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Health technology company wins award for innovation

Published 15 March 2010

Nick Hewer, Sir Alan Sugar's right-hand man on BBC TV's The Apprentice, presented top awards at Sussex business awards night.

Health technology company Denfotex won the Gatwick Diamond Business Award for Innovation. The award, sponsored by the University of Brighton, recognised the company's latest Photo Activated Disinfectant (PAD) device, which it has developed for the dental health market.

PAD technology has been in development since 1997 and originally involved the use of lasers to kill bacteria. Denfotex began working with the University of Brighton in 2002 when the company sponsored a PhD student project. By 2008 the technology had been developed into PAD Plus which now uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the treatment of caries, root canals, gingivitis, periodontitis and peri-implantitis.

One of the main applications of PAD Plus is in killing bacteria during root canal treatment, which traditionally has a high failure rate of around 20 per cent. This equates to about 200,000 treatment failures per year in the UK due to post treatment infection. Conventionally, hypochlorites are used to kill the bacteria, but PAD Plus is significantly more effective as it kills 99.99 per cent of dental bacteria, yielding a higher success rate with reduced re-infection problems and trauma for the patient. The system is effective against antibiotic bacteria and reduces the risk of acquired resistance.

This technology has proved to be a successful anti-microbial, and the company is now looking to expand its use within the healthcare industry.

David Clements, Managing Director of Denfotex, said: "In recent years we have increasingly worked with staff at the University of Brighton and their contribution to PAD Plus has been very significant."