Francis Shennan talks to one company which found the ideal solution to marketing problems
Employment in the hi-tech companies is sometimes seen as high risk but the problems frequently arise not from the technology but from the market. The technology may be successful but the market does not yet have a demand for it.
One Scottish plant has seen the number of staff slashed by 80% only to see it recover to just 10 fewer than before. Now it is expecting to double its workforce in the next three years.
Eight years ago the American RP Scherer Corporation, a world leader in drug delivery systems, set up a plant on Clydebank Business Park to develop a new timed release capsule for pharmaceutical use called Pulsincap.
Its workforce there rose gradually but, though the technology proved successful, the market failed to materialise. ''We had 40 people on site working on Pulsincap,'' said Scottish operations manager of Scherer DDS Ltd, Dr Mark Hegarty.
''The pharmaceutical technology had been developed for seven or eight years without a customer coming along. We could not hook one of the big pharmaceutical companies and the investment cost was mounting up. The company could have closed the whole thing about 18 months ago.''
In fact, the plant was within six months of closure. As part of Locate in Scotland's aftercare service, Dunbartonshire Enterprise helped the company to make a case to its American parent to keep going.
What saved it was a new market for the technology: micro-biology and in particular food testing. Oxoid Ltd, an international diagnostic test kit manufacturer based in Basingstoke, had developed new ingredients for salmonella testing. However, this require the food sample to be nourished in a sort of chemical broth to allow all the organisms present to grow. Once developed, other chemicals are introduced to kill off all but the salmonella organism.
''It has to grow all the organisms,'' said Dr Hegarty. ''After a period you kill off the organisms you do not want. But this is done after they are healthily grown or you would get a false level.''
So if the culling of the organisms is done too soon it could kill off the salmonella as well, giving a healthy reading instead of warning that the bug is present. This takes time and a technician has to intervene at just the right point to kill the unwanted organisms.
''In the micro-biology industry they are looking for time-saving benefits,'' said Dr Hegarty. ''Salmonella testing can take several days. Oxoid had been doing work on several ingredients but needed something that could encapsulate them. Pulsincap was already developed.''
Most timed release capsules are water soluble and so dissolve gradually. ''With other capsules there is leakage or dilution of the dose,'' he said. ''Pulsincap protects its contents to the very moment they are needed. It will finally open up and release the whole dose. It is pulsed release.''
This means a food sample could be left in its nourishing broth overnight. At the right moment the Pulsincap capsule would open, releasing its contents to kill off all but the salmonella organism. In the morning the technician could arrive and examine it straight away.
''It is a very novel system,'' said Dr Hegarty. ''It uses a hydrogel plug which swells in water. It swells for a period and then it pops out.''
The Pulsincap is now part of the SPRINT Salmonella kit being marketed world-wide by Oxoid. The success of Pulsincap persuaded Scherer to relocate another technology to Clydebank from a plant in Swindon.
''We have 12 people working on Pulsincap and 18 on the new technology,'' said Dr Hegarty. ''We anticipate having up to 35 working on Pulsincap and that those working on the new technology would also get up to 35. A large proportion of these - at least 50% - will be research and development, high-quality jobs.''
Bio-tech and bio-medical companies do not necessarily have to be hi-tech to make an impact but they do need a very clearly defined market and sometimes additional products to supply that market efficiently.
Sorbie Research, founded by Mitchell and Janice Sorbie, a husband and wife in their 30s, in Bowling, Dunbartonshire, won innovation and business awards with its main products, but then searched for a supporting range of goods to back these up.
Since winning Dunbartonshire Enterprise's Business of the Year and its Innovation award last year, and becoming a winner in the John Logie Baird Awards for innovation, it has won a major export award for Measurespoon and Syringespoon.
Measurespoon is a spoon with a calibrated container handle designed to give up to 10ml of liquid medicine. Syringespoon adds a plunger mechanism. They were developed after the Sorbies' daughter became ill during a visit to the United States in 1992.
She was given a calibrated test-tube device to take her liquid medicine, which avoids nay spillage when a child is reluctant to take it. On returning home they asked consultants to carry out a feasibility survey on such a liquid medicine dispenser.
''As a result the product was re-engineered to allow more flexibility and to improve on the original theme,'' said managing director Mitchell Sorbie, who used to work with Rank Xerox. The products, which are dishwasher safe and can last for years, can carry promotional messages.
To ensure its market, though, Sorbie Research needed more products. In 1995 the company became the sole UK distributor for Apex Medical Corporation of South Dakota, whose products include compresses, pill splitters and pulverisers, cool bags for insulin, thermometer strips, and other devices to make taking medicine safer and easier.
''As a two-product company, major customers demanded a wider range,'' said Sorbie.
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