How often do you find yourself with subtle post pandemic habits, like pushing doors open with your elbow or forearm, or perhaps you pull your jacket sleeve down over your hand to pull open a door handle? Basically, you are trying to avoid public touch points that have the potential to carry some sort of germs or bugs or other nasties that you’d rather not have on your hands. Things can be even worse in places like hospitals where viruses are an ordinary part of daily life and you can potentially cross paths with some really nasty, antibiotic resistant pathogens. But before I scare you into being afraid to leave the house, have faith that help is on the way.
That help is coming from a company called FendX Technologies Inc. (CSE: FNDX | OTCQB: FDXTF), a Canadian-based nanotechnology company focused on developing products to make people’s lives safer by reducing the spread of pathogens. The Company is developing both film and spray products to protect surfaces from contamination. The lead product under development, REPELWRAP™ film, is a protective surface coating film that, due to its repelling properties, prevents the adhesion of pathogens and reduces their transmission on surfaces prone to contamination. The spray nanotechnology is a bifunctional spray coating being developed to reduce contamination on surfaces by repelling and killing pathogens.
REPELWRAP™ film is the Company’s first product under development and is a protective surface coating film that leverages the Company’s award-winning nanotechnology. REPELWRAP™ film has demonstrated unique repelling properties that prevent the adhesion of pathogens, bacteria, and viruses, reducing their transmission on surfaces prone to contamination. This technology works by combining hierarchical wrinkled molecular structure with chemical functionalization to reduce pathogen adhesion and biofilm formation. When a contaminated hand touches the surface of REPELWRAP™ film, the contamination stays on the contaminated hand and does not transfer to the surface, so no more need for using elbows or sleeves.
FendX believes this technology will be important to control the spread of pathogens on surfaces that are prone to contamination. Research and development results, as published in several journals to date, have shown the original prototype of the film and the early-stage spray formulation to be effective in repelling and preventing biofilm formation of World Health Organization-designated priority pathogens such as Gram-positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and Gram-negative Pseudomonas and Enterococci strains, as well as being effective in repelling SARS-CoV-2 related viruses. The product is flexible and can be applied to most surface shapes. The Company believes REPELWRAP™ film will have applications in healthcare settings and several other industries such as transportation, schools, and sporting facilities.
On the road to commercialization of REPELWRAP™, FendX Technologies Inc. recently announced it had successfully completed the initial development phase with Dunmore International Corp., a global manufacturer of engineered coated and laminated films and foils. As part of the agreement, Dunmore successfully adapted FendX’s lab prototype formulation for making REPELWRAP™ film to its manufacturing production processes. Tests confirmed that the films produced by Dunmore exhibited similar repelling properties to the original lab prototype, leading to the next phase of development, where Dunmore will conduct small production runs on their commercial manufacturing line to create intermediate-sized films for further testing. Automating the manufacturing process for REPELWRAP™ film is a crucial step towards its eventual commercialization.
Along with REPELWRAP™, FendX is developing a spray formulation, licensed on May 16, 2023, which has demonstrated both repelling and pathogen-killing properties. The bifunctional coating uses wrinkled polydimethylsiloxane microparticles decorated with biocidal gold nanoparticles to achieve these effects. Lab testing showed significant reductions in pathogen adhesion and transfer on coated surfaces compared to uncoated ones, with a 99.98% reduction in colony forming units of MRSA and Pseudomonas aeruginosa on nano-coated surfaces. Development work began in June 2023 to assess and advance the formulation for initial scale-up testing and creating intermediate prototypes for further evaluation.
The Company expects to launch REPELWRAP™ film in the Canadian market in the first half of 2024. Management believes that the Company’s current level of cash will be sufficient to execute its current planned expenditures for the next 12 months without the need for further financing. This suggests that if everything goes according to plan, there’s an outside chance FendX could be starting to see revenue before they need to raise capital again. Whether that occurs or not, it’s a safe bet that this time next year investors will have a very good picture of what the potential for this Company could be.
FendX Technologies trades at a market cap of C$13.4 million.
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