generation product of Biophrame Technologies will be a 100 g powder presentation of low and medium purity Chitosan (75-85% deacetylated/ Medium molecular weight), with standard chemical and physical properties to be used in:

• Cosmetic products
• For water and wastewater treatment
• As dietary supplements in food industry
• In the agrochemicals industry
• In pulp and paper industry
• In textile industry and photography products

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Future generation products

In the future, Biophrame Technologies expect to amplify its production plant for the generation of a new product: High Purity Chitosan (Degree of deacetylation: ≤90 %). This product will be sold in 1 g presentation with standard chemical and physical properties to be used in:

• The pharmaceutical industry for new product development:
• Pills and microsphere manufacture
• Oral vaccination
• Artificial skin drafts
• Sustained drug release, among many others
• Research purposes like
Cell therapy Tissue engineering Wound dressings Implant coatings Therapeutic agent delivery systems, among others

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