Breaking into the mass (spectrometer) market
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Jay LeGore

Brian and Barbara Frederick were not business majors in college. That's why their start-up business was the first to take up residence at Target Technology Incubator in Orono, Maine.

Brian is a University of Maine chemist and member of the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology (LASST) on campus. He studies the behavior of atoms on metal oxide surfaces. He also applies statistical theory to mass spectrometers, workhorses of chemical analysis in laboratories around the world. Barbara writes computer software. She has specialized in technology that manages and visualizes instrumental data for scientists and technicians.

In 2002, none of that technical expertise prepared them for the labyrinth that entrepreneurs face in starting a new business. With four UMaine colleagues, they launched Stillwater Scientific Instruments to develop and market a device that dramatically speeds up the analysis of chemical compounds. Their partners include three university graduates — Bronson Crothers, Bob Jackson and Jay LeGore — as well as Peter Kleban, professor of physics, all affiliated with LASST.

In its quarters at the Target Technology Center, Stillwater Scientific personnel meet with a small business advisor, accountants, corporate and patent lawyers, and the owners of other businesses to get guidance and advice. They participate in an invitation-only workshop on how to commercialize new technologies run by the Maine Technology Institute and work with a marketing specialist through the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

And since they plan to market their product globally with Millbrook Instruments Ltd., of England, they are working with the Maine International Trade Center to comply with regulations affecting trade between the U.S. and other countries. They also are applying for U.S. and international patents.

Stillwater Scientific's products are based on new data analysis software and hardware that can switch an ion beam on and off in billionths of a second. "The best existing laboratory technology makes measurements about 0.1 percent of the time," says Brian Frederick.

"With the approach that we've developed, we take data about 50 percent of the time, so that the measurement can be made as much as 500 times faster."

The motivation for the technology evolved from Brian's research at the University of Liverpool in England and the University of Hannover in Germany in 1996. The technology has been developed by his group at the University of Maine under a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. The development work continued at Stillwater Scientific through a Maine Technology Institute award, but the scientific research turned out to be the least of their problems.

"We convinced people that we have the technology," Brian says. "But we also had to convince them that with it, we could start a new business, and that it could replace existing technology that is now in the marketplace."

Barbara had some experience in the business world. In 1993, she started a company, Cutting Edge Technologies, to produce and sell software that provided a graphical interface for statistical analysis software created by Spectrum Square Associates of Ithaca, N.Y.

Her company now is integrated with Stillwater Scientific, and as treasurer, she is setting up its financial structure. She also continues to develop software that will allow Stillwater Scientific's new products to be used in the instruments that are being manufactured by Millbrook Instruments in England.

Mass spectrometers represent an estimated worldwide market of $2 billion a year, principally in the pharmaceutical, biomedical and environmental science fields.