Could an Emerging Biotech Asset Be the Key Missing Piece as Big Medtech Bets on Wound Care
Wound care is becoming one of big medtech's next frontiers, and Swedish wound-care leader Mölnlycke just announced a separation into an independent wound-care company. At the center of that landscape sits MediWound (NASDAQ: MDWD).
Wound care used to be the quiet corner of medicine, a business of bandages, gauze and time. That is changing. An estimated 10.5 million Medicare beneficiaries now live with chronic wounds, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Medical Economics, up from 8.2 million five years earlier, and Medicare's annual spend on the condition has passed $22 billion. The numbers reflect an aging population, rising diabetes rates and a simple clinical reality: as people live longer with multiple conditions, more wounds refuse to heal.
The industry's largest players are responding. Medline, the largest US provider of medical-surgical products and a major wound-care distributor, raised $6.26 billion in the year's biggest IPO in December 2025. In April 2024, 3M completed the spin-off of Solventum, creating a standalone $8 billion-plus healthcare company anchored by the V.A.C. therapy negative-pressure wound-care business. Across the sector, wound care is being carved out of diversified conglomerates and treated as a growth priority.
Mölnlycke Makes Its Move
The latest example came on September 16. Mölnlycke, a Swedish company founded in 1849 and owned by investment giant Patricia Industries, announced it will separate its surgical-solutions arm into a standalone company, creating an independent business dedicated entirely to wound care and antiseptics.
The numbers explain why. Wound care and antiseptics brought in about €1.3 billion in 2025 at an EBITDA margin of roughly 38 percent, while the surgical business delivered about €0.8 billion at an EBITDA margin of around 15 percent. By creating a focused, high-margin wound-care specialist, Mölnlycke is positioning itself to invest more aggressively in the category through M&A, research collaborations and venture investments.
One of those investments is MediWound (NASDAQ: MDWD). In 2024, Mölnlycke led a $25 million private placement in the company with a $15 million commitment, taking a seat on MediWound's R&D Committee. That followed an earlier agreement in which Mölnlycke agreed to supply its Mepilex and Exufiber dressings for MediWound's Phase 3 EscharEx trial.
The Missing Piece: Clearing the Wound
Before a chronic wound can heal, dead tissue has to be removed, a step called debridement. Think of it as clearing the rubble before you can rebuild a house. For decades, the standard pharmaceutical option in the United States has been SANTYL, an enzymatic ointment approved in 1965. It works, but it takes weeks of daily application, and clinicians have long looked for a faster, non-surgical alternative. Despite those limitations, SANTYL reportedly generates more than $400 million in annual sales, an indicator of the demand for enzymatic options in a market estimated at over $2 billion.
MediWound's EscharEx, an investigational enzyme-based therapy, is designed to fill that gap. In the company's Phase 2 ChronEx study in venous leg ulcers, EscharEx cleared dead tissue in a median of 9 days, compared with 59 to 63 days for control groups, while demonstrating meaningful reductions in wound pain and size. MediWound is now running the Phase 3 VALUE trial in 216 patients across roughly 40 sites, and expects to complete an interim sample-size assessment and finalize patient enrollment by the end of Q1 2027.
Mölnlycke is not the only industry name involved. MediWound has research collaborations on the program with eight companies across the wound-care landscape, a list that includes Medline, Solventum, Essity, Coloplast/Kerecis, B. Braun, Convatec, Mölnlycke and MIMEDX. Management describes these as collaborative studies evaluating how EscharEx works alongside each partner's products, meaning the companies participating are getting an early look at how the drug performs in combination with their own therapies.
A Partly De-Risked Program
MediWound has a strong clinical development track record and is already a commercial company. NexoBrid, its enzymatic burn-debridement drug, is FDA-approved and commercialized in the United States by Vericel and in Europe by Mölnlycke. The program has drawn more than $138M in non-dilutive U.S. government support from BARDA and the Department of War, and on September 22, the company announced an additional $3.3 million contract to develop a room-temperature formulation for the military.
It’s Showtime
The coming year is busy on both sides. Mölnlycke expects to complete its separation during 2027, and MediWound anticipates concluding enrollment in its Phase 3 trial by the end of Q1 2027, setting up potential registrational data for a drug that could replace a 60-year-old treatment standard. As big medtech focuses its resources on wound care, an asset that can debride a wound in nine days rather than sixty is the kind of missing piece the market may find hard to ignore.
Recent News Highlights from MediWound (NASDAQ: MDWD)
MediWound Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Provides Corporate Update
Newly Published U.S. Expert Consensus Aligns with MediWound’s Strategy for Chronic Wound Debridement
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