Wednesday, March 26, 2008 New technology is shared during annual briefing
By Richard Craver JOURNAL REPORTER
Patti Shugart, the vice president of Carolina Liquid Chemistries, works in a wet lab. The company was one of the first tenants.
The seventh-annual technology briefing yesterday showcased ideas that are new and ancient in scope.
The 10 presenters at the briefing at Salem College showcased a range of products and services, from a permeable-pavement system to a digital method for eliminating paperwork for clinical medical trials.
“These companies are helping to form the foundation of Winston-Salem’s technology community, along with the more than 60 companies that have preceded them in this event,” said Mark Wright, the director for news and media for Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Pine Hall, founded in 1922, was by far the oldest company at the briefing. Its presentation focused on products that it introduced in January: StormPave and RainPave. The new pavers, which cost about 10 percent more than traditional ones, allow storm water to filter through into the ground rather than becoming runoff.
“It’s really a new twist on an ancient pavement option,” said Ted Corvey, the marketing director for Pine Hall. “The pavers capture the first inch of rain, where most pollutants in storm water tends to collect.
“They also help with reducing erosion and lessening the runoff flow into rivers. They can complement or even replace retention ponds in some instances. And you can walk and drive on them.”
Pilot Therapeutics used the briefing to introduce its new name - GeneSmart Health - and a new focus on health-and-wellness products.
“We feel there is a robust pipeline of opportunities for our research in therapeutics, ingredients and wellness,” said Ross Consaul, the chief executive of GeneSmart. Those include products aimed at preventing and treating allergies, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, eczema, psoriasis and depression.
Carolina Liquid Chemistries Corp. is one of the first two tenants of the Wet Lab Launch Park at Piedmont Triad Research Park. It makes and distributes chemistry re-agents that are used for diagnostic applications at hospitals and private laboratories worldwide.
“Not only is operating out of the Wet Lab saving us in development time, but it’s also helping our customers, such as hospitals, clinics and research labs, provide their services faster, as well,” said Phil Shugart, the president of Carolina Liquid.
Clinical Ink’s marketing pitch to groups doing clinical medical trials is essentially to keep the pen and lose the paper.
The company, founded in 2006, provides customers with proprietary software that allows data entry on customized documents, but with the look and feel of traditional paper data-collection forms. It plans to release version 1.0 of its
eSource solution in June.
“Our product can help make clinical trials more efficient from the very start,” said Doug Pierce, the chief executive of Clinical Ink. “It helps to reduce transcription errors, reduce the delay in transmitting data downstream and provide secure data storage.”
Andrew Filipowski, the founder of Rakote.com, said his goal is to provide a Web site where people can upload and manage their collections, whether comic books, baseball cards, stamps or other memorabilia. The Web site also will serve as a clearinghouse for buying, selling and trading collectibles.
“Collecting is inherently an egotistical hobby - mine is bigger and better than yours,” said Filipowski, a self-described comic-book geek, with more than 10,100 in his collection. He also is the son of prolific entrepreneur Andrew “Flip” Filipowski.
The younger Filipowski said that collecting has been “typically chaotic, disorganized and outdated. With the growth in social media sites, the timing is right for cataloging and posting collections to stimulate the debate.
“It also will help collectors to better assess what issues they are missing and help fill in the gaps,” he said.
Other presenters at the briefing were the Center for Biomolecular Imaging at Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Knowledge2Work, PureLux, Spevco and the Wet Lab Launch Pad.
■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
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