A severe sunburn in 1987 led a young pharmacy student to develop a product years later.

Omnibalm Daily Foot Therapy, a creation by University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences pharmaceutical sciences professor Bill Gurley, is used mostly by diabetics to prevent the recurrence of foot ulcers and is being tested in 121 Wal-Mart stores. It can be found in the diabetic sections of pharmacies in Wal-Mart Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and discount stores in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

The skin-saving cream is marketed by Balm Innovations LLC, a UAMS BioVentures startup responsible for taking inventions from the lab to store shelves. The footcream was once sold in USA Drug stores until the chain was sold to Walgreens. Walgreens decided not to carry it. After losing what was then its largest retailer, “We were pretty much going to call it quits,” Gurley said.

Balm Innovations’ ability to get the product in Wal-Mart stores “was the result of a pharmacy connection [at Wal-Mart] that we have via the UAMS College of Pharmacy,” he said

“It was a classic case of ‘not what you know, but who you know,’” he said.

For those who don’t have an “in” with the global retail giant, Wal-Mart has a page on its website with detailed information about how suppliers can submit products for consideration. Entrepreneurs can enter products for sale online through the annual “Get on the Shelf ”contest. Winning products are offered on Walmart.com and receive additional online marketing support. The products are also submitted to the Wal-Mart Stores’ merchandising team to determine whether they should be sold in stores.

Omnibalm joins the products of more than 100,000 supplier companies around the world that have shelf space in Wal-Mart.

“Some of the things we look for in supplier products are affordability, local relevance or filling a void in the marketplace,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Danit Marquardt. “We’re always testing new products and services for our customers.”

Gurley said his intense sunburn was the result of too much partying at the bar in a hotel pool in Galveston, Texas. He and some buddies were celebrating after Gurley and his team won two national awards for research when Gurley was a graduate student at the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

“I was burned to the point I should have been hospitalized,” he said.

From that incident, he began researching tea tree oil and its use in treating skin maladies. Also known as melaleuca oil, the essential oil is derived from the leaves of the Melaleuca tree, which is native to Southeast Queensland and the northeast coast of New South Wales, Australia.

Gurley said tea tree oil has natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. It also acts as a skin permeation enhancer, which allows skin cells to absorb it more quickly, he said.

Once he nailed down the right ingredients, he perfected the foot cream in the labs of UAMS. Friends and colleagues were his guinea pigs.

“For years, I’d just give it away,” he said. “People would come by the lab and stick their heads in and say, ‘Hey, Bill, do you have any of that cream on ya?’”

Balm Innovations President and CEO Lydia Carson was an MBA candidate at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2004 when she helped develop a business plan for licensing and marketing Gurley’s products through BioVentures. Balm Innovations also markets another product, Omniblam Skin Relief Cream, which is used to to treat burning, itching and dry or cracked skin.

Balm Innovations is small - it remains under the umbrella of BioVentures, the technology incubator at UAMS. It takes orders from Kerr Drug in North Carolina and a number of independent retailers. Individuals also can place orders through the company’s website. A percentage of profits began going back to UAMS and to Gurley as the inventor. He has been at UAMS for 24 years.

The foot cream has been available at select Wal-Marts since October, Carson said. As far as an increase in sales since then, she simply said: “We’re happy with the progress, for sure.”

Omnibalm is also undergoing a clinical trial for use in preventing recurrent diabetic foot ulcers.

Gurley said plans are to get Omnibalm Daily Foot Therapy into all Wal-Mart stores, “but that depends on sales in the current stores and the results of our clinical trial.” He also has ideas for a few more products, but those too will depend on the success of Omnibalm Daily Foot Therapy and Omniblam Skin Relief.

Business, Pages 67 on 12/15/2013