Six Local Tech Firms Research Health Apps

Six of the seven client companies represented by Virtual Incubation Corp. are pursuing technology that may eventually have health care applications.

VIC of Fayetteville is a “business incubator for startup companies that own innovative technology with significant commercial potential,” according to the company’s Web site.

Calvin Goforth, president of VIC, said client companies have landed 31 grants or awards worth a total of $6.6 million since the company officially started in January 2003.

Goforth said the dollar total has roughly doubled each year, with grants worth $860,000 in 2003, $1.6 million in 2004 and $3.9 million so far in 2005.

The six limited liability companies fostering technology that may have health care applications and a brief description of their core technology are:

• BioDetection Instruments is working on an instrument for rapid detection of multiple pathogens like E. coli and salmonella in ready-to-eat foods such as processed meat, poultry and even fruits and vegetables.

• Blue in Green is developing oxygenation and ozonation technology. Ozonation can be used to treat point sources of wastewater (like hospitals) to remove drug residue and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

• NanoMech specialized in nanoparticle coatings that will reduce wear and tear on surgical implants, such as dental implants or hip replacements, as well as industrial applications. The dental coating could enhance implant lifetime by as much as two times, the company said.

• Minotaur Technologies uses lasers to manipulate and deliver proteins or drugs directly to a specific spot within a live cell at a specific time. Researchers can then study the effects of the bio-chemicals on the cells.

• SFC Fluidics’ core technology is magnetohydrodynamic-based micro fluidic systems for “laboratory-on-a-chip applications.” Basically, it figures out how to pump small amounts of fluid (like blood, or other samples) through tiny channels.

• Vegrandis is pursuing technology that will provide laboratory-on-a-chip tests for water pathogens such as Cryptosporidium parvum or Bacillus anthracis, the organism responsible for anthrax infections.

Goforth said Vegrandis’ and BioDetection Instruments’ technologies are similar in their objective, but BioDetection’s is geared toward food that humans may eat, while Vegrandis might be able to test blood samples. The two companies also have different processes they use to achieve their goals, he said.

Ingrid Fritsch is a professor of chemistry at the University of Arkansas and the chief technology officer of Vegrandis and SFC Fluidics. She said the two companies are somewhat synergistic, in that the technology each is trying to perfect can be used to make one cohesive component, say a hand-held unit that tests blood for a specific disease.

Goforth said Virtual Incubation did not set out to foster only biotech companies.

“We really focused our efforts on the stage of the enterprise and the intellectual property,” he said. The company’s technology “has to be infant, but promising.”