FDA approves potentially life-saving gel designed to stop bleeding on contact

NEW YORK (WPIX) – A New York-based company now has the green light to sell a potentially life-saving gel that stops bleeding on contact.

The Food and Drug Administration has cleared Traumagel for use by medical professionals in the United States. It is a hemostatic gel for temporary external use that's designed to control moderate to severe bleeding.

It is made by Cresilon in Brooklyn, New York.

"Flowable as a gel, which means it gets exactly where it needs to go. It can flow into a bullet wound, it eliminates the need for wound packing, and it starts working on contact. This product has the potential to be in every ambulance, in every hospital, and frankly in every medicine cabinet," the company's founder, 31-year-old Joe Landolina, told Nexstar's WPIX.

Cresilon already sells Vetigel to stop bleeding in animals.

"With Vetigel, we've saved over 60,000 lives of pets, but with Traumagel, we'll be able to save our first human life very soon," Landolina claimed.

Landolina said he was inspired to create the product by his grandfather, a retired pharmaceutical executive who also ran a vineyard in the Hudson Valley.

"He learned lab safety in the 60s, so that meant the day I learned to walk effectively, he took me off the school bus and tossed me into a chemistry lab and told me the best way to learn chemistry was to mix some things together," Landolina said of his grandfather.

Landolina first devised the idea for Traumagel at 17 years old while living in a dorm at New York University, he said.

"I was experimenting with algae and polymers that I had extracted out of algae, and I realized this gel would stick to skin and it wouldn't let go until I wanted it to," he said.

Traumagel will be available for licensed medical professionals by the end of the year. It has not yet been cleared for over-the-counter sales.