Here's some good news, let's hope it is just the start
PROVO, Utah, April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Larson*Davis Incorporated
(Nasdaq: LDII) announced today the signing of an agreement with Procter &
Gamble to develop a commercial supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC)
instrument. Specifically, the 2-year agreement leverages proprietary
intellectual property from both companies to assist scientists and engineers
to do substantially more work in less time through microcolumn SFC.
Larson*Davis anticipates that this will be one of a family of products to be
developed using high performance chromatography (HPC) technologies. New
products developed from the technologies will be 5 to 10 times faster than
existing solutions. Other significant advantages of the Larson*Davis HPC
include decreased product cost, improved measurement versatility, smaller
size, and greater reliability. Initial products from this agreement are
scheduled for market introduction in less than one year.
A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble commented, "we are convinced that SFC
and SFC-like separations represent the most general and most versatile of all
chromatography techniques and provide an entirely new dimension of separation
control compared to conventional techniques." According to Brian Larson, CEO
and President of Larson*Davis, "we are extremely pleased to be partnering with
Procter & Gamble, an industrial leader in the analytical sciences, to bring
this enabling technology to the marketplace." Mr. Larson continued, "out of
the 4.6 billion dollar separations market, this new technology is expected to
carve out a 45+ million dollar annual market in the next few years.
Furthermore, it is not coincidental that Procter and Gamble represents the
largest industrial SFC user."
The core Larson*Davis SFC technologies were developed within laboratories
at Brigham Young University (BYU), which has transferred the exclusive
commercialization rights to Larson*Davis. BYU previously granted related
licenses to Larson*Davis for patents which have already resulted in
breakthrough products like the Jaguar electrospray time-of-flight mass
detector introduced last month at the Pittsburgh Conference in Atlanta,
Georgia. Dr. Milton L. Lee, professor of Chemistry at BYU, is internationally
known for his pioneering work in the development of microcolumn supercritical
fluid chromatography and emphasized "the new chromatographic instrumentation
that will emerge from this joint agreement between Procter & Gamble and Sensar
Larson*Davis represents a major step forward in innovative technology that
will provide far-reaching analytical capabilities for the practicing
separations community."
To bring the products to market, the Sensar division of Larson*Davis is
initially hiring a team of eight specialists in the fields of sales and
marketing, product management, advanced technical expertise and engineering.
Dr. Ray West, Director of Marketing for Sensar Larson*Davis further noted,
"the enabling technology encompassing this agreement is the framework for the
next significant advance in productivity for the chromatography laboratory.
This is a fresh new approach to more effectively characterize chemicals of
interest for the petroleum, environmental, pharmaceutical and chemical
industries."
Larson*Davis Inc., headquartered in Provo, Utah, develops, manufactures,
and markets leading edge, ultra-sensitive analytical instrumentation for the
chemical, gas, acoustics and vibration market. Its customers are major
industrial companies as well as government and military agencies. |
