GIBSON INDEX NEWSLETTER – DECEMBER 2010 – ISSUE No. 65

- Welcome to the UK’s most comprehensive and best-read Newsletter on Small Technology Companies, Academic Enterprise and Latest Innovation.

• Please enjoy the Christmas 2010 edition of the monthly Gibson Index Newsletter.

Our Predictions for 2011 are as follows:

- The UK economy will increasingly ‘meet hard reality’, with rising jobless rates, rising interest rates, sharp price increases and the start of a 20% drop in house prices. Business rates may soar..

- Key growth areas will be in nanotech applied to medical applications, combinations of materials to create super-plastics, radical steps in waste technology and hydrogen energy will be far more important than developments in renewables, and advances in high-spec HD CCTV. Will the RAF’s much-mourned Harriers be replaced – very ably – by fleets of dozens of hovering UAVs?

- Small tech companies will continue to provide the cutting edge of any growth in the economy but the UK Government will largely continue to ignore them. The recent founding of the SME Innovation Alliance might help change their minds. www.smeia.org

- Claims about ‘catastrophic, man-made’ climate will disappear, and all those associated with it will feel highly embarrassed by their participation and beliefs of certainty with it.

- 2011 marks the first year when Microsoft will be inessential to our lives. Many users are still happy with XP, and buyers of smartphones using its new Windows software have been few.

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• The Newsletter is compiled and edited by Marcus Gibson, former Financial Times technology correspondent, who has been covering enterprise and innovation for more than 20 years. The Newsletter aims to highlight developments in at least 100+ companies each month. It is derived from the wide-ranging news-gathering operation that produces the Gibson Index SME database, which now contains profiles on more than 43,500 UK-based technology SMEs. www.gibson-index.com

- To subscribe to the newsletter: please go to www.gibson-news.com/subs.html

There are four levels of subscription - starting at just £58, including VAT.

• Personal - £58 including VAT • SME - £180 including VAT • Mid-size - £500 including VAT • Multinational - £2500 including VAT • The Newsletter is distributed in PDF format – in order to keep it readable, full of intelligence, rapidly searchable and free of data-heavy photos and illustrations. Subscribers can also receive the companion to the Newsletter, and a monthly Events Diary.

• If you wish to submit a story – please email it to: news@gibson-news.com

SECTION CONTENTS FOR THIS MONTH – DECEMBER 2010:

Company of the MonthSME News – Engineering, Electronics, TelecomsSME News – Chemicals, Materials & EnvironmentSME News – IT, Software, Services & InternetSME News – Biotech, Pharma & Medical SciencesFunding & InvestmentsGeneral NewsForeign NewsUniversity NewsAnd Finally..

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COMPANY OF THE MONTH

It’s been a terrific year for Big DNA – with more to come..

Highlighted by Gibson Index as “One To Watch” in early 2010, Big DNA won the Nexxus Most Promising Young Life Science Company of the Year Award at the end of 2009, and it went on to win the Best New Life Sciences Firm Award from Scottish Enterprise in early 2010. The firm raised a further £2m of investment to support the development of vaccine technology in the spring. The unique process being developed by Dr John March and his team at Big DNA uses bacterial viruses or bacteriophages to deliver a vaccine. These vaccines contain the genetic instructions (or DNA) rather than using the disease organism itself, which conventional vaccines rely upon. Conventional vaccines can be difficult and expensive to make, requiring specialist facilities and expertise, and sometimes fail to work for some diseases. Bacteriophage DNA vaccines offer the potential for extremely rapid development and manufacture, using relatively simple processes (weeks rather than months), important for pandemic. In addition the phage technology may offer the potential for vaccines to be taken orally, eliminating the need for needles and injections and all their associated hazards. A range of vaccines are currently under development and the firm recently achieved a patent for its technology in Japan. Scottish scientist Dr Jason Clark is the co-founder of Big DNA, and he is convinced about the contribution that bacteriophages can make towards the development of improved vaccines. One to watch, most certainly.www.bigdna.co.uk

SME NEWS – ENGINEERING, ELECTRONICS, TELECOMS

HTC Management Services seeks to end roadworks caused by water pipes

Traffic jams caused by roadworks to maintain water pipes could be a thing of the past, thanks to pioneering technology on trial at Yorkshire Water. The Whirlwind ‘serline’ technology, developed by North Wales-based HTC Management Services Ltd, allows the company to clean, line and strengthen its water pipes without having to dig up roads. The ‘no-dig’ technology uses a special cleaning process to remove the harmless deposits which build up on internal pipe walls over time and restrict flow, before adding a relining material to help strengthen the pipe and significantly increase its life-span. Although the technology is still only at trial stage, it has already attracted international recognition, with the International Society For Trenchless Technology awarding it an innovation award at an industry leading conference in Singapore earlier in November. Mark Pye, project manager at Bradford-based Yorkshire Water, which operates 32,000km of water pipes across the region, said: “We’re delighted to be involved with a technology which, even in the early stages of its life, is already garnering high-profile plaudits and significant accolades. “We’re always searching for new technology that will enable us to do our job better and ultimately improve the service we offer our customers and this is certainly one development which is having a very positive impact. By using Whirlwind technology, not only are we able to clean pipes without digging up roads and disrupting traffic flow, but we’re also saving money through not having to replace our pipes, which is helping us to continue to provide customers with the best possible service, while at the same time keeping bills as low as possible.” The current cleaning method involves digging up the pipe before chipping away at any debris on the internal pipe walls using rotating steel flails – a technique which can leave the pipe weakened and susceptible to leaks. This process also requires large quantities of water to flush away loosened debris which must be treated. The new technology is being used by Yorkshire Water as part of a three-year £18 million scheme to upgrade ageing pipes in Leeds, to meet new legislation which will require lead traces in water pipes to fall by more than 70 per cent to 10 micrograms per litre by 2013. www.hydrostatic-testing-consultants.co.uk

Fotech Solutions’ border-monitoring system goes live in Arizona

The system consists of fibre-optic cables, lasers and detectors - more accurately described as a ‘distributed acoustic sensor’. Established in 2008 it is backed by a consortium of major investors - Scottish Equity Partners, Energy Ventures and The Shoabi Group. Its cutting-edge optical physics is combined with unrivalled experience in commercial deployment of distributed fibre sensing. Known as Helios, it relies on the phenomenon of optical backscattering for its operation. Fotech have proven the effectiveness of their patented Helios interrogator in the demanding environment of the upstream oil & gas industry and have a number of world firsts for successful deployments providing unprecedented detail in monitoring down-

hole conditions in coal bed methane, tight gas and steam-assisted-gravity-drained oil wells. Helios brings a new level of detail to perimeter security and asset integrity assurance. In December 2010 engineers at the University of Arizona College of Engineering tested the monitoring system that could be used to watch the border between the US and Mexico continuously. In use, the system transmits laser pulses through fibre-optic cables buried in the ground. The small vibrations caused by a moving object on the surface above hit the fibre-optic cables, slightly distorting them. The distortion creates a unique signature change in the laser pulses, which can be detected by a Helios detector at one, or both, ends of the cable. Helios is sensitive enough to detect a dog and can discriminate between people, horses and trucks. The system can be set to avoid being triggered by small animals and can also tell if people are running, walking or digging and in which direction. </p><p>The resolution of the cable can be set to 1m intervals, which means that people, or vehicles, can be pinpointed to within 1m along a section of cable that can be up to 50km long. These 50km cable lengths, each with a Helios detector, could be strung together indefinitely to cover vast distances. The border between the US and Mexico is 3,169km and, although the extreme topography of some border areas would make cable deployment difficult, dividing the border length into 50km segments equates to approximately 64 cable sections and detector units. www.fotechsolutions.com

Four SMEs win the Competition for Disruptive Solutions in London

Four innovative small British companies received £100,000 to help them develop new technologies after they were declared the winners in a unique competition at the Innovate10 networking and innovation event in London. Altrika Ltd, Arvia Technology Ltd, Bare Conductive Ltd and Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd were selected as the winners of the Competition for Disruptive Solutions, which was funded and managed by the Technology Strategy Board. In the energy area, Oxford Photovoltaics will commercialise new solar glazing technology which has the potential to become a dominant solution in the Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) market. The glazing technology is printed directly on glass and can be semi-transparent in a wide range of colours. Bare Conductive, in the digital area, will commercialise a unique skin-safe conductive ink that can be manufactured at a fraction of the cost of existing inks and which has the potential to impact markets ranging from flexible printed electronics to physiology monitoring technologies and sensing interfaces. The healthcare area winners, Altrika, will develop a donor skin cell spray, available at point of care, to treat paediatric scalds. This could reduce time to healing and length of hospital stay while also reducing the need for costly secondary interventions arising from contractures. Arvia Technology, in the sustainability area, have developed an award-winning technology for the destruction of organics in water and wastewater. The aim of their

project is to investigate the disinfection properties of the process for the treatment and reuse of grey water within domestic and industrial applications. The competition was launched by the Technology Strategy Board in September and 550 businesses submitted two-minute video pitches outlining proposals in one of four themes - energy, digital, healthcare and sustainability. www.innovate.org.uk

Broadband and voice comms provider Epitiro Ltd grows 122.0%.

Epitiro provides performance insight of broadband and voice communication services for internet service providers (eg. Virgin Media), mobile network operators (eg O2), national regulators (eg. Ofcom). Epitiro has an easy-to-deploy solution that independently measures the actual perfomance of these network services as experienced by consumers and business. Secondly is the company’s unique managed service business model as clients don’t need to shell-out high capex or dedicate engineers to install and operate the firm’s network intelligence system. The firm is aiming to expand its footprint globally and acquire more Tier 1 clients, which means being active in more countries. The company is also expanding its technology capabilities such that it can measure the performance of emerging communicating technologies. This is a vital step to become attractive to first-mover operators. The firm has invented the analysis technology and offers a managed service proposition. The benefit is that multi-national operators and national regulatory bodies can acquire network performance intelligence without high capex, specialist engineering labour or delays. Founders Jon Curley and Gavin Johns have continually moved the goalposts from surviving the first years through to becoming a respected company. The major challenges in the early years were gaining the credibility with major clients (BT, Virgin Media etc.) and addressing the cash flow issues associated with sales to corporate clients.www.epitiro.com

Cox Powertrain’s tiny diesel engine seeks success in global markets

The company designs and builds high power density diesel engines for UAV, marine, armoured vehicle and genset applications.The Cox engine is an extremely small, efficient and very light diesel engine that comes in modules of 450hp/335KW, which can be scaled up or down and configured in multiple modules, depending on requirement. It can deliver major improvements in payload/range and output performance with reduced logistical support costs. Main benefits are huge weight, volume and parts count reductions when compared with conventional diesels with similar power output. The design concept engine, the CPT370, is a 3.7-litre module, with performance characteristics defined by a major aerospace company, producing 335kW (450hp) at 4,000 rpm. Without the induction, exhaust systems and pumps fitted, the unit occupies a space of 790 x 250 x 250 mm  (31 x 10 x 10 in) and its mass is 57kg (125 lbs). To achieve this requires

no special or exotic materials, manufacturing or assembly methods and the weight could be further reduced if required. David Cox, founder and technical director, has been at the forefront of innovative design and engineering for more than 30 years, with technical leadership positions in demanding fields such as aerospace, Formula One and volume automotive engines; running his own advanced technology consultancy before founding Cox Powertrain in January 2007. John Allen, MD, has more than 30 years experience of raising finance and building innovative technology companies to meet the needs of a variety of international markets; including aerospace, defence and global financial services. Development partners include Ricardo UK Ltd, for engine analysis and testing, and Ganser CRS AG, for common rail systems. http://coxpowertrain.com - John Allen - 01273 794 403 - john.allen@coxpowertrain.com

Phoenix Photonics joins pan-European project improve future Net infrastructure

The €11.8m (£10m) MODE-GAP project aims to enhance the capacity of broadband core networks and give Europe the lead in the development of next-generation internet services. The team are hoping to increase bandwidth to 100 times current capacity by 2030. Southampton University, which is heading the research, will develop technologies based on specialist long-haul transmission fibres, rare-earth doped optical amplifiers, transmitter and receiver components, and data-processing techniques. According to Southampton’s project leader, Prof David Richardson, there is still room for capacity scaling of commercial systems in the next 10 to 15 years, but the development of new transmission technologies needs to begin now to ensure that data-carrying capacity limits are not reached. “Current fibres were developed in the mid 1970s and, over the years, the growth and demand on the bandwidth has placed a strain on their capacity,” said Richardson. “In the laboratory at least we are within factors of two or three close to the fundamental limits on what can be transmitted using existing technology.”The team will be focusing on a number of different areas, including the use of different structures from which light can be guided through optical fibres and the creation of multiple paths that can carry data within a single fibre. “Using the spatial dimension of the fibre is tremendously challenging because we have to deal with interference between individual modes and interference between data channels on each mode,” said Richardson. “It’s an ambitious project, but we’re hopeful it will be successful.” Project partners include Phoenix Photonics Ltd, ESPCI Paristech, OFS Fitel Denmark APS, Holland’s COBRA Institute at Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Ireland’s Eblana Photonics, Nokia Siemens Networks and University College Cork. Contact: 020 8405 4339 - Fax: 020 8763 9820. www.phoenixphotonics.com

Electronics firm Chronos Technology is the lead partner in Sentinel project

The Sentinel consortium, funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), is developing sensors to track devices that can interrupt signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) such as GPS and Galileo. The project, which will build on work by a previous TSB scheme GAARDIAN, will also look for ways to distinguish deliberate attempts to jam GNSS signals from natural interference. Specialist electronics firm Chronos Technology is the lead partner in Sentinel, which also includes Bath University, Ordnance Survey and ACPO-ITS, a working group of the Association of Chief Police Officers. The new research project aims to tackle GPS jamming that can disrupt police operations and interfere with airport navigation systems. Criminals stealing cars and lorries are increasingly using illegal GPS jammers to prevent police from tracking them, but they can also disrupt the guidance systems used by airports to help land planes. “People who use GPS jammers fall into different groups of users, such as someone stealing a car or somebody who actually wants to take out national infrastructure, which could be rather nasty,” said Chronos MD Charles Curry. “The challenge is that the jamming in more benign scenarios can also cause some real problems,” he said, giving the example of a van driver using a jammer to avoid detection by their boss but also interrupting the GPS system used by a nearby airport. The Sentinel system will also be used to examine problems with e-LORAN (enhanced long range navigation) signals, which use low-frequency radio transmitters. The team hopes to be able to triangulate the position of jammers using a network of sensors originally designed under GAARDIAN that can detect the direction of a jamming signal and the time the problem started. www.chronos.co.uk

Group 3 Technology Ltd beats stiff competition to become the ICT Champion

Group 3 Technology (G3T) have invented and patented a new method of IP signalling to traverse existing routers without the need for hosting the communication. A fully operational platform is in place for VoIP to demonstrate its functionality, complete with usable software and hardware. The company also won the Innovation award, sponsored by the University of Wolverhampton, for successfully developing and patenting their innovative IP signalling product, e2e technology, which can be applied to voice, video and other forms of multimedia communication over the Internet. Gerald Leighton, director of Group 3 Technology said: “It is an honour given the tremendous hard work, obstacles and turmoil we experienced along the way. All our developments were put on hold for three years as a result of the formidable patent contention in the USA. The successful granting of a US patent, in addition to UK and European patents for our brand new telecoms technology, is a reward for the tenacious team who spent three years working towards securing US patent over technology giant Microsoft.” G3T add USA patent approval to existing UK & European patents on award-winning its technology”, an IP signalling method compatible with existing network protocols (eg. SIP).

In addition, e2e Technology, which applies to all types of IP traffic has been applied to VoIP in the form of a browser-based internet phone complete with real telephone number. An innovative revenue-generation approach involving the live display of simultaneous multi-media content to users adds a new angle for organisations to increase customer retention and loyalty. e2e Technology IP signalling method does not require any Proxy, STUN or Session Border Controllers to be deployed by the Internet Phone Service Operator. Furthermore, it does not rely on hosting any element IP data traffic once the call is established, meaning tremendous bandwidth advantages to the service provider. e2e includes a full suite of user interfaces including downloadable software, browser-based applet, IP telephone hardware and ATA, all enabling a true plug&go experience.www.group3technology.net

Fastest growing company in the West Country? It is Ashwoods Automotive

The Exeter-based firm increased revenue by 944% between 2007 and 2009. Founded in 2003 it has only 15 staff. Ashwoods Automotive is a provider of hybrid-electric vans and hybrid drive systems. Its hybrid technology uses a system similar to a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), as seen in Formula 1, to recover the energy normally wasted through braking and deceleration to charge the battery. This energy is then used to assist the drive of the vehicle during acceleration. This reduces the engine load and therefore the fuel demand. The system is very well suited to the needs of a local city council where vehicles will be operating in heavier traffic conditions. The company’s hybrid vans are proven to reduce emissions and fuel cost by over 15% compared with the equivalent diesel variant. Additionally, Ashwoods offers a hybrid drive retrofitting kit for panel vans. The company’s proprietary system delivers a reduction in fuel consumption by 15-25%, by recovering the kinetic energy usually wasted through braking or deceleration. The recovered energy is stored in a lithium-ion battery delivered to the wheels via a high efficiency electric motor. Ashwoods is also launching the retrofit stop/start engine system which reduces fuel consumption and emissions by 5-10%. Ashwoods’ hybrid solution was recently selected by the Department for Transport as the sole hybrid technology to be used by the largest public sector commercial fleets in the UK. The company was also awarded a £1.8 million Research and Development project funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) over 3 years in 2010. In September 2010 Ashwoods delivered 10 Ashwoods Hybrid Transit Vans to Royal Mail, for operation in the London area. The vehicles are part of the Low Carbon Vehicle Procurement Programme (LCVPP), run by Cenex. Due to strong market demand, Ashwoods are offering a limited run of 150 hybrid vans, outside of the LCVPP, for sale to major private sector fleets over the course of 2010. www.ashwoods.org

ADEY Professional Heating Solutions moves on from MagnaClean success

A humble shed at the bottom of the garden was the birthplace of Chris Adey’s revolutionary product that removes the sludge that threatens radiators and pipes in millions of central heating systems. With the help of his wife Andrea, he laboured to create this ingenious device, and seven years later Chris owns a Cheltenham-based company ADEY Professional Heating Solutions with a £20m turnover, and a growing reputation for innovation. His invention, the MagnaClean magnetic filtration process, came from his work as a former British Gas apprentice and engineer. He quickly realised that the build up of sludge threatened the efficiency and lifetime of central heating systems. Because the sludge-black iron oxide is metallic it can be detected with a magnet and that was the principle behind the MagnaClean filtration process. “If you bought a new car you would not think of running it without having an oil filter fitted,” said Chris. And for decades heating engineers had been searching for a filtration system until Chris came up with the solution. “It was a light bulb moment,” he said. “It was so obvious, no one had made a magnetic filter.” Having perfected the MagnaClean process Chris had the daunting task of getting it to market. “It was a battle - I decided that if I could not get a company to manufacture it I would do it myself. I was very determined and very driven.” In a master stroke he invited 30 central heating installers to a Cheltenham pub. Some 23 turned up and he sold all 120 filters he had made. He was on the way. “I owe a massive debt of thank-you to my friends and local installers,” said Chris. “We managed to get a contract with British Gas to install the MagnaClean - that was a huge breakthrough. We have sold 1m filters now.” ADEY Professional Heating Solutions now employs 30 people in Cheltenham with an assembly facility in Merthyr Tydfil, providing employment for people in a depressed area of South Wales. It costs around £150 to have the MagnaClean Professional fitted including labour - and can help cut annual gas bills by 6%. MagnaClean is not the only innovation from ADEY - other products include the MagnaClean PowerFlushing Filter and VibraClean, a radiator agitator which helps the power-flushing process. More is in the pipeline. R&D is central to Chri Adey’s business plan. “We have some nice innovative ideas that will solve problems in our industry,” he said. “My goal is to always have the best products, they may not be the cheapest but they are the best.” www.adeysolutions.co.uk

Abriox wins ‘Most Outstanding Business’ by the British Chambers of Commerce

The pioneering Newport, Wales, company is based in Imperial Park. It scooped the top £25,000 prize, sponsored by RBS and NatWest, for its innovative oil and gas pipeline monitoring system Merlin, which now checks all the UK’s gas pipelines for corrosion. Established in 2005, it now has a US subsidiary and its products are installed on all five continents. The award-winning business also won the UK’s Business of the Year award, sponsored by Westfield Health.

Neville Reyner, President of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “Abriox is a great example of a passionate young company which has taken its own brilliant idea and nurtured and developed it into an internationally-renowned product. “Its work not only saves precious energy and has economic and environmental benefits, it’s also unique and I’m sure the business will go strength to strength.” Abriox MD Neil Summers said: “This award tells our customers worldwide that are dealing with a truly excellent company. Hopefully we can be a role model for the UK’s aspiring young engineers” www.abriox.com

Catagen Ltd wins the Propel Awards Best Final Pitch Presentation

Catagen team are dedicated to innovation in low-emission testing and a provider of catalyst research equipment for the automotive industry and beyond. The firm has been applying intelligent design to products that make catalyst testing easier, more cost effective and less harmful to the environment, in order to help customers get real advantages to meet ‘evolving’ emission legislation. Utilising Catagen’s, patent pending, dynamic Catalyst Ageing System the Labcat performs all published Ageing Procedures - low running costs - from $3 dollar per hour; it produces 50 times less CO2 compared to engine testing; laboratory based - no need for engine test facilities; easy operation, data recovery and analysis; varying catalyst sample numbers and volumes possible.The Propel Awards Dinner was held on 9 December 2010 at The Stormont Hotel Belfast. There were four award winners in total. Propel is a business support programme targeted at individuals with innovative, knowledge based ideas with export/global potential. The Programme aims to support and fast track early stage potential export/global start businesses and their entry into export markets. The Programme is funded by Invest Northern Ireland who presented the Best Go to Market Strategy Award at the event. www.catagen.co.uk

TechnologyWorld’s Business Innovation Awards 2010 exhibit at ExCel

The UKTI-driven annual event aims to unveil ‘the very best of UK innovation in science and technology’, and nine companies were shortlisted for its three award categories – emerging & nano technology, energy & environment, and digital connected world. In the emerging & nano technology category were Applied NanoDetectors, which develops and supplies nanosensor-based products for the global environmental, healthcare and medical markets, Intrinsiq Materials – an advanced materials company developing technology for applications in health, wellness, and printed electronics – and NanoSight, which designs and manufactures nanoparticle analysis instruments. In the energy & environment shortlist are organic waste recycling specialist GENeco, Perceptive Engineering – a provider of intelligent monitoring and control systems for

the process industries – and PhotonStar LED, a designer and manufacturer of award-winning LED illumination products. The companies shortlisted for the digital connected world award are business continuity management technology developer Clearview Continuity, AEP Networks, which offers secure communications, networking and application access for governments, defence forces and enterprise businesses.www.technologyworld.uk.com

Wilksch Airmotive manufacture lightweight, Jet A1, aircraft engines

Based at the Gloucestershire airport of Staverton, the small company has developing a simple but potentially revolutionary diesel-powered engine as a viable replacement for the current avgas-driven models. The ever-rising cost of avgas and doubts about its future availability have spurred a resurgence of interest in aircraft diesel engine production.Its Wilksch Airmotive Ltd hopes its Wam 120 will become the power unit of choice. Martin Long, founder and chief designer at Wilksch Airmotive and a former Formula 1 motor racing engineer for engine maker Cosworth, said the potential was huge for whoever could establish themselves as producers of the market-leading engine. He said “Everything else runs on petrol, but it is like the old four-star high-lead fuel and it can be very difficult to get hold of. Our engine runs on jet fuel and there are a million reasons why you want jet fuel. For a start it is three times cheaper. We have no electrics, it is a very simple mechanical engine. And the fuel is a lot less dangerous.“In third-world countries, it can be very difficult to get petrol, but diesel is very easy to get hold of. The military also like the ideas. These are some very big markets.” The company was started some years ago with a DTI Smart Grant in Buckinghamshire before relocating to the former Lister-Petter site in Dursley – a company that became known worldwide for its diesel engines – and then moving to its purpose-built base at Staverton. The business now has the backing of businessman Mike Newton, CEO of CCTV group AD Holdings and now MD of Wilksch. The business has invested an estimated £300,000 in its Gloucestershire Airport base. Wilksch currently produces an engine certified to be used by kit plane customers. “The next bigger market is the training market. That is the certificated market and legislation is changing at the moment which may benefit us,” said Mr Long, who added the company had been fiercely determined to keep the engine as British as possible, but admitted costs meant some parts had to be sourced abroad. “The design is ours. We get the parts here and then build them and test them. We have two test beds, and we service them here.” There are 400 components and we try to get them made here, but can’t do that with every one for cost reasons. The cost base here is just too expensive.” www.wilksch.com

RFI Global snapped up by Underwriters Laboratories (UL)

As the first private test laboratory in the UK, founded in 1987, following the advent of EMC legislation for non-military products, RFI led the world with its technology. At that time only government and specialised military laboratories were available to test these products. These laboratories were used to operating on timescales of a year or more, and had no understanding of the commercial pressures facing a business trying to take a product to market. Founders Stephen Kirk and Brian Watson started RFI as the first private EMC laboratory in the country, reducing testing lead times from six months to four weeks, much to the delight of all big-name telecoms handset manufacturers. They have rapidly grown into a company at the forefront of many technologies, with extremely fast-paced lead times. They became an independent testing laboratory, with a focus on how customers could pass the tests and gain the standards and accreditation needed. In 2010 RFI were acquired by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent product safety certification organisation that has been testing products and writing standards for safety for more than a century. RFI won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the past.www.rfi-global.com

‘Make your own Apps’ software hits the market

iPhone apps have become an essential part of doing business in many industries, and we’ve seen several companies spring up to help make that happen. Focusing on restaurants, there’s Blue Shoe Mobile Solutions, for example; for bands, there’s Mobile Roadie. Now, taking a more generalized approach - and hoping to put some control back in content creators’ hands - there’s AppMakr, a platform that lets anyone create an iPhone app of their very own. Now in beta, AppMakr is a browser-based platform from San Francisco-based PointAbout that’s designed to make creating an iPhone app quick and easy. The site can be used by anyone with existing content, and it includes features such as push-notifications for direct alert messaging to an app’s users, native photo galleries, location-aware GeoRSS, App Quality Index (AQI) for iTunes App Store approval recommendations, custom CSS and JavaScript capabilities, social network sharing and mobile ad network integration for content monetization. AppMakr is free for users publishing under their own brand; for USD 999, the service will take care of everything and publish the resulting app under the AppMakr brand. One recent example of an app developed using the platform is MetroBizSc, targeting all those affiliated with Finland’s Metropolia Business School. www.appmakr.com

Base Group - Belfast aerospace company - wins significant business in Germany

The company has won high-tech work on a major Airbus programme worth over £1 million with the Peters Group of Ottobrun, near Munich, for stress analysis and project

management work on a multinational aerospace project. The work is being carried out by a joint team in Belfast and in Munich. Base is carrying out the certification stress analysis for the aircraft’s rear fuselage and establishing the project management protocols for many of the main structural features. In parallel with this, Base is supporting the manufacture of the aircraft in preparation for delivery to the first customers. The work is expected to continue into 2012. David Raymond, Base Group Chairman, said: “The new contract is a tremendous boost for the company and will enhance the already close relationship that we enjoy with tier one Airbus suppliers. Underpinning our business strategy is a commitment to provide customers with expert engineering services that are flexible, versatile and rapid.” Base employs more than 30 people and works closely with international corporations including Bombardier Aerospace, Jet Aviation, GE Aviation, Marshall Aerospace, and Diehl Aircabin. www.basegroup.co.uk

SME – CHEMICALS, MATERIALS & ENVIRONMENT

Elite Powder Coatings bounce back after one of its biggest contracts fell through

Now on course to quadruple its sales, the firm picked up work for roller doors bound for the Middle East. Elite Powder Coatings, based in Walker, Newcastle, picked up a contract from a North East company earlier this year worth £50,000 a month, only for it to be cancelled after only a few months as a result of late payment problems. However, it has managed to make up for the loss with a range of new contracts, which it said would see it grow its sales from £267,000 to £640,000 by next year, before breaking the £1m mark by 2012. The firm has recently completed work on behalf of Newcastle-based Hart Door Systems to coat a range of roller door systems, which have been exported for use on the Dubai Metro network. It is now hopeful that Hart Door will land similar work at Dubai International Airport, which would help it to add jobs and attract more work in the Middle East. The firm is also working on a long-term contract with Darlington fabricator Henry Williams, which is making roadside control boxes for the Highways Agency. Elite also said it was in the process of signing a partnership with a manufacturer in the construction market, which would be worth £250,000 a year. The company has been busy investing £25,000 in the last six months, which has seen it add a wet paint room and a drying room at its 6,000sq ft plant in Walker, which it will use to service a contract with the Ministry of Defence to paint a number of its armoured vehicles and mine detection equipment. The firm, which applies powder paint coating to a wide range of products including fencing and cars, was set up by 32-year-old James Minns. He was almost a victim of the downturn after seeing a severe decline in work from two of his major clients, which saw production cut by 90% after only a few months of setting up.

Minns said: “Our three-coat system provides our clients with an extra life guarantee, something that a lot of other coatings companies do not provide. This has helped us to pick up a number of new contracts through word of mouth.” www.elitepowdercoatings.co.uk

Nottingham-based eminate Ltd creates healther alternative to salt

Soda-Lo, which has huge market potential as a healthier natural alternative to standard salt, was recognised as an outstanding product at the Food and Drink iNet Innovation Awards. eminate Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Nottingham based at BioCity, was recognised for the successful manipulation of salt crystals that resulted in the development of a new ingredient for the food industry known as Soda-Lo. Soda-Lo enables a reduction in salt use of between 25-50% across a wide range of food products. This has been achieved by altering the size, form and structure of salt particles in order to increase their saltiness, thereby reducing the amount of salt needed to achieve the same flavour profile. The award judges said: “We were impressed by this research project as it has provided a new product that can reduce salt use in the food sector. We also feel that there could be a national need for this type of product specifically in addressing key issues facing the food sector such as the health agenda.” Soda-Lo’s crystals are ultra-fine, thanks to new technology developed by eminate. Because the size of each crystal is reduced, the overall surface area of the salt is increased - and so is the salty taste. One shake gives the same taste as two shakes of conventional salt, so you can enjoy the same taste with half the sodium. Soda-Lo is also a ‘clean label’ product - in contrast to other low-sodium products which rely on the replacement of sodium chloride with potentially more harmful ingredients, such as potassium and magnesium. Dr Roger Carline, CEO of eminate, said: “The success of Soda-Lo in reducing salt in foods naturally without losing flavour has exceeded even our expectations. We sincerely hope that the award will bring better awareness of the product so greater use of Soda-Lo in our foods can help improve everyone’s heart health.” Contact: Tim Bollans - 0115 912 4370 - tim.bollans@eminate.co.uk.

Biomass plant manufacturer Bioflame receives £4.5m to double its workforce

This Yorkshire firm has developed a clean burn system to generate renewable electricity from carbon-neutral biomass, and the new funding will help accelerate roll-out of a series of plants across the UK. Based in Pickering, North Yorkshire, the firm has already secured planning permission for 17 small biomass incinerator plants, which can process up to 30,000 tonnes of waste a year and generate enough power for 6,000 homes. Two of the sites have already been built in Sandsfield, near Hull, and Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, and two more are in the late stages of construction, including one near

Doncaster. The latest investment from cleantech and renewable energy fund Novusmodus, the £170m fund set up by Irish utility ESB, will provide Bioflame with the working capital to push the roll-out to the next level. Bioflame plans to start building five or six plants a year and double its 32-strong workforce over the next 12 months. Four of the planned sites are in Yorkshire, including one in Leeds and another near York. Although Bioflame has raised £23m in total for the project, primarily through bank funding, managing director Victor Buchanan admitted the last two years have been tough. “It has been massively difficult over the last couple of years,” he said. “We have been very lucky to receive funding from the Co-op Bank for two of the plants and Alliance and Leicester for another but it’s not been easy.” Bioflame’s patented advanced combustion technology allows for a wide range of biomass waste fuel stocks to be converted into energy. Materials, such as waste wood, that would previously have been sent to landfill can instead be used to generate green electricity and heat. It is estimated that over six million tonnes of waste wood is landfilled each year in the UK and Ireland. www.bioflame.co.uk

Durham University spinout Kromek secures a $4m contract from the US

The National Institute for Health in the US is paying Kromek to work with Massachusetts University Medical School to commercialise a system that will provide earlier and more accurate diagnosis of breast cancer - 3D breast-scanning technology. Currently, X-ray mammography is the most popular method of breast screening. One of its limitations, however, is that it represents 3D information on a 2D plane making varied tissue structures difficult to distinguish. According to a report published last year in Denmark, one in three breast cancer cases diagnosed by mammography can be harmless and lead to women needlessly undergoing invasive treatment. By using X-ray animation technology developed for baggage screening applications, Kromek’s system can construct an image that consists of 3D spatial information and multi-spectral detail. “The real benefits these detectors bring are the possibility of reducing the dosage the patient receives and enhancing the contrast in imaging,” said chief executive, Dr Arnab Basu. “It will allow better differentiation of various tissue structures and provide material-specific information within these structures.” www.kromek.com

Labfacility Ltd wins loans totaling £90,000 to support its growth

The South Yorkshire manufacturer looks set to survive – it is currently the largest producer of temperature sensors for the aerospace and automotive industries, universities and research facilities, and exports 60 per cent of its products to more than 80 countries. Finance Yorkshire has given their support to the company with a £50,000 business loan, while Labfacility has also gained a £40,000 loan from Donbac, an enterprise agency and

loan fund in Doncaster. The investments will help Labfacility with capital investment in new tooling and to redevelop the company website with a new e-commerce facility. Martin Riddett, MDof Labfacility, said: “A year ago we centralised our operations to Dinnington to cope with the economic climate and the site is now our main production facility with 29 staff. “This has helped us become more efficient and we are now starting to see an up-turn. We previously received investments from South Yorkshire Investment Fund (SYIF) and we were very pleased that Finance Yorkshire is now up and running and has started to make investments. “It had been a tough year for the industry, but we’d enjoyed a very good track record with SYIF and needed further investment to take advantage of the growing market. Gap funder Finance Yorkshire came around at a time when we needed further investment to continue our growth and they have been very supportive.” www.labfacility.co.uk - www.finance-yorkshire.com

Aquamarine Power gains £11m from ABB, the Zurich-based engineering giant

Aquamarine Power chief executive Martin McAdam described the fund injection as a “game-changing moment” - before warning the authorities of the need to remove obstacles to the sector’s growth.Aquamarine is preparing to commercialise its Oyster wave energy technology around the world in a fast-growing market in which McAdam believes Britain could become a major player. He said firms such as ABB will continue to invest in the sector in Scotland “once they see the continued desire and political support to make this industry a reality”. But he warned: “If other nations choose to make marine energy a priority, while we are paralysed to inaction, then I fear that the opportunity will be lost overseas. This must not happen.” The new finance comprises £8m from ABB Technology Ventures and the remainder from existing shareholders including £2.7m from SSE Venture Capital, the investment vehicle of Scottish & Southern Energy. It takes SSE’s investment in the company over three years to £19.8m, giving it a 45 per cent stake. McAdam said ABB will gain an early-mover advantage from its investment in Aquamarine’s Oyster technology and the partnership will give his firm access to ABB’s expertise and global supply chain network. Some debate, however, surrounds the cost-effectiveness of the Oyster system, however..One observer stated: “Twenty of these massive 800kW machines will deliver enough electricity for 12,000 homes annually - that works out at 525,600MWh. Let’s assume that they get £300 per MWh of intermittent electricity - then that will turnover £157.7 million per year. “The capital investment of around £400 million (mostly from taxpayers and written off) to install these devices means that these investors will make a packet on naff engineering with a capacity factor of just 3.75% With an over capacity in Hydro power, WHY do we still waste money on wind and wave?

“The only grid connected Marine Current Turbine’s machine at Strangford Narrows only converts ~ 5% of that massive tidal stream resource into electricity.. The sooner we realise that renewables in their present format are not fit-for-purpose, the better.” www.aquamarinepower.com

Air Products builds the country’s largest permanent hydrogen station in London

As UK’s first hydrogen bus fleet began operating in London in December, the first of a planned fleet of eight buses uses fuel-cell technology that produces energy from hydrogen and oxygen and emits only water vapour. The scheme will see eight buses phased into operation by the middle of next year, adding to the 100 hybrid buses already run by Transport for London (TfL). This follows a trial that ran between December 2003 and January 2007. The buses were designed for TfL by ISE, Wrightbus and Ballard. They will run from a specially built maintenance facility that will include the UK’s largest permanent hydrogen-refuelling station to be maintained by Air Products. Although the buses themselves will emit no carbon dioxide, the hydrogen will be produced by natural-gas reformation and transported by tanker from Rotterdam, Netherlands.Air Products was unable to provide information on how much carbon dioxide the hydrogen would be responsible for but said arrangements had been made to make the process as green as possible. “The hydrogen will be transported as liquid but then vaporised on site to fuel the buses, which will reduce the number of trips that have to be made from Rotterdam,” said Air Products spokesman John Blewett. “This is a first step as they trial the technology and they hope to reduce CO2 as this becomes possible, looking to renewable production in the future.” www.airproducts.co.uk/bulkgases/hydrogen

Inventor devises new way of making electrical resistance heat elements

Jeffrey Boardman, MD of Atmos, has invented a new way of making electrical resistance heating elements, using flame spraying. This technology, under the banner of 2DHeat Ltd, which is the commercialising vehicle, won the NW heat of the Shell Springboard Competition, was semi finalist in the national competition in London, in 2008. John Lewis, MD of 2DHeat, is leading the firm, together with Chris Redfearn, the major shareholder. The technology is producing ‘spray-on’ electric heating elements, which are more energy efficient in use than existing coiled-wire electric heating elements. The initial objective of the company is to penetrate the domestic white good appliances sector, with longer term potential in other markets. Mr Boardman said “Our USP is delivering improved appliance energy efficiency ratings that current elements cannot. This will enable white goods manufacturers to achieve premium pricing for improved products. This aim capitalises on the growing market demand and strong regulatory, governmental driven support for energy efficient appliances.”

Mr Boardman also said that ‘Europe’s largest manufacturer of conventional coiled wire heating elements’ had approached the company, seeking to explore options for developing the technology. In the long term, the technology will be used in sectors outside white goods and domestic appliances, including industrial processing , injection moulding, chemicals, petrochemicals, food, water, etc), and space and water heating in the built environment. 2DHeat was founded in 2004 and is currently a team of four based in Warrington, Cheshire. The company is seeking equity investment of £850,000 to develop and test element prototypes in the initial target appliance markets; secondly, to continue to develop production line technology for the initial OEM client (or their manufacturing supplier); and thirdly, to develop and establish a ‘telescoped’ production capability to supply metal oxide powder. The elements are formed by thermally spraying the electrical resistor materials directly on to the article requiring to be heated. They are a thin coating, not a classical wire or rod element. It introduces totally novel, patented “conditioning” technology, which uses pulsed high voltage electrical energy to bring the power rating of each element to within required commercial tolerances by selectively “burning” extra conductive pathways through the metal oxide matrix, allowing the final energy rating to be set as the final stage of manufacturing.www.2dheat.com – John Lewis - john@johnf-lewis.co.uk

Northern Irish firm EMS helps Azores to recycle packaging waste

Craigavon-based Environmental Marketing Solutions (EMS) is helping two islands in the Azores to tackle chronic packaging waste problems after securing a series of export deals worth more than £2 million in Portugal, the Middle East and the UK. EMS, a specialist in the bespoke design, manufacture and installation of waste recycling solutions secured the business from the authorities on Terceira and San Miguel, two of the nine islands in the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal. Harry McCourt, EMS MD said: “Winning the business in the Azores follows our success in Portugal where we have installed a number of recycling systems over the past year. The Azores imports virtually everything which has led to substantial packaging recovery issues.”The firm has designed waste management systems using the latest vermiculture technology - Mechanical & Biological Treatment with Worm Technology (MBTW). They have also joint ventured with a Portuguese expert company for deploying the biological reactor which utilises millions of worms of the specie Eisenia Foetida, known as Red Californian. The machinery was manufactured in Northern Ireland and shipped to the Azores in flat-pack format for our technicians to assemble and commission there. It’s the first time that we’ve developed waste management systems using vermiculture and is a good example of our expertise in designing systems that meet the specific needs of individual clients.”www.emswasterecycle.com

‘Glassing’ in pubs the focus of new initiative to cut the damage done

The Home Office and the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) recently held an event at the Institute of Materials called ‘21st century Pint’ to address the issue around violence involving glass in pubs and clubs. There are 87,000 violent incidents involving glass each year and glassings account for 10% of all assault injuries in accident and emergency departments. The cost of glass related injury is estimated to be £100m per annum. The Home Office want safer glasses and bottles and want to facilitate a market solution and encourage innovation through a standard based on injury potential. To develop the standard with the help of IOM3 and the Materials KTN, best practice guidelines will be developed by early April and the standard by November 2011. British Plastics Federation director-general Peter Davis said: “This is an opportunity for plastics to provide products which eliminate glassing. However, first we must participate in formulating the standard.” Surprisingly, most of Britain’s pint glasses are manufactured in Calais.www.materialsktn.net

ITM Power demonstrates it is not a ‘one product company’ as shares double

Gibson Index ‘Star Company’ ITM Power plc has announced its first HFlame field trial with Ametek Airtechnology Group Ltd. Their HFlame system is an alkaline electrolyser technology designed to replace standard gas and oxy-acetylene systems for a variety of laboratory, small industrial and workshop applications.It can be utilized in the brazing, soldering, cutting and polishing of metal, plastic, glass and quartz by producing a premixed oxy-hydrogen flame. This provides a safer and more convenient solution than traditional technologies which rely on bottled gases. ITM also announced that Autoglas, which has a fleet of 1,600 vehicles operating from 101 branches throughout the UK, is to join the HOST programme. www.itm-power.com - www.ametekaerodefense.com

SME NEWS – IT, SOFTWARE, SERVICES & INTERNET

Eptica’s web management software ranks up plenty of big-name clients

Eptica offers a multilingual solution for customer interaction management, including web self-service, email management, chat, fax-letter - sms and knowledge management for customer service. The Eptica software enables website and customer service channels to work together to improve quality of service, resolve enquiries faster, reduce costs and maximize every sales opportunity. More than 300 customers, including some of the world’s largest

brands, in 15 countries, use Eptica solutions to deliver excellent customer service at much lower cost. Eptica’s customers include Republic, Go Compare.com, Virgin Holidays, Ageas Insurance Solutions, Hotels.com, La Redoute, Brent Council, Capita, Société Générale, South East Water, ING and Barclays. Eptica is based in the UK, France, Spain, Canada and Singapore and operates worldwide through its network of partners. Eptica was entered into the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA in 2009 for the third year running.Its web self-service offers web analytics that go beyond page clicks to reveal the questions customers ask when they leave specific web pages on a company’s website to seek help. The level of customer insight this provides drives benefits across the business, including the ability to identify new market opportunities based on customer’s questions, refine search terms for search engine optimisation, and evolve web content to increase sales. Ray Westwick, Head of Call Centre at Ageas Insurance Solutions, said: “The enhanced analytics capability of Eptica Self-service has been fantastic in helping us get an even better understanding of the needs and wants of our customers. It’s regularly identifying things that we may not have considered otherwise, and is set to play a key part in informing our plans, marketing and web content in 2011.” www.eptica.com

Crocodile Keyboard’s inventor has developed space saving triangular keyboard

Designed for touch screen phones – inventor David Baker has just launched a triangle based qwerty keyboard that helps to hit the right keys on small touch screen devices running on Android. Many people still complain that smartphones now rely too much on predictive text to make up for the small, fiddly and cramped standard keyboard. A simple to use replacement keyboard that helps the user to hit the correct key seems to have eluded manufacturers. Mr Baker’s patent-pending solution is to change the tightly packed square keys to a triangular key layout. The keys sit on staggered rows and leave triangular shaped spaces around each key, making it difficult to hit two keys at the same time. The use of colour is also incorporated into the design to maximise the separation effect between key and background. So what makes this keyboard different? Mr Baker said “The keys really stand out from each other and it gives people with large fingers or poor eyesight a lot of confidence when they start to use it, especially as each person can set up a colour scheme that suits them. During our research, we never received the same colour request from over a hundred people”. After spending a year researching feedback and comments from users of the first prototype developed with help from Brighton University, it was shown that the use of colour was just as important as the crocodile teeth shaped of the keys. Mr Baker is working with London-based Intellectsoft Ltd to produce the second generation keyboard called CK2, now available on the Android market. He has an artistic

background helped having been trained as a stone carver with English Heritage, most recently he was part of the team responsible for the restoration of the Brighton Pavilion which took six years to complete. He has even converted a single decker bus into a motorhome so that he could stay down in Brighton while working during the week rather than travel from Goudhurst where he lives. Previous projects of this serial inventor prior to the keyboard include the Land Shark amphibious vehicle that Mr Baker and his team saw through to a fully granted US patent and also a new type of lift. www.crocodilekeyboards.com

Connexica wins £250,000 from Midven’s Exceed Midlands Advantage Fund

Established in 2006, Connexica provides a fundamentally different approach to information retrieval and management reporting. Their querying and analysis tools offer organisations the ability to index (using a search engine), retrieve and analyse their data at extremely high speeds even on large data volumes, easily and securely from any location. Their vision is to improve access to intelligent information for millions of people - not just the elite few. In October 2010 German-based Antavent, the business system integration and modernisation experts, and Connexica, began a partnership. Antavent will be able to offer organisations the ability to retrieve, analyse and report from their business data whether held within many disparate data sources or within a data warehouse. They will empower the user to access and present the information they need in real time without the costly involvement of IT resource. Connexica’s sales director Chris Finch said “Antavent’s expertise and reach will give us an exciting opportunity in many organisations throughout Central Europe”. The business intelligence company clinched the investment after developing its latest software product. The Exceed Midlands Advantage Fund is a recently launched £18m pot financed by Lloyds TSB Development Capital, Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund. The company said the investment is a result of its development of a “new, unique business intelligence tool” called NetSearch. It allows users to index, enquire, analyse and present large volumes of corporate data at “search engine speed”. Surjit Kooner, investment director of Midven’s Exceed Midlands Advantage Fund, says Connexica is a local company with great potential. www.connexica.com

Datanomic rapidly expands into North America and Asia Pacific

Risk & compliance screening and enterprise data management specialist Datanomic are looking forward to 2011 being another ‘financially rewarding year’.Dr Jonathan Pell, CEO of Datanomic, said “we continue to develop existing partner relationships and establish new ones, helping us address customer pain points associated

with legislation and regulatory compliance, data integrity and that all important single view of an entity.” The company will expand its partner network throughout the coming year to keep pace with customer demand. 2010 marked the opening of a new corporate headquarters in the UK, flagship offices in New York and further expansion of its global sales operations with a move into the Asia-Pacific region. 2011 will see Datanomic continue to capitalise on growing customer demand for its market leading product offering, dn:Director. It was also included in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2010 league table, ranked number 288 within the Technology, Media and Telecommunications category, a significant improvement compared with a ranking of 375 last year.www.datanomic.com

Elan Digital Systems launch two new chips to support latest tablet smartphones

In recent years Elan Digital has expanded its design expertise to include SD/SDIO, USB and Express Card technologies as well as focusing its design efforts on unique products for the fast-growing mobile datacomms market. In November 2010 Elan Digital Systems issued two new bridge chips designed to support latest tablet smartphones and other mobile system designs – the USBHC869 and the VUB300. The USBHC869, which measures only .16x.16 inches (4mm x 4mm), is the world’s smallest System Bus to USB Host controller bridge providing an additional USB 1.1 host controller for virtually any high performance low power system via the system bus. The other new chip, the VUB300, is a USB2.0 to SD / SDIO Host Bridge chip. The device provides a single SD+SDIO host port from a USB host port. The combination of VUB300 chip and Elan drivers allows the device to appear in the system as an SD/SDIO host controller. An important benefit for system designers is that SDIO client devices do not need new USB drivers. www.elandigitalsystems.com - Corinne Hadingham - 01489 579 799.

SME NEWS – BIOTECH, PHARMA & MEDICAL SCIENCES

Redd & Whyte Ltd comes 10th ‘The Scientist’ magazine innovations table

This virtually unknown life sciences equipment designer found itself listed in the Top Ten Innovations 2010 by ‘The Scientist’ magazine, based in the US.This was due to the versatility of their new microplate dispenser, the Preddator. This bench top robot addresses the vexing limitations of existing fluid dispensers, which typically can’t handle cell-containing sample volumes smaller than 3 microliters. According to Redd & Whyte’s MD Roger Poole, the Preddator can dispense as little as 20 nanoliters of a variety of solutions, including normal aqueous solutions, cell-containing solutions, saline solutions, beads, mineral oils, and surfactants.

“This product gives [biologists] the platform to try things that they never would have dreamed that they could have done,” Poole says. The Preddator, which has a price tag of about £26,000, was adapted from a robotic instrument that came to Redd & Whyte from the glue industry, where precision spots of adhesive are applied to manufacture an army of plastic goods. A suite of enhancements later, the microplate dispenser can drop virtually any fluid volume into 96-well to 3456-well plates in a variety of patterns that the user can program. Poole says that the Preddator, which was released in October 2010, was developed with Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, which fully endorses the product and uses the instrument to test targets and drugs in primary and secondary screenings. “This helps them significantly speed up the process and takes out a lot of the guesswork,” he says. But high-throughput screening for drug discovery is only one of the applications to which the Preddator is suited. Poole adds that PCR work and protein crystallography could also benefit from the robot’s ability to handle exceedingly small quantities of a variety of sample types. Accurately dispensing beads and cells into high-density microtiter plates has been very challenging. This remarkably flexible and high-speed dispensing system appears to solve the problem, opening up new applications for high-throughput robotics. The efficiency of high-throughput assays relies on flexible, low-volume liquid handling. Working with high precision at low volumes is often limited by reagent delivery. In 2006 whilst working with one of the world’s largest international pharmaceutical companies, it was evident that one of the greatest challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry was the requirement to move HTS operations to 1536 plate formats as soon as possible. The drive to migrate to the 1536 MTP format has only been impaired by the lack of effective dispensing technologies. Contact: Martyn Hanlon - 07841 428514 - martyn@reddandwhyte.com

GT Biologics Ltd spun out from the Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen

The company will exploit the intellectual property of its glamorous founder Professor Denise Kelly and will develop new therapies for the prevention and treatment of inflammatory diseases of the human gastrointestinal tract, including Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative colitis. The company will develop and commercialise an oral-based probiotic product for the treatment of mild to moderate Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and a novel family of protein/peptide therapeutics for the treatment of moderate to severe inflammatory bowel diseases. These novel drug products have been derived from bacteria that naturally colonised the gut of healthy individuals and have been scientifically proven to exhibit potent anti-infectious and anti-inflammatory properties. Human gut bacteria provide a diverse and rich source of natural drugs and the company aims to use this novel platform for further drug discovery and product development. Bacteria outnumber human cells by 10 to 1. info@gt-biologics.com. The firm is aiming to utilize specific gut bacteria to prevent and cure serious disease. Inflammatory bowel

disease (IBD) affects 1.8m people in seven major markets, and rates are increasing all the time, even in countries with low levels such as Japan. In a paper released in 2004 in ‘Nature Immunology’ magazine, they identified an anti-inflammatory pathway which protects against gut damage, named B Thetaiotaomicron. They were the first group to show that gut bacteria go beyond probiotics. There are around 1,000 different species of bacteria in the human gut. The company received funding from the Genomia Fund, and it is running successful pre-clinical trials. They will focus on a novel drug treatment to moderate sever Crohn’s disease first of all. Dr Howard Marriage is the co-founder.www.gt-biologics.com

Asalus Medical Instruments secures £510,000 funding to develop new products

Based in Cardiff, Asalus is developing three devices that will improve the safety and efficiency of laparoscopic surgery, a surgical technique in which abdominal operations are performed through small incisions. It is a form of surgery that is growing in popularity. More than two million laparoscopic operations per year are performed in the US. Fusion IP, the company which turns university research into business, says portfolio company Asalus had secured the £510,000 funding from existing investors Fusion (£220,000), Finance Wales (£220,000), and IP Group (£60,000). Following the fundraising, Fusion will have a 43 per cent shareholding in Asalus. David Baynes, chief executive of Fusion IP, said: “Asalus have met all their development milestones to date and the customer reaction to the instruments has been particularly strong.” Dominic Griffiths, the chief executive of Asalus, added: “We continue to believe that there is a gap in the market for a specialist incubator and developer of innovative medical devices, particularly in minimally invasive surgery market. We look forward to 2011 with confidence.” The Cardiff University spinout was formed on the back of research conducted at the Wales Institute of Minimal Access Therapy (WIMAT). Asalus Medical Instruments Ltd was formed as part of the ongoing relationship between Cardiff University and Fusion IP. Asalus incorporates a number of technologies developed by Neil Warren, with three inventions aimed at improving laparoscopic surgery techniques. Cardiff University filed patents on three medical device technologies, now transferred to Asalus. Mr Warren said “The work at WIMAT is at the forefront of minimally invasive surgery training and it was this hands-on experience that enabled me to come up with the concepts for the Asalus range of laparoscopic devices.” Fusion IP believes the number of laparoscopic procedures conducted has grown rapidly with over 2 million laparoscopic operations performed each year in the US alone. A 2006 report by BCC Research estimated the global market for laparoscopic surgery devices and instruments was worth US$12 bn in 2005, and is expected to grow to US$18.5bn by 2011.www.cardiff.ac.uk/pgmde/sections/wimat

CyDen’s iPulse technology leads beauty market in home-use light therapy

The company is now pursuing aggressive growth backed by a recent investment round of no less than £11m, and it anticipates sales growth from £5.5m in 2010 to £20m in 2011 as it takes advantage of a leadership position in a rapidly growing market. This will be achieved by establishing strategic partnerships with global brands capable of accessing multiple markets in both the hair and skin categories, launching the skin rejuvenation product in April 2011. The market is anticipated to grow to over £1bn within the next 2-3 years and Cyden is well positioned to play a lead role. In February 2009, CyDen, in partnership with Boots in the UK, launched the ‘Boots SmoothSkin by iPulse’. This product provides safe and permanent hair reduction using intense pulsed-light in the home and CyDen was able to develop and introduce the first truly effective home-use device to market, ahead of companies such as Philips and Remington. Since its launch, the SmoothSkin by iPulse has become Boots’ biggest selling electrical beauty product and is the biggest selling product of any category on Boots.com. Subsequently launched in Spain, Germany, Japan and Australia under the iPulse brand, the product continues to be well received by consumers. In 2011, CyDen will launch a skin rejuvenation product and an acne product as well as rolling out its hair product through strategic partners. From the very start, the founders wanted to create a consumer device and knew they could make light devices smaller, cheaper and, at the same time, clinically more effective. The third round of funding brought in Unilever Ventures which has further extended the firm’s potential market reach in the consumer field. www.cyden.co.uk

Hybrid Biosystems merges with Myotec to form PsiOxus Therapeutics Ltd

Two ailing SMEs will unite in the hope that their combined skills – a new funding round of £3.6m from Imperial Innovations, Invesco Perpetual and the Mercia Fund – will resuscitate the venture.The merged business and new funds will be used to develop a pipeline of therapeutic treatments for cancer and wasting diseases, and in particular, helping to advance two promising treatments including one targeting cachexia, a wasting disease that is the direct cause of death in 20 to 40 percent of all cancer patients. The Mercia Fund was the founding investor in Hybrid and has supported it since its origins as a spinout from the University of Birmingham. The Mercia Fund has worked closely with the founding management team to develop its product strategy and was instrumental in building out its management base and leading the merger and investment transactions. Hybrid directors Mark Payton (Mercia Fund) and Phil L’Huillier (Cancer Research Technologies) will join the newly formed PsiOxus board, together with Charles Swingland as an independent director. Hybrid’s ColoAd1 is a unique oncolytic virus developed using the evolutionary principle of natural selection to generate a virus with optimal anti-cancer properties. ColoAd1 is an

extremely potent anti-cancer therapeutic with high selectivity for killing cancer cells but which shows little or no activity on normal tissue. Dr Michael Moore, chairman of PsiOxus said: “As a combined entity, we have the clinical trials expertise among our scientific founders to develop promising new therapeutics to treat cancer and other serious diseases. We now look forward to advancing this product pipeline through the clinical stages ahead.” www.merciafund.co.uk - www.psioxus.com

Indigix Ltd develops novel platform to engineer synthetic molecules

In 2010 Imperial Innovations Group plc led a seed investment of £0.93m into its portfolio company Indigix Ltd. Potential applications for Indigix’s technology include the treatment of diarrhoeal diseases, inflammatory bowel disease and wound healing. Imperial Innovations and Kurma BioFund each committed 50% of the new equity financing totalling £0.85m which follows on from a convertible loan from Innovations to the company earlier in 2010. The funding round will be used to support the manufacture of a lead candidate followed by further pre-clinical testing. The investment will also be used to create a management team and expand the company’s operational capabilities Indigix was launched to commercialise research by Professor Sunil Shaunak, who is based at Imperial College London’s Hammersmith Hospital campus. His work was identified as a potentially valuable and commercialisable asset during a review of Imperial College London’s research into infectious diseases, conducted by Innovations Entrepreneur in Residence Dr Robert Feldman earlier in 2010. Professor Shaunak previously co-founded PolyTherics Ltd, another Innovations portfolio company in 2001. www.imperialinnovations.co.uk

Isis Innovation helps form IXO Therapeutics Ltd, a new biotechnology company

IXO Therapeutics was formed to research and develop novel medicines from natural sources for the treatment of immune-mediated and inflammatory diseases. The new company, a start-up from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and focused on the development of intellectual property (IP) derived from both NERC and the University of Oxford, aims to develop recombinant protein products that will treat inflammation and diseases that affect the body’s immune system.These proteins are all derived from natural sources and several are already being developed that will address unmet clinical and commercial need. The portfolio of products is based on the work of Professor Pat Nuttall’s group at NERC’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, in collaboration with research groups at the University of Oxford. The portfolio includes a novel dendritic cell modulator – these cells are key regulators of the immune system and are found, for example, in the lymph nodes and spleen; and an LTB4 inhibitor. LTB4 is a key component of the immune system and encourages the white blood cells to attack disease, but in inflamed tissue it can actually

exacerbate the condition. The IXO LTB4 inhibitor is a binding protein that will balance out the body’s inflammatory response.Professor Nuttall said “The launch of IXO is an important step forward as the research is now at a transitional stage. IXO expects to develop and produce a number of anti-inflammatory compounds that will target diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis – conditions that are in urgent need of new clinical approaches.” www.ixo-ltd.com

Luto Research works to enhance information created for patients taking lithium

Originally created as a spinout of the University of Leeds in 2004, it was formed by Prof Theo Raynor, an expert on medicines management at the university. Underpinned by a strong research base, it has carried out more than 15,000 individual participant interviews to ensure that patient information materials are fit for purpose. In December 2010 Prof Raynor said the serious side effects linked to lithium therapy can be avoided if patients are given clear guidance on taking the medicine. Around 50,000 people in the UK are currently taking lithium. When used appropriately, lithium can be a good way to prevent mood swings caused by bipolar disorder, combating mania, or treating severe and recurring bouts of depression. However if patients become dehydrated or if they start taking other medicines that affect levels of lithium in the blood, the drug can cause serious harm, or even death. A series of reported deaths and cases of serious harm linked to lithium therapy prompted the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) to describe the drug’s use as ‘error-prone’ last year. The NPSA gave NHS hospitals and clinics 12 months to sort out their procedures in order to prevent more mistakes. That deadline - 31 December 2010 - is rapidly approaching. Team members worked with the NPSA to look at the clarity of messages presented in a new booklet intended for patients taking lithium. They tested the information on members of the public to see if they could understand the key messages. They re-worded the advice - where needed - and then checked that their suggested sentences and phrases were easier to understand. The revised wording was then incorporated into the NPSA’s new patient information booklet that all NHS healthcare organisations should now be providing to people taking lithium. www.luto.co.uk

Pet drugs firm Dechra Pharmaceuticals expands again with new acquisition

It has grown the business with the acquisition of a veterinary pharmaceuticals company. The £5.4m acquisition of Genitrix, based in West Sussex, comes after the £40m purchase of Florida-based DermaPet in October. Dechra has its Dales Pharmaceuticals plant in Skipton, where it makes drugs for pets and humans. Dechra said it had bought the entire issued share capital of Genitrix from its owner managers for an initial £5.4m. A further £0.8m is payable once the company achieves specific milestones. The purchase is being funded from Dechra’s existing cash resources. In the year ended March 31, 2010, Genitrix achieved revenues of £2.4m.

Ian Page, Dechra chief executive, said: “Genitrix range of equine and companion animal products enhances and complements our UK product portfolio. Furthermore the recently approved canine epilepsy product, Libromide, provides future growth opportunities through potential mutual recognition in Europe. The acquisition is expected to be earnings enhancing in the first full year www.dechra.com

FUNDING & INVESTMENTS

Bladon Jets raises £500,000 from Oxford Investment Opportunity Network (OION)

In December 2010 a new micro gas turbine in Jaguar C-X75 super car unveiled at Paris and LA Motor Shows, made by Staffordshire-based Bladon Jets Ltd.The company also raised a sizeable sum via OION, Europe’s most successful business angel network. Bladon is leading the world in developing micro gas turbine engines for cars and power generation. It worked with car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover on the development of a micro gas turbine engine to operate in a plug-in hybrid car. A Jaguar C-X75 super car incorporating two Bladon Jets micro gas turbines was recently unveiled to industry acclaim at the Paris Motor Show and proved to be a star attraction at the Los Angeles Motor Show. Bladon Jets micro gas turbines are ideally suited for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The batteries in these vehicles will typically provide 50 plus miles of electric range but the cars are also capable of travelling longer distances when using an on-board power generator to charge the batteries on the move. In the case of the Jaguar C-X75 its range is extended to 900 kilometres on a single tank of fuel by using the Bladon Jet micro gas turbines. In addition, the Indian multinational Tata announced it was making an investment in Bladon Jets. Bladon Jets finance director, Gary Lamb, said: “The problem with electric cars is their range. You can only drive 50 or 100 miles before having to stop and charge the batteries. To solve this you need to have an alternative power source. Traditional piston-driven car engines as used in many current generation hybrids are heavy and can only operate using a single type of fuel - petrol or diesel. By comparison, gas turbine engines are very light - 3kg compared to over 100kg for a piston engine - and have only 5% of the number of parts making them simpler to produce and maintain. Moreover, they can be designed for multi-fuel operation. So putting a gas turbine into an electric vehicle makes a lot of sense.” The secret to the success of Bladon Jets technology is the fact that the turbine engine does not power the car wheels but generates electricity to charge the batteries as and when required. And it does this efficiently and cleanly. Gary Lamb explained: “There have been a number of attempts to use a turbine engine to power a car previously, but driving the wheels. This has a number of problems. Firstly, turbine lag, which is a short delay between you putting your foot on the accelerator and the power being delivered to the driving wheels, rather than the instant response you get from an electric engine, for example. And if you run turbines at a variety of speeds, particularly at low revolutions, they are not especially efficient. They are most

economical when operating at a constant high speed - as they are when being used to generate electricity.” Chairman of Bladon Jets, Paul Barrett, said: “We want to establish micro gas turbine engines as the range-extending power source of choice for hybrid car manufacturers. But there is also significant potential for our micro gas turbines in combined heat and power units and other small-scale power generating units, not least in India. Tata have many different divisions and we are looking forward to exploring the further opportunities for our technology.” Bladon Jets has also recently led a consortium that won a Technology Strategy Board (TSB) funding award for developing low carbon vehicle technology. The £2.4m award is for development of a turbine generator purposely designed for a car, and requires match-funding. One key partner for Bladon Jets is IXC UK, which has been searching for novel auxiliary power generation solutions. Following these introductions facilitated by IXC UK a consortium led by Bladon Jets and including JLR and SR Drives went on to receive £1.1m from the TSB’s Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform (LCVIP) to develop “the worlds first commercially viable - and environmentally friendly - gas turbine generator designed specifically for automotive applications”. This Ultra Lightweight Range Extender (ULRE) project will use the novel Bladon Jet micro-jet turbine engine coupled to a high speed generator utilising SR Drives’ proprietary switched reluctance technology. JLR will oversee the vehicle integration aspect of the consortium’s ULRE. Contact: Paul Barrett, chairman, Bladon Jets - www.bladonjets.com - www.srdrives.com

Sheffield spinout raised £475,000 to develop its ultra-bright lighting technology

Seren Photonics, part-owned by university commercialisation group Fusion IP, said the funds will allow it to build its first pilot-scale HB LEDs (high-brightness light-emitting diodes). Seren’s new processing technique, developed by Dr Tao Wang from the University of Sheffield, greatly increases the efficiency at which a HB LED converts electricity into light and significantly reduces heat. Seren chairman Dr Godfrey Ainsworth said: “We have made significant progress with the development of this technology in recent months. Incorporation of our process technology in to packaged pilot HB LEDs will allow us to demonstrate our product to potential manufacturing partners and early adopters from the potential customer base. We are already engaged in discussions with these parties”. The firm said successful demonstrations have so far resulted in a doubling of the light output compared to untreated devices. This means either much brighter lamps can be manufactured or the power consumption of state-of-the-art lamps can be reduced Seren’s technology is targeted at the large and fast-growing white light HB LED markets, such as back lighting for laptops and TVs, signs and displays, as well as domestic and architectural lighting. This market is currently worth an estimated $5bn and is set to grow to $12bn by 2013.

Seren raised money from investors including Fusion, IP Group and Dr Drew Nelson, founder and chief executive of the global semiconductor foundry, IQE plc. The funding will be used to purchase key equipment and complete several pilot scale manufacturing schemes involving Seren’s manufacturing processes. These will then be used as demonstration products to showcase its technology to manufacturers. Seren said it has already started discussions with three Far East manufacturers. www.serenphotonics.co.uk

GENERAL NEWS

The 2010 Manchester Evening News Business of the Year Award winners:

Pets at Home was top dog in the category for firms with a turnover of over £50m at the awards. The Handforth-based retailer provided one of the region’s biggest business stories of the year when it was bought in January by American private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for £955m. Pets at Home, founded by Anthony Preston in 1991, then showed its pedigree with rocketing profits for the year to March 25, up from £40m to £54.24m. It opened a record 24 outlets during the period and now has 265 stores.

Cheshire engineering company Oliver Valves took op spot in the category for firms with a turnover between £25 and £50m. The company, founded by chairman Michael Oliver from his garage in 1979, leads the world in designing and manufacturing valves for the petrochemical industry. The largest privately-owned valve maker in Europe, it has a turnover of £42m, up from £38m in 2008/9, with 250 staff at its Knutsford HQ and another 600 around the world.

Easi Drive took the honours in the category for firms with turnover of between £10 and £25m. The business was founded by brothers Simon and Daniel Bellamy in 2001 and now has 135 staff managing a fleet of 1,000 vehicles. It recently opened new £1.6m headquarters with plans to expand north into Scotland and south into the Home Counties.

Data centre specialist Sudlows won the category for businesses with turnover of under £10m. It was founded in 1912 to convert Manchester’s gas-powered street lights to electricity and was also a finalist last year, is now at the forefront of IT-hosting technology and is riding a wave of investment in the sector. The firm has won business from clients including The Co-op and British Telecom during 2010.

Protomed won the Young Business of the Year prize, for firms less than three years old. Protomed is on track to achieve turnover of almost £1.5m this year after winning new business both in the UK and Europe. Founded in 2007 by Norman Niven and his son John, Protomed will now target new markets for its medicine packaging system Biodose.

The 2010 Lord Stafford Awards SME finalists include:

Established in 1997, the awards are now recognised as being able to identify top innovators in the West Midlands have become established as the top innovation competition in the West Midlands and have now spread to the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland.

Innovation in Development:Crestwood Environmental with the University of Wolverhampton Coventry Cyrenians with Coventry University Rackety’s Ltd with Coventry University

Innovation Achieved: Scientific & Chemical Supplies Ltd with Staffordshire University midTECH Innovations Ltd with Coventry University

Open Collaboration: Wardell Armstrong LLP with Keele University Caparo plc with the University of Wolverhampton Malthouse Engineering Ltd with the University of Wolverhampton www.lordstaffordawards.com

Lord Heseltine’s Regional Growth Fund urges SMEs to submit joint bids

Lord Heseltine has urged small businesses seeking a slice of the government’s flagship Regional Growth Fund to submit joint bids to increase their chances of receiving some of the £1.4bn pool of investment cash. “We have no means of coping with very large numbers of very small bids,” Heseltine said. Heseltine is chairman of the independent advisory panel which will consider all bids for funding and make recommendations to government. He is encouraging businesses and entrepreneurs to bid for cash from the fund. The Regional Growth Fund is intended to provide support for projects that can drive sustainable economic growth and create new private sector jobs. The coalition government hopes the fund will help communities that are currently dependent on the public sector make the transition to private sector-led growth and prosperity. The fund has a threshold of £1m per scheme. But Heseltine said that he had the banks “to see what part they can play in subdividing such a figure to bring our initiatives within reach of small and medium enterprises or start ups”. Heseltine said he expected some bids will come from private sector bodies, such as chambers of commerce or trade associations, while others will come from private-public partnerships – such as the newly created local enterprise partnerships. “But they should not come from public sector bodies alone,” Heseltine added. The former deputy prime minister said no sectors would be favoured in terms of which businesses applied for the fund. “There’s no limit. Anyone can apply,” Heseltine has said. “Job creation is favoured.” The current round of bidding closes on 21 January 2011. But there will be a number of subsequent rounds. Enquiries: ndsenquiries@coi.gsi.gov.uk

FOREIGN NEWS

Electric Audi may be one of the technology breakthroughs of 2010

Mirko Hannemann, 27, drove the yellow and purple all-electric Audi A2 in seven hours from Munich to Berlin, and the German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle called Hannemann’s trip a ‘technological quantum leap’. Hannemann said “We have shown what everyday cars can do.” He is the chief brain behind DBM Energy, a startup from Berlin that developed the powerful battery pack that made the long trip possible. Consumers have so far been put off by the short driving range of electric cars, usually at between 60 and 100 miles, and by the cost and size of the batteries. The four-seat Audi A2, funded by German utility lekker Energie and the German Economy Ministry, has all features of a regular car, including a fully usable trunk. Hannemann drove the 375 miles at 55 miles per hour on average, had the heat on and was able to whisk around a few more miles in the city. The battery, based on what DBM Energy calls the Kolibri AlphaPolymer Technology, comes with 97 percent efficiency and can be charged at virtually every socket. Plugged into a high-voltage direct-current source, the battery can be fully loaded within 6 minutes, Hannemann said. Eager to reduce the dependency on imported oil and cut carbon dioxide emissions from road traffic, the German government last year said it wants to have 1 million electric cars cruise its highways by 2020.

Will video kill the Internet, too? Yes, if Netflix Inc has its way..

By any measure, Netflix is having a really good year. Its subscriber base jumped by 52 percent in the third quarter, and its stock price has doubled since July 1. Netflix’s 16 million subscribers are so eager to stream Sandra Bullock movies - Crash and The Blind Side are currently the No 1 and 5 most-streamed movies - that the company now accounts for ‘20% of all Internet traffic’ during a typical American evening, according to Sandvine, which makes network monitoring equipment. At the Web 2.0 conference in mid-November, an onstage interviewer asked Netflix CEO Reed Hastings whether the Internet’s infrastructure can withstand the strain as his streaming business grows. “If there’s anything you’d want to bet on,” said Hastings, “it’s that technology will make bandwidth faster and cheaper.” That bet may not be as safe as it seems. It’s true that history is reassuring, and the steady progression from the dial-up modem to fiber-optic cable has led to bandwidth that easily meets demand. There has been nothing like the double whammy of video and mobile that’s under way, say industry executives and analysts. A high-definition movie is magnitudes larger than an email or a web page, the kinds of content the Net was built to transmit.

There are now more than 50m smartphone owners in the US, many of whom want to catch up on Glee while in line at the supermarket. Video may make up 90 percent of all Internet traffic by 2014 - a fact that’s changing the economics of delivering data. www.netflix.com

Six Australian companies win the UK Market Entry Competition

Finale events were held last week in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where companies pitched their plans for business expansion to the UK to a panel of judges from the worlds of business, trade and finance. The final winners were: Rutherford Global Power and Iris Interactive (Sydney); Lite Industries and PHM Technology (Melbourne); NOJA Power and In Business Systems (Brisbane). The UK-ME competition is backed by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), the British Government’s trade and development arm, and the main prizes included British Airways return airfares to London, accommodation with Marriott hotels, a free company registration, introductions to potential business partners and business networks and ongoing UKTI support. Contact Jake Waddell: jake.waddell@fco.gov.uk - 0061 2 8247 2218. www.rutherfordgroup.com.au - www.iris.com.au - www.phmtechnology.com.auwww.nojapower.com.au - www.quotec.com - www.ukme.org.uk

What are America’s ‘Best Young Entrepreneurs’?

Campus Buddy - Publishes data on college class grading Founder: Mike Moradian, 25 started the business in Los Angeles. After experiencing a particularly rough time in a calculus class during his sophomore year at UCLA, Mike Moradian began to think students could benefit from knowing more about how professors grade. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the business economics major got information about grade distributions at classes at the public university. That data became the basis for CampusBuddy, the business he launched in February 2008. Moradian aggregated public data on grade distributions for classes, professors, and majors at 250 public colleges, starting with the University of California system. The service has 280,000 active monthly users out of the nearly 1 million people who have joined, most through its Facebook app. Moradian says a “small percentage” of active users pay $1.50 monthly for access to detailed grading data. The site also makes money by referring students to such services as textbook sellers and moving companies and through advertising. CampusBuddy employs 100 interns who work remotely for school credit and maintains a staff of five at its Beverly Hills office. Moradian says the company had $60,000 in revenue in 2009 and projects $400,000 this year. www.campusbuddy.com

CitizenGroove is software for digitizing music school applications www.citizengroove.com

Music schools and university music departments typically receive hundreds or thousands of recorded auditions on CD or DVD from candidates. These have to be manually labeled and sent to reviewers who can’t come in to hear them. Four friends from Case Western University wanted to streamline the process. In March 2010, after raising $350,000 from angel investors and a state innovation grant, they designed a tool that music schools and applicants can access through each school’s application website. There, candidates upload and label their own auditions for administrators to access and review, eliminating the need for equipment, physical storage, and personnel. Schools pay fees based on the size of their applicant pools: Prices range from a few thousand dollars to over $10,000 per year. CitizenGroove launched the tool this fall and so far has seven clients, including the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Knific expects revenue to reach $100,000 by December.

Forever Lazy sells one-piece pajamas for adults Founders Tyler Galganski, 25, and Dave Hibler, 25, started the venture, based in Brookfield, Wisconsin. When Tyler Galganski ordered himself a pair of one-piece pajamas in early 2009, he was disappointed with the quality. He and his best childhood friend Dave Hibler thought they could make a better product. They started their company, Forever Lazy, when the Snuggie was the latest fad and they spotted an opportunity to sell comfortable sleepwear for adults. Galganski and Hibler moved production from San Francisco to China this year to manufacture larger runs; the pajamas now retail from $45 to $50. The pair say they sold $36,000 worth in four months of operating in 2009 and they project $496,000 for 2010. www.foreverlazy.com

UNIVERSITY NEWS

What do a rubbish-collecting recommissioned milk float, “magnetricity” and the bombardier beetle have in common? They have all played a part in helping academics and their universities triumph in the 2010 Times Higher Education Awards. If proof were ever needed of the imagination, innovation and sheer diversity of UK higher education’s output, it’s here. From a scheme training researchers to become leaders and managers to a nonchemical process for removing arsenic from groundwater, the ideas and initiatives keep on coming. The Results:University of the Year - University of York In 2010 it completed the first phase of a £500m campus extension project on time and on budget. It won a third Queen’s Anniversary Prize, which recognized the Social Policy Research Unit, and mapping the genetic code of the medicinal herb Artemisia annua, to help tackle malaria.

Entrepreneurial University of the Year - University of Hertfordshire

Only 25% of its income comes from HEFCE, proving a commitment to innovation, says VC Prof Tim Wilson. The rest comes from activities which include running a bus company, Uno, and a consultancy that engages with 250,000 small business and supports the creation of 1,000 companies each year. It has KTPs with more than 30 firms. Employability is a key part of student curriculum. The University now has an entrepreneurial culture, with what the judges called ‘a real team spirit and ethnic across the institution’. The University also launched the UK’s first completely online-only prospectus.www.herts.ac.uk

Most Innovative Teacher of the Year - Tony Mann, University of Greenwich The inspired initiatives of Tony Mann, head of mathematical sciences dept, has revolutionized its performance – even though many entrants have low marks, half are mature students, and two-thirds are from minorities. Students start courses with a modelling week in which they solve practical problems.www.cms.gre.ac.uk

Outstanding Engineering Research Team of the Year - Queen’s University Belfast Removal of arsenic from groundwater without using chemicals – now in widespread use in India. Bhaskar Sen Gupta, lecturer at the School of Planning, is helping to establish six treatment plants in India.

Outstanding Contribution to Innovation and Technology - University of Leeds Researchers in biomimetics analysed the defence mechanism of the bombardier beetle, and together with the Swedish firm Biomimetics 3000 they copied the beetle’s attack spray system, which is used to ward off predators. The researchers have developed a new powerful and accurate spray technology with potential for the production of highly specified sprays without the need for VOC propellants.www.swedishbiomimetics.com

Research Project of the Year - University College London The experimental observation of the magnetic equivalent of electricity is an important advance in physics that could have wide practical applications. Andrew Wills, read in physical materials chemistry at UCL, detected monopoles at very low temperatures in a form of crystal known as spin ice.The team’s exploration of sub-atomic particles crossed the boundaries of chemistry and physics, and has the potential for wider application in IT, MRI scanners and other crucial technologies.www.london-nano.com/our-people/academics/andrew-wills

Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year – University of BristolTheir ChemLabS project transformed the way that practical work in chemistry was carried out at undergraduate level. An e-learning tool known as the Dynamic Laboratory Manual was also introduced.www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

UCL Advances announces a further two hatchlings

The UCL Advances Student Hatchery has announced two new startup companies - The Sport Review and Zooza. The hatchery aims to provide a base for new student-led businesses when they first need it and to help prepare them for their upcoming life as full grown businesses in the outside world. UCL held its most successful Enterprise Bootcamp in November 2010 with over 160 students attending. This is the fifth bootcamp hosted since 2009 and the first in this academic year. The aim of the bootcamp is to introduce UCL students to the fundamentals of the modern business world. Over the three days students received lectures on topics such as finance and innovation and learn through exercises in teamwork and presentation. Participants’ found the bootcamp to be extremely useful and felt it would give them a competitive edge in the current work market. UCL Advances organises training for Entrepreneurs, SMEs and UCL Members. Up-coming courses that may be of interest are: - Technology Strategy: 31st January to 4th February 2011, 9.00am to 5.00pm each day - Entrepreneurial Marketing: 16th to 18th February 2011, 9.00am to 5.00pm each day www.ucl.ac.uk/advances/shortcourses

UCL start-up Satalia featured in ‘The Times’ Graduate Career supplement

The feature, ‘Universities cash in on students’ best ideas’, described how UCL Advances helped Satalia Ltd by awarding them with a £20,000 Bright Ideas Award - an award that aims to help bridge the gap that many new companies find themselves in when they search for their first funding. Satalia’s core competencies in optimization problem solving are applied to create a solution that combines a managed portfolio of state-of-the-art solvers together with key proprietary processes to improve problem solving. Satalia takes advantage of state-of-the-art research in solving challenging optimization problems through a managed service that complements existing hardware and software infrastructures. Daniel J Hulme co-founded Satalia in 2008 and was one of the principal architects in designing and implementing the core technologies behind Satalia’s new business model. Daniel has an MSci and Engineering Doctorate (EngD) in Computational Complexity from UCL. Daniel holds an international Kauffman Global Entrepreneur Scholarship and actively promotes entrepreneurship and technology innovation in the UK and US. Satalia Inc is a subsidiary of NPComplete Ltd; a spinout of UCL and is a privately owned company. www.satalia.com - Daniel J Hulme – CEO - 07773 765 097.

University of Glasgow pioneers the Compostella Measuring System

In late 2010 Dr Phil Dobson and Dr David Burt together with Dr Stephen Thoms and Professor John Weaver of the School of Engineering are planning a new start-up firm.

They will start a company to commercialise high precision measuring technology they have developed which could deliver much improved performance in scientific and industrial equipment at a fraction of the cost of existing systems.The system uses an optical device that creates an extraordinarily precise projection onto a digital camera. Computer software then analyses the resulting image and calculates the position of the optical device with a precision thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair. The Compostella system they have developed will be applied to a range of uses, including manufacturing tools, microscopes, robotics and telescopes. In the future it could also be used to help civil engineers monitor cracks in buildings or bridges, allowing them to intervene and take preventative action before the structure becomes dangerous. www.elec.gla.ac.uk - j.weaver@elec.gla.ac.uk

Academics mentor student in Dorset-based VR Technology Ltd

As part of a KTN’s Industrial Mathematics Internships Programme, co-funded by EPSRC, academic mentor David Leppinen of the University of Birmingham and Nick Ovenden, University College London helped PhD student Jean-Pierre O’Brian in his work at VR Technology, a leading supplier of technical dive computers based in Dorset. “This project has been an extremely useful and valuable exercise for Jean-Pierre. He has learnt a number of skills in applying novel mathematics to an industrially relevant problem and the project has provided some additional insight into his own PhD research on microbubble contrast agents.” said Mr Ovenden, at UCL. David Leppinen, University of Birmingham said “This internship has advanced our understanding of decompression sickness and has identified areas for future work and collaboration. It is a prime example of how mathematical modelling can be used to solve industrial problems.”Nick Bushell, industrial supervisor at VR Technology said “This project has been our first use of the internship system with KTN. The results and progress have exceeded our expectations. We will continue to keep working with the KTN and the members of the team to continue this project and start others.” The company is interested in expanding upon an existing algorithm (the Variable Gradient Model - VGM), which is used to design ascent profiles/decompression schedules and thereby mitigate the risk of decompression sickness in divers. There are a number of reasonably successful decompression algorithms for divers. Different organisations and styles of diving use different algorithms approved or appropriate to the depths, gas and durations of the dives being performed. Astronauts also have a decompression algorithm for spacewalks. However, a complete decompression model does not exist. Such a model would be able to predict decompression requirements taking into account body type, fitness, smoking, hydration as well as dive profiles, gas used and time at elevated or reduced pressure. www.vr3.co.uk

Engineering firms invited to apply for grants to develop space technologies

Surrey University and its partners have launched the Space Engineering Innovation Voucher Scheme in partnership with the South East England Development Agency. Keith Robson, research director at the university, said: “Surrey University’s Space Centre (SSC) is ideally positioned to help companies develop products either for use directly in space or in downstream markets, for example providing GPS-based services, satellite imaging, processing space data or using space technologies for applications in other sectors.” Grants of up to £8,000 are available to help businesses exploit projects and ideas for which they lack the technology or expertise to do alone, and can be used for any activity that furthers existing innovative projects, products or services. Applicants must be SMEs or startup companies based in the SEEDA region and preference will be given to proposals which align with expertise available from the university. Applications for the innovation vouchers will be judged by an expert panel and preference will be given to those projects that align with existing capabilities at the university and the newly formed Space Engineering Innovation Centre (SEIC) that offers incubation space and business support to SMEs. The call for applications will close on 31 January 2011. www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC

Team from Queen’s University Belfast wins high technology award

At this year’s Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP) £25K awards in Belfast, researchers from the Electronics, Communications and Information Technology department received £2,500 for their proposed company Mobile Voice Recognition (MVR).The concept provides speech recognition solutions that will revolutionise the way that people interact with most mobile devices. The technology enables large vocabulary continuous speech recognition to be embedded in small electronic devices. It provides the solution for complex speech-to-text applications while satisfying the constraints of battery-operated mobile devices which traditionally have limited computational capabilities and low power. The technology has been validated and is currently the subject of intellectual protection. A demonstration prototype is being finalized. Professor Roger Woods from MVR said: “By bringing together internationally recognised researchers in embedded systems and speech recognition experts, we have made a major advance in creating speech recognition solutions for embedded or handheld solutions.” Louis-Marie Aubert, Richard Veitch and other team members also worked on the project.Contact: School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s: www.qub.ac.uk/schools/eeecs

Cambridge looks at smart sensors to check on the UK’s ageing infrastructure

The University of Cambridge has created the Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction that will bring together four leading research groups in the Cambridge Engineering Department and the Computer Laboratory (sensors, computing, manufacturing engineering and civil engineering), along with staff in other faculties - the Judge Business School and the Department of Architecture. The Centre will develop and commercialise emerging technologies which will provide radical changes in the construction and management of infrastructure, leading to considerably enhanced efficiencies, economies and adaptability. The business opportunities in construction and infrastructure are very considerable, not only for construction companies but also for other industries such as IT, electronics and materials. The IKC is designed to respond directly and systematically to the input received from industry partners on what is required to address this issue. Through the close involvement of industry in technical development as well as in demonstrations in real construction projects, the commercialisation activities of emerging technologies will be progressed during the project to a point where they can be licensed to industry. The outputs of the IKC will provide the construction industry, infrastructure owners and operators with the means to ensure that challenging new performance targets can be met. www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk

Southampton University forge ‘largest research collaboration’ with Lloyds Register

Expertise from the University of Southampton and Lloyd’s Register is being brought together in the largest research collaboration of its kind in the UK. It will focus on innovations in transport, energy and the environment. Academics and industry experts will combine forces throughout the entire process of identifying and researching challenges faced by businesses and communities worldwide to more effectively deliver solutions. Hundreds of staff and students from the University and engineering and technical staff from Lloyd’s Register will work together at a new technology and education campus. Work will commence in the New Year on the state-of-the-art University of Southampton Centre of Excellence, which has an initial investment of £116 million. The campus will include the Lloyd’s Register Group Technology Centre, the cornerstone of the organisation’s global research and development network. “This marks the beginning of a groundbreaking collaboration between the University of Southampton and one of the world’s leading knowledge-based organisations,” comments Professor Don Nutbeam, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton. Richard Sadler, chief executive of Lloyd’s Register, adds: “The agreement combines the best of academia and business to simultaneously support industry and society by promoting vital research into subjects such as cleaner fuels, safer work environments and more dependable infrastructure.” www.lr.org – www.soton.ac.uk

Scientists at Edinburgh look to produce low-cost hydrogen fuel

Researchers have uncovered key details about chemical catalysts that use light to break apart water molecules, splitting them into hydrogen - for use as fuel - and oxygen. The findings will help researchers design efficient photocatalysts that can operate at a range of temperatures, making the production of hydrogen fuel from water cheaper and easier to control. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh made their discovery by bombarding photocatalyst materials with tiny neutron and electron particles. By measuring how the particles scattered as they bounced off the photocatalyst, they were able to determine the atomic structure of the material. Professor Paul Attfield, of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions, who led the research, said: “The class of photocatalysts we are examining have great potential. By understanding more about how they are structured, we will have greater control over their properties, allowing us to get the best results possible in producing green energy.” December 2010 marked the 10th anniversary of the JIF (Joint Infrastructure Fund) award that founded CSEC. This enabled the Erskine Williamson Building to be constructed and equipped, and this now houses around half of CSEC members. December was also marked by record snowfalls and low temperatures - truly extreme conditions for Edinburgh.Having knowledge of how the atoms are ordered will help scientists understand how the photocatalysts will behave when absorbing light energy. It will also provide clues about how the materials will respond to changes in temperature and pressure, all of which are important in designing photocatalysts to split water. The research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Royal Society, EaStChem and the Leverhulme Trust. www.csec.ed.ac.uk

First it was graphene, now the University of Manchester invents ‘fluorographene’

Professor Andre Geim, who along with his colleague Professor Kostya Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize for graphene – the world’s thinnest material, has now modified it to make fluorographene – a one-molecule-thick material chemically similar to Teflon. Fluorographene is fully-fluorinated graphene and is basically a two-dimensional version of Teflon, showing similar properties including chemical inertness and thermal stability. The results are this week reported in the advanced online issue of the journal Small. The work is a large international effort and involved research groups from China, the Netherlands, Poland and Russia. To make fluorographene, the Manchester researchers first obtained graphene as individual crystals and then fluorinated it by using atomic fluorine. To demonstrate that it is possible to obtain fluorographene in industrial quantities, the researchers also fluorinated graphene powder and obtained fluorographene paper. Fluorographene turned out to be a high-quality insulator which does not react with other chemicals and can sustain high temperatures even in air.

Rahul Nair, who led this research for the last two years and is a PhD student working with Professor Geim, added: “Properties of fluorographene are remarkably similar to those of Teflon but this is not a plastic. It is essentially a perfect one-molecule-thick crystal and, similar to its parent, fluorographene is also mechanically strong. “This makes a big difference for possible applications. We plan to use fluorographene an ultra-thin tunnel barrier for development of light-emitting devices and diodes. More mundane uses can be everywhere Teflon is used, as an ultra-thin protective coating, or as a filler for composite materials if one needs to retain the mechanical strength of graphene but avoid any electrical conductivity or optical opacity of a composite”. www.condmat.physics.manchester.ac.uk/people/postgrad/nair

AND FINALLY..

With the UK covered in record amounts of snow, the true professionals in dealing with the white stuff are the Norwegians at snow blower company Overaasen AS.Specialists in snow clearing technology, their vehicles are designed to be used in conjunction with wheeled loaders, such as Volvo trucks, and can cope with all kinds of snow, including wet, hard packed, or icy snow. Even Eurotunnel and Network SouthEast managers would be denied their favourite excuses. Øveraasen have over a century of experience in the snow clearance industry and can offer snowblowers and equipment with capacities of up to 12,000 tonnes/hour. The cost of buying blowers for the UK could be easily offset by savings made in eliminating the need for costly, and largely ineffective salt spreading on roads and airport runways.www.overaasen.no Christmas Party Time - Can You Claim? It’s not all ‘bah humbug’ at HMRC during the festive period. There are circumstances for achieving tax relief on providing a staff Christmas function, but there are rules. To qualify for tax and national insurance relief, the event must be annual (Christmas or summer barbeque), it must be open to all employees and the cost per head must be no more than £150. This £150 isn’t an allowance and you need to consider the total cost per head including and drinks, taxis or overnight accommodation. END