GlycoMira LLC (where I am the CFO and an investor) was a finalist for this year's innovation award in pharmaceuticals/ biotech.
Utah's innovative spirit on display in Salt Lake City
Business » Nine companies earn awards for new products.
By Paul Beebe
The Salt Lake Tribune
Notwithstanding the worst business climate in three-quarters of a century, old-fashioned faith in the future was on display Thursday at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City.
Tucked into a small room next to a banquet hall, an assortment of businesses were proudly touting new products they hope will find favor with consumers and maybe get an accolade at the Utah Innovation Awards luncheon saluting new ideas and the companies that created them.
The products ranged all over the map, from folding chairs with comfortable mesh seats and camping tents that can be set up in seconds to portable X-ray machines and a promising compound that one day may treat skin diseases and arthritic joints.
If there was a common denominator, each product is made or under development by a Utah company. And each product, the companies hope, may be a category-changer that takes its market in a new direction.
"This category is very mature," Jeff Meek, a salesman for Orem-based Mity-Lite Inc., acknowledged, tilting his head toward what he said is an "ergonomic" folding chair. "But innovation, regardless of the economy, is always well received."
Mity-Lite, founded in 1987, makes lightweight folding tables, folding and stacking chairs, portable dance floors and staging. In October, as the economy was imploding, Mity-Lite looked at the lowly folding chair and concluded there was a better way to seat wedding guests and PTA parents comfortably.
The solution was to replace the metal seat and back of a folding chair with a fine mesh that adjusts to people of all shapes and postures. Because the mesh is flexible, sitters can't be driven mad by pressure points that develop from sitting on rigid surfaces.
Mity-Lite will launch the chair this fall with a series of infomercials and other advertising. Meanwhile, the company has lined up sales meetings with Bed Bath and Beyond and Costco.
Nearby, representatives of another Orem company, Aribex, were answering questions about the firm's latest handheld X-ray machine, a battery-powered device that resembles a Japanese ray gun. At just 5.5 pounds, the device can be used almost anywhere.
"It can go places where X-ray machines previously never could go, like into developing countries," Marketing Manager Steve Dawson said. "It's so novel that the [Food and Drug Administration] didn't know what to do with it at first."
Aribex was founded in 2003 by Clark Turner, an analytical chemist who earned a doctorate at Brigham Young University. He had been working for a company that was designing an X-ray machine that could be carried to the moon to determine the composition of lunar rocks. One day, his dentist said it would be useful to have a portable X-ray that he could carry to Russia, where he did charity work.
Working by himself, Turner designed the company's first device, which went on the market a year later. The latest model was launched in 2008. It's being used by dentists in 40 states. Its X-rays have been used on an episode of CSI: New York and to identify victims of the Asian tsunami in 2004.
Glyco Mira, a Salt Lake City-based drug development company, is working on an anti-inflammatory drug based on a technology it licensed from the University of Utah last year.
The company's goal is to develop the drug to a point where it can be sold to another company, which would bring it to market. Profits would be used to fund research on other drugs, Chief Financial Officer Thomas Heath said.
The drug under development may be able to cure the underlying problem that causes rosacea, a skin disease showing increased redness or acne-like eruptions that affects mostly women.
"We chose rosacea because it's a common ailment that's poorly treated with antibiotics and steroid creams," Heath said. "This product has the potential to treat the basic cause -- an inflammatory peptide."
Peptides consist of at least two amino acids. In normal quantities, the peptide in question helps prevent skin infections. Too much of it causes rosacea, Heath said.
Utah invention awards
Nine companies were winners in the annual Utah Innovation Awards program, presented by Stoel Rives and the Utah Technology Council:
Axial Biotech Inc. » biotechnology/pharmaceuticals
Amedica Corp. » chemicals/material science
Sustainiable Energy Solutions LLC » clean technology and energy
Fusion-io, » computer hardware/electronic devices
Control4 » consumer software
Vis Trails Inc. » business-to-business software
Fertile Earth Corp. » mechanical devices
Thermimage Inc. » medical devices
Vortex Outdoors » outdoor products
1 comment:
Wow. You are so bigtime.
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