The following content is the sole responsibility of the brand, spokesperson or agent. The information published is presented in a personal capacity and does not represent the opinion of Forbes México.
Every year, difficult-to-heal wounds generate costs close to 250 billion dollars, which shows the urgency of new solutions and greater prioritization of wound care. When Mexico and the United Arab Emirates approved a medical device capable of treating chronic wounds, Jasen Petersen, co-founder and CEO of Ionic Alliance Foundation, Inc. (IAF), considered that its relevance went beyond the arrival of a new treatment on the market.
Named Ion Biotechnology® Aqueous Ligands (IBAL)this class of therapeutic technology is designed as a microimmunological restorer. Petersen points out that it operates through a physical-chemical mechanism, deliberately different from pharmacological, metabolic or immunological actions. This difference, he says, is rooted in a philosophy that seeks to fundamentally change who can access healing, redefining regulatory pathways and accessibility.
Petersen questions the current state of wound treatment, suggesting that it often incorporates a set of counterproductive techniques that can lead to higher costs of care. In his opinion, these are interventions that fight cellular biology instead of supporting the body’s natural healing process. As he explains, the use of antimicrobials to eliminate pathogens can erode surrounding healthy tissue, generate cellular trauma and produce low-quality tissue, increasing healing. This, he adds, can lead to a cycle of interventions that disrupts the natural healing sequence, leaving little room for real biological resolution.
Petersen believes that the IBAL formulation approaches wound care from a natural approach. From their perspective, this methodology emphasizes working with cell biology through a sequence of supportive actions. He notes that he first tries to eliminate pathogens using agents that do not pose a threat to the cells themselves. This action, combined with the effort to restore the microimmunological terrain and redox balance, could allow cells to naturally move through their proper healing sequence. Instead of forced intervention, Petersen believes that pathogen elimination can become a viable outcome within a restored ecosystem. “Our approach is to provide a single intervention that works with cell biology to accelerate wound healing and reduce the number of additional interventions,” he explains. He also notes that IAF develops the fundamental and formulated foundation, which other companies can later use to create and market their own specific products.
From an economic perspective, Petersen considers the regulatory approval in Mexico to be of great impact. He points out that the mechanism of the device allows it to be classified as a medical device and not a drug, which could reduce both costs and development times.
“A device like this has the potential to reach the market within one to three years, with development ranging between $250,000 and $5 million, unlike the development of a drug, which can be much more expensive,” he says. In his opinion, this classification could allow prices with a humanitarian focus from day one, avoiding the financial pressures that have made the management of chronic diseases the main driver—close to 90%—of the health system’s costs.
Diabetic foot ulcers alone generate total annual costs of between $9 and $13 billion in the United States. “If we add psoriasis, eczema or non-melanoma skin cancer, the impact could become overwhelming,” he says.
The IBAL formulation encompasses a variety of delivery methods, including topical, nebulized, injectable, and even intravenous infusion, each designed to address dozens of conditions where local ionic imbalance and oxidative stress drive dysfunction. Petersen considers that the scientific basis is consistent, so development costs remain within the efficiency of a medical device. “Each delivery method leverages the same underlying platform, allowing us to treat multiple conditions with minimal incremental cost,” he explains.
With the development path as a medical device now open, Petersen believes the challenge shifts from raising capital to ensuring governance aligned with the mission. The cost of conventional development processes requires almost exclusively a focus on extracting return on investment. “Salutogenic treatments can arise from these systems, but following the traditional manual makes them expensive even when they should not be, leaving out the populations that need them most,” he says.
Petersen sees Decentralized Science (DeSci) as offering an alternative governance structure, where communities can directly fund specific milestones and acquire decision-making rights. This, he notes, can align funders’ incentives with patient access, rather than prioritizing cost-effectiveness extraction.
IAF seeks to demonstrate the full cycle of DeSci: from research funding, through regulatory approval, to scalability of deployment and ensuring affordable access for patients. “Many DeSci projects fund hypothesis testing with uncertain outcomes,” explains Petersen. In his opinion, IBAL presents a different risk profile: financing the deployment of a platform with regulatory approval, where the risk is mainly concentrated in execution. “DeSci creates an alternative,” he says. “The conventional manual is no longer the only possible way.”
Ultimately, Petersen maintains that the approvals in Mexico and the United Arab Emirates demonstrate that a salutogenic platform can reach patients through an alternative development path. Regulatory approval, he says, is no longer a theoretical milestone, but an operational reality for a platform capable of safely and effectively supporting cellular healing.
Following the validation of a new treatment in Mexico, the outstanding question, according to Petersen, is not whether salutogenic medicine works, nor whether the platform has broad applicability, nor whether the economics of the devices allow affordable access. The key question is whether an alternative development community will emerge or whether IBAL will end up following conventional paths.
Petersen is confident DeSci can work. Without sufficient community support, IBAL would follow the traditional manual and the paradigm test would become another blockbuster product. But if IAF demonstrates that DeSci can take a salutogenic platform from approval to deployment, a replicable model is created. Other healing technologies that do not fit the conventional approach would have a viable path. The implications go beyond IBAL.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. If you seek medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, consult a qualified healthcare professional or medical provider.
