Military Picks Bethesda Firm's Clotting Product

Earlier this month the Department of Defense recommended that soldiers carry a blood-clotting product, licensed to TraumaCure of Bethesda, to treat battlefield wounds.

The department's endorsement means all military branches will be able to purchase WoundStat, a granular mixture of minerals that stops heavy bleeding. Special-ops forces already carry the clotting agent in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Major blood loss is responsible for a large number of battlefield casualties, according to military surveys.

The clotting product was developed particularly for the irregular wounds created by roadside bombs. Often, parts of the body unprotected by body armor, such as the groin and armpits, are susceptible to shrapnel wounds. These traumatic wounds are large, complex and difficult to bind with gauze.

"People think of wounds in terms of what they see in movies and on TV," often small, clean holes, said Devinder S. Bawa, chief executive of TraumaCure. "In fact, wartime wounds are nothing like that."

Bawa said the company has enough WoundStat in stock to equip every soldier currently deployed in the Middle East.

To use WoundStat, soldiers rip open a foil packet filled with grains the consistency of kitty litter and apply the mixture to the wound. The granules sink to the bottom of the cavity, absorbing blood and sealing the opening.

"After you treat the wound, you have to hurry up and get the wounded person off the battlefield," said Kevin Ward, who led the product's three-man research team at Virginia Commonwealth University. "If the wound starts to re-bleed, one of the advantages of WoundStat is that you can mold it over the wound again and stop the bleeding."

Two years ago, Ward began developing WoundStat at the university's Reanimation Engineering Shock Center before licensing it to TraumaCure, which was created to market and distribute the product.

Since then WoundStat has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and independently tested by the Army and Navy.

WoundStat is about a third of the cost of the clotting product the Army has been using for the past several years, Bawa said.

TraumaCure will also sell WoundStat to the public. A few police departments and emergency responders already use it.

-- Kendra Marr