Safe Glove Pack

1.

Hands of health care workers are the main cause (up to 90%) for pathogenic germ transmission in health care institutions. Hereby, most pathogen transmission happens through the use of medical gloves. The use of common glove dispenser boxes leads to contamination of the outer glove surfaces, which work as a major transmission vehicle for viruses and bacteria.

2.

We offer a new glove box design for medical gloves that allows safe glove retrieval without touching critical glove surfaces. Our glove box invention reduces the virus and bacteria level on the surface of medical gloves by about 90%.

3.

As our product invention allows high reduction of cross-contamination of viruses (e.g. COVID-19) and bacteria, it can limit current and future spreads of illnesses. If implemented globally, it would lead to higher hygiene standards in health care institutions worldwide and, as a result, can save many lives.

Cross transmission of pathogens (e.g. COVID-19) between patients and/or professional health care workers in hospitals or nursing homes is one of the main problems of current health care systems. An example: Every year, more than 4 million people in Europe get infected with nosocomial infections. About 110.000 of these 4 million people eventually die. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 30-40% of these deaths could be avoided through better hygiene measures.

A main way of pathogen transmission lies in transmission via hands of health care workers. It becomes even a bigger problem when gloves are used.The usage of the common glove boxes leads to a contamination of dispenser boxes and of the outer glove surfaces, thereby leading to non-sterile gloves working as a transmission vehicle in hospitals. Thus, it is clear that the usage of medical examination gloves needs to be changed. Even for respiratory virus infections a high virus load can be found on medical equipment, especially on gloves. Inappropriate glove use can increase the risk of cross transmission via contaminated gloved hands even more.

A very easy and effective way to enhance hand hygiene when using these gloves is the optimization of glove boxes.

According to a scientific study (“Can the design of glove dispensing boxes influence glove contamination?”, 2016), when gloves are only touched at the cuffs during removal from specially designed glove containers, an average 90% pathogen reduction on the whole gloves is achieved (in comparison with standard boxes). 

We offer such a glove box design solution and, thus, can save millions of lives. Our glove box design for medical gloves allows safe glove removal without touching the glove surface. When using our product, gloves are retrieved at their glove cuffs without any outside contamination and cross-contamination of viruses and bacteria is significantly reduced. As the glove box design is very simple to implement, no extra cost for production and distribution is required.

Even after the current COVID-19 crisis, this solution can be very effective in greatly reducing the already existing and future spread of other viruses and bacteria, as hands play the most important part in contamination cycles. 

Our most potential customers are large distributors and manufacturers of medical gloves. They supply health care institutions and their staff (e.g. hospital and nursing staff, nursing homes), as well as the food industry, gastronomy, and retail.

We have over 35 years of experience in the international glove industry and also have a medical expert in our team. Through our experience, we realized that many hopitals (including the head of hospital sanitation in Austria) complained about how the importance of hand hygiene is undermined worldwide.

With our model an average 90% pathogen reduction on medical gloves is achieved. As there is no extra cost in glove production and distribution due to the simple and easily adaptable design change, it can quickly and easily be implemented in the production chain. As a result, hospitals, nursing homes and the food industry could order the new Safe Glove Packs from their distributors instead of the standard glove boxes without extra cost and save millions of lives.

Competition:

·       Glove dispenser boxes for non-sterile, medical disposable gloves made of latex, nitrile or vinyl are mainly used in the fields of medicine, care, and food processing. Current commercially available dispenser boxes have a dispenser opening in the middle of the box and cause cross-contamination with viruses and bacteria when the gloves are removed, as the gloves are usually grasped inevitably in the palm and finger area. Dispenser boxes for single use with the possibility to remove the gloves only at the shaft are currently not available on the market.

·       According to statements registered from two patent offices, there exists a similar design for glove boxes. However, it is not on the market as it comprises a complicated positioning mechanism and the required glove box dimensions are much larger than generally used standard boxes (see US-patent application US 2007/215628 A1). 

Our solution is different because it is a simple and low cost product, that can be implemented immediately as the new glove box design just needs to be ordered from glove distributors. Current production procedures can be used without change of machinery. The distributors just need to specify the preferred design to the glove manufacturers and order the dispenser boxes according to the new design. The new boxes consist of cardboard, they have the same dimensions as the usual boxes and no additional material and transportation expenditure is needed.

In most modern glove dipping machines gloves are already sorted and fall exactly on top of each other. If older machines are used, gloves are stacked manually on top of each other. Usually, there are 2-4 stacks of gloves in each box. Depending on the glove material and thickness, about 100-200 pieces of gloves are in each standard box, normally half of them being directed “fingers left”, the other half “fingers right”. 

The conversion to the new glove boxes at glove manufacturers should be easy, as gloves in modern glove dipping machines are already produced in a stacked arrangement. Similarly, the production of the first prototype glove boxes showed that all standard gloves could be easily removed from the new innovative boxes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdrO27b8AzQ

The problem which we work on is: In spite of the fact that health care personnel widely uses (non-sterile) medical gloves when being ion contact with patients, currently many health-care related infections occur and hundred thousands of patients die each year due to said infections worldwide.

Hereby gloves are usually provided in  dispenser boxes and they always get contaminated on their outsides in the areas of palms and fingers by their users when being removed from the dispenser boxes.

We propose a small design change of the medical glove dispenser boxes. Hereby it is ensured that gloves are not touched at the outside palm and finger areas at retrieval and so stay uncontaminated by bacteria and viruses.

Our new dispenser box design will not require any enhanced cost for production or distribution and it can be implemeted into current glove maunfacturing processes without extra cost or investments.

The design change will reduce immediately the huge amount of health-care related infections and it will save on the long term millions of lives.

Glove distributors need to be convinced that they will include the new safe box and/or disinfecting gloves in their product portfolio and that they will have the products produced and delivered on time. Besides, investors must be found to cover the patent costs for the national phases and to enable worldwide marketing. We are looking for min. 300.000 € funding. Furthermore, the distributors must be assured (by entering into appropriate contracts) that licensing costs will always remain extremely low and that there will be no price increases for the customer.

Contacts to glove distributors/producers who sell several billion gloves per year are also already established. We assume that a corresponding market launch can be facilitated by attractive contractual conditions combined with marketing activities.

·       Health care institutions: As long as the glove price is not increased, it will be easier for distributors to sell the product to health care institutions. Furthermore, we strongly assume that the number of hospital infections will decrease through the implementation of Safe Glove Packs.     

·       Distributors: Their costs would stay comparable as only low license fees would have to be paid. Furthermore, through the implementation of the new products, they might be able to enhance their own market share and/or profit.

·       Manufacturers: Basically, their general focus lies on cost reduction (mainly making the gloves thinner), but as the process adjustments for new glove boxes should be easily manageable, it can be expected that they will deliver on demand. Concerning the disinfecting gloves, more complicated process changes will have to be implemented.

·       Governmental organisations: Governments could introduce the inventions in order to appear as global pioneers in the field of medical hygiene. Especially in such times where the population is sensitized to the spread of viruses, this kind of cooperation would be very useful for both sides. Thus, we are also already in contact with public organizations regarding funding. 

4 people

Sabine Wukovnig, MSc, 24: Bachelor’s in International Business Administration, WU Vienna & Master’s in Media Management, HEC Paris. 2 years of professional experience in consulting and project management. Responsible for PR/marketing and project management.

Dipl.-Ing. Dr.rer.nat. Siegfried Wukovnig, 62: Chemical engineer, over 35 years of experience in the production of medical gloves in Europe and the Far East, including management and consulting for glove development and glove production at Semperit in Austria (Wimpassing), Thailand and Malaysia. In the project responsible for technical support, product/patent development and establishing contacts to glove manufacturers and medical device suppliers.

Martin Wukovnig, 26: Student at the Medical University of Vienna, shortly before graduation and currently completing his clinical practical training. 2 years of clinical experience in hospitals in Vienna. In charge of medical supervision.

Dagmar Wukovnig, 49: Office administrator, over 15 years of experience in accounting, communications, and office organization. Responsible for cost management, accounting and communication.

Wise Guys Accelerator, Accent Accelerator

Currently, to market Safe Glove Pack, we are getting in touch with glove distributors and manufacturers to negotiate licensing deals.

The goal is to keep the license fees for the patented glove box design as low as possible. It should be an advantage for glove distributors to pay these fees and, thus, be able to offer new, innovative products on the market and to attract new customers, especially in the health sector.

It is planned to start with a small market share with 1-4 big glove distributors to establish the product and expand this share over the next years through rising popularity and growing hygiene awareness.  

We are looking for funding and mentorship to implement our project within  a strong network worldwide and make a change. We want to achieve governmental implementation of improved hygiene rules and standardization/guidelines that gloves must only be gripped by the glove shaft during glove box removal. Solve could help us a great deal with this matter because it would get the needed public attention.   

·       Distributors: Braun Melsungen, Hartmann AG, Meditrade GmbH, Lohmann&Rauscher, Ansell SA, Cardinal Health, Safeskin, Becton& Dickinson, Baxter, Molnlycke,…

·       Producers: Topglove, Hartalega, Supermax, Sri Trang Gloves, Ansell, Sempermed,...

However, we also are looking for partners who help us regarding financial stability and a strong network to implement our product.