|
Labnetics sets up shop
May 15, 2000 08:02 AM ET
By Beth O'Connell, dbusiness.com
EXCLUSIVE SEBASTIAN, Fla., and AUSTIN, Tex.,
May 15 (dbusiness.com) -- Florida high-tech business incubator XL Vision
Inc. puts each business idea through a rigorous evaluation. Only one idea
in 100 makes it through the selection process.
The idea that makes it through has "the genetic markers of a
billion-dollar company," said XL Vision founder and CEO John Scott.
Those markers, Scott said, can be found in the medical diagnostic
company with the current name of Labnetics, which is being created from
sensor technology developed at the University of Texas at Austin.
Renee Mallett, associate director at UT's office of technology
licensing, said the university has been talking with XL Vision for a year
and a half about starting a business.
"We know each other. This has been a courtship and a marriage that
we're confident will work," Mallett told dbusiness.com.
The UT team was so confident that for the first time the university is
taking an equity stake in the company. The university would not disclose
the amount of its equity stake except that it is less than 50 percent.
"We've broken new ground here," said Mallett. "We felt taking an equity
stake would give us the best payoff."
The developers of Labnetics see a huge potential market for its "lab on
a chip." The sensor technology at the core of the new diagnostic company
can analyze a wide range of chemicals, including toxins, drugs, bacteria
and blood products. The technology uses a large number of miniaturized
test-tubelike cavities that are created within a silicon wafer.
With this lab on a chip, a single blood sample could be tested for a
number of a diagnoses, and the results would be available nearly
instantaneously. It could be a diagnostic tool for both humans and
animals.
XL Vision "has expertise in these market areas," noted Mallett. The
Florida incubator has developed medical companies such as ChromaVision
(Nasdaq: CVSN), a laboratory medicine diagnostics company that develops
and manufactures an automated cellular imaging system used in clinical and
research applications. In the agriculture sector, it has also built an
online auction and e-commerce company for the cattle industry, eMerge
Interactive (Nasdaq: EMRG).
"We look to create companies where the only competition is the old way
of doing things," said Scott.
Labnetics is opening an office on Congress Avenue in Austin. "As a
biotech company, it adds to Austin's high-tech base," said Mallett.
The company said its expansion plans could also add up to 200 jobs in
Austin over the next two years.
XL Vision executive Mike Otworth will serve as the company's initial
CEO.
Beth O'Connell is a
correspondent for dbusiness.com covering Central Florida. E-mail her with
story ideas and comments.
| 
