Monday, October 20, 2003

Industry Briefs

Briefly Noted

Advanced Energy

FuelCell Energy of Danbury, Conn., and its Japanese affiliate Marubeni Corp. have announced the siting of a Direct FuelCell power plant at Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. Ltd. (JapEx) near Nagota City. Marubeni will supply a 250-kilowatt DFC300A power plant from FuelCell Energy to JapEx's Katakai natural gas gathering station. The unit will operate on natural gas produced from the field and provide electricity for natural gas processing facilities there.

Advanced Materials

Metabolix Inc., a Cambridge-based developer of plant-derived plastics, has been honored as the 2003 recipient of Frost & Sullivan's Technical Insights Excellence in Biopolymers Research Award for its development of a renewable family of plastic materials. The award recognizes the company for its disruptive technology and overall research excellence, as well as its commitment to differentiating itself based on science-backed services or solutions.

Biotech

Serono Inc., has announced that the Food and Drug Administration has approved its pre-filled syringe for Ovidrel, making it the first liquid, ready-to-inject therapy for infertility treatment in the United States. Officials of the company, which is based in Rockland, say the pre-filled syringe does not require patients to mix medication prior to injection. Serono expects Ovidrel PreFilled Syringe to be available in November.

Sontra Medical Corp. has raised $3.1 million through a preferred stock financing. The Franklin company offers a non-invasive ultrasound-mediated technology that enables diagnosis and drug delivery through the skin. The company has now raised a total of $6.5 million and says it will use the money to further develop and commercialize its SonoPrep skin permeation product pipeline.

Elixir Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge announced the second closing of the company's series B financing, raising an additional $19 million from undisclosed new investors. In its first closing in February, the company raised a total of $21.5 million. Elixir is a genomics-based drug discovery company developing pharmaceuticals that treat and/or prevent diseases that accompany aging.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute has received funding from a Framingham couple that will allow it to endow a chair for cell biologist Craig C. Mello. University officials say that Jack and Shelley Blais have donated an undisclosed amount to endow the Blais University Chair of Molecular Medicine. The couple has given $21 million to the university in the past four years. Mello is a world-renowned authority on ribonucleic acid interference, or RNAi. Jack Blais is an entrepreneur and mechanical engineer. See photo, right.

GPC Biotech AG said it is laying off 42 employees, or 21 percent of its workers, in a move the company says will accelerate its oncology drug discovery and development programs. With offices in Waltham, Princeton, N.J., and Germany, GPC is a drug discovery company focusing on new anticancer drugs. The company's lead product candidate - satraplatin - recently entered a Phase 3 study as a second-line chemotherapy treatment in hormone-refractory prostate cancer.

Hardware

Egenera Inc., a provider of next-generation data center infrastructure, announced a new multisystem agreement with America Online Inc., under which MapQuest is deploying the Egenera BladeFrame systems. MapQuest provides online mapping, routing and global location services and is a subsidiary of America Online.

SMaL Camera Technologies, a develop-er of electronic imaging products and super-thin digital still cameras, said its new Ultra-Pocket 4 rapid development kit for 2-megapixel credit card cameras with color TFT display. The product will be in the $150 retail price range.

Optics

Vermont Photonics in Brattleboro has increased the output of its Thazer tunable terahertz source at 230 microns with sufficient output and signal-to-noise ratio to make spectroscopic measurements. Previous developments at the company have produced narrowband output from 1,000 microns to 100 microns with robust signal between 800 and 360 microns. The push for shorter wavelengths is driven by the need to have a robust tunable terahertz source for investigations of THz resonances in cell biology and nanotechnology.

Software

Blue Marble Geographics announced that Domino's Pizza recently licensed its 2002 Tiger/Line Map Kit. Domino's will use the product to assist in the documentation and analysis of physical store locations. The company will also use it to establish delivery boundaries between their corporate stores and their locally owned franchise sites.

RemoteReality, a developer of wide-area cameras for automating video surveillance, announced an agreement with security integrator, NuTech National, for trials at the Kissimmee (Fla.) Utility Authority (KUA), of the company's OmniTrack 360 system designed for perimeter and internal security. The installation and marketing agreement with NuTech National, enables RemoteReality to participate in various national bids for surveillance systems at power stations and utilities.

LocatePlus, a business-to-business and business-to-government provider of public information, has launched a patent-pending employee screening and verification service called CareerScreen.

Centra Software, which provides application software and services for real-time collaboration, and Sistemas CBT have reached an agreement under which Sistemas will resell Centra 7 to customers in Mexico. Sistemas provides integrated e-learning products to government, education and enterprise customers.

Phonetic Systems said that the Bank of New York has selected its speech recognition technology to assist with business continuity and disaster recovery efforts. The product provides several key voice-activated services for maintaining business communications during emergency situations.

Technology by Endeca Technologies Inc. of Cambridge has been used by Fry Inc., a Chicago-based e-commerce design, development and managed services provider, to power e-commerce sites for Brookstone, Graco Children's Products, Inc. and Fisheries Supply Inc. Endeca, whose Guided Navigation technology powers Fry's enterprise information delivery solutions, provides the refined search, information access and analysis software for the new offering.

Excelergy Corp.'s Trader BackOffice software platform has been chosen by the Michigan Electric Coordinated System, which serves 4.5 million customers. MECS will use the Lexington company's Trader BackOffice with Excelergy's MISO MarketConnect for the automated exchange and processing of power schedules, dispatch instructions, emergency notification, load forecasts and other transactions.