Articles
22 February 2012

Spin Cycle

Utah’s Research Universities are Churning out Exciting Technology

by Marie Mischel

22 February 2012—

From renewable energy sources to the latest in entertainment technology, Utah’s universities have a plethora of interesting research spinning out of their laboratories. The potential for profit has attracted entrepreneurs who are interested in turning that technology into marketable products. Here are nine notable companies in various stages, from those developing product prototypes to those with a firm market presence, all based on technology from Utah’s research institutions: the University of Utah, Brigham Young University and Utah State University.

 

 

 

Pixelture

 

Two years ago, Justin Strong approached Mike Alder, director of BYU’s Technology Transfer Office, asking if there was a particularly exciting technology to be marketed. Alder pointed him to Dan Olsen, the architect of wireless pixels, and shortly afterward Pixelture was born. The software allows a group of people working on individual computers to display their content in a shared space.                     “What makes the technology particularly innovative isn’t the fact that it’s purely wireless, it’s the fact that it’s collaborative,” says Strong, the company’s founder and CEO.

            The technology won a Grow Utah Venture award in 2010, which allowed “us to have conversations with everybody from attorneys to financiers to players in technology,” Strong says. “Those relationships, more than anything else, helped us move forward to a point where we’re really getting traction.” The product now is in beta testing at universities, with more than 100 universities showing interest, Strong says.

 

Moxtek

 

Moxtek could be a poster child for the success of BYU’s technology development department. Twenty-five years ago, Moxtek licensed X-ray technology from BYU. Building on that technology, the company added an optics category that took off rapidly because of its applications in high-end televisions. The company’s ProFlux polarizer won the 2002 Silver Award from the Society for Information Display. Two years later, Moxtek was acquired by Polatechno, a Japanese company that left Moxtek in Orem, where it continues to expand.

            New optics products have found applications in 3D projections. “Most of the 3D movies use a display technology that has our optics in it,” says Ray West, director of business development for Moxtek.

            The company’s revenue is split fairly evenly between the optics and X-ray technology categories, West says. This year, annual revenue is expected to reach $60 million. West credits the company’s success to the “great technology” developed at BYU, which Moxtek used as a foundation to move into other areas.

 

 

Crocker Spinal Technologies, Inc.

 

Several offerings from BYU’s technology department have attracted the attention of Gary Crocker, president of Crocker Ventures, LLC, a private investment firm specializing in the life science field. Crocker Spinal Technologies has developed two products already, although they are not yet in human trials. Both products, developed from BYU research, are designed to help people suffering from spinal degeneration.

            Crocker is chairman of the company; the president is David Hawkes, who previously was involved with three companies specializing in spinal devices.

            Hawkes, a BYU alumnus, is emblematic of the kind of entrepreneurs who are interested in developing university research. “We do on occasion have people call us, especially alumni, and say, ‘I’d like to do my next thing, do you have some technology I can look at?’” explains Alder.

 

 

Catheter Connections

 

The idea for Catheter Connections came two years ago from a pair of nurses working at the Salt Lake City VA Medical Center. The idea was to develop a product that disinfects both ends of catheter IV tubing to prevent infections.

            In 2008, many insurance companies stopped reimbursing for catheter-related infections in the belief that they should never happen, so the idea for Catheter Connections’ DualCap product was very timely, says Vicki E. Farrar, CEO and co-founder. Although the idea was good, and the product simple, “it required a lot of really, really good engineering” to get it to the point where it’s now on the market with a patent pending, she says.

            The U’s Robert Hitchcock is the company’s vice president of product development, as well as one of the four co-founders; the university also provides office space and a clean room, Farrar says.

 

 

Credibility Assessment Technologies, LLC

 

Inventors have been trying since at least the late 1800s to create a machine that will reliably detect when someone is lying. The latest technology in this area comes from Credibility Assessment Technologies (CAT), which was formed about 16 months ago after a University of Utah research foundation presentation to Park City Angels. CAT offers proprietary eye-tracking software that acts as a lie detector; its market is law enforcement and other government agencies.

            The company’s science team includes four U professors who hope to have the product available within a year. Company President Donald Sanborn, a Park City Angel, has the company doing validation testing in Bogota, Colombia; additional testing is scheduled to start in August in Mexico City. 

            “Compared with the polygraph, our technology can perform a deception-detection test in 30 minutes as opposed to three hours,” he says, “and it’s a computer-controlled test that doesn’t require a skilled examiner.”

 

STORM

 

USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) has been building space-born sensors for more than 50 years, so it made sense for the technology to go commercial. The laboratory now has a partner in the privately held GeoMetWatch to develop an advanced weather forecasting system.

            “SDL will design, build and test the Sounding and Tracking Observatory for Regional Meteorology (STORM) instrument that will be the first in a series of the GeoMetWatch constellation of satellites,” says Curt Roberts, associate vice president of commercial enterprises at USU.

            STORM will collect and deliver advanced atmospheric sounding data to enable forecasters to better predict the path of hurricanes, improve advanced warning time on tornadoes and better predict flood potential in specific regions, Roberts says.

            Last year, the Department of Commerce granted GeoMetWatch a license to operate up to six orbital satellites, providing hyperspectral imaging and sounding products for advanced environmental and weather observations.

 

Solan

 

Renewable energy sources have been a focus of research for many years. At the U, researchers developed technology that has allowed Solan to create a prototype of a solar cell that uses one of the most abundant elements on the earth’s surface—graphite. Through conventional fabrication processing, the technology lowers the cost and increases the efficiency of solar power to the point where volumes and prices eventually could compete with today’s mainstream energy sources, says Brandon Lloyd, founder and CEO of Solan.

            “We still have a long way to go, but it is legitimately one of the more revolutionary photo-voltaic technologies out in the world today, and it was originated at the University of Utah,” says Lloyd. The company, which was formed within the last year by a joint venture between two private companies and the U, has piqued the interest of Fortune 500 companies, he says.

 

WAVE

 

With oil prices shooting through the roof, more attention is being given to alternative modes of transportation. Electric vehicles are already on the market, but the size, weight and storage capacity of batteries are problems that must be resolved before this technology can be marketed to its full potential.

            USU’s Energy Dynamics Laboratory has new technology to address this. Known as wireless power transfer (WPT), the technology is geared toward mass transit vehicles such as buses and trains.

            “Electrical infrastructure embedded in roadways and receiver coils mounted on vehicles work together to transfer power to vehicles only as needed,” says Curt Roberts, associate vice president of commercial enterprises at USU. “This approach holds the promise of creating a new class of vehicle electrification that is cost competitive with traditional methods and dramatically reduces on-board energy storage requirements.”

            USU is spinning out a company known as WAVE to take the WPT technology to market.

 

Thermal Management Technologies

 

Thermal Management Technologies (TMT) is a 3-year-old company founded by Clair Batty, a retired USU professor and former department head of mechanical and aerospace engineering. TMT’s thermal panels, which have a unique way of uniformly re-distributing thermal energy from a point source across a large plane, originally were designed as a means of satellite temperature control and component mounting, but the company now is exploring applications ranging from personal computers to commercial cookware.

            “TMT’s expertise is being applied to diverse industries from agriculture to oil and gas,” says Roberts. “For example, TMT is responsible for the Accelerated Vapor Recompression and Trilogy platforms now being deployed for oil and gas field wastewater reclamation by Purestream Technologies, Inc.”

            In addition, TMT recently received a Technology Commercialization and Innovation Program grant from the state of Utah for water flow metering. 

 


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