Review Gives Commercialization HelpA RECENT NASA TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION Review (TCR) provided five Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contractors with an expert evaluation of their biomedical technologies to accelerate commercialization applications. NASA's Regional Technology Transfer Centers helped prepare the contractors to present their summaries at the review. Coordinated by the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) on November 2 and 3, 1998, in Boston, Massachusetts, the review is geared toward helping promising NASA small business contractors take their technologies to commercial markets. Another purpose of the review is to bring these small businesses together with leaders in business, finance and research to help hone their commercialization plans.
The participating contractors received input on potential commercial applications, technology transfer feasibility, product strategies, financing, hurdles to overcome and potential solutions. The goal is to provide TCR participants with networking opportunities, new ideas, feedback and assistance through expert referrals. Participating were representatives from Cybernet Systems Corporation of Ann Arbor, Michigan, DelSys, Inc., of Boston, Konigsberg Instruments, Inc., of Pasadena, California, The Technology Partnership of Grosse Ile, Michigan, and Advanced Optical Technologies, Inc., of East Hartford, Connecticut. Paul Cobb, vice president of Technology at Cybernet Systems, said the review taught him the importance of choosing a specific market area on which to focus and how to find a partner that would be interested in commercializing his company's technology. Cobb's miniature portable physiological measurement and analysis system can collect medical data from a remote location and transmit it through very precise signals back to a central location. "It gave us some direction," Cobb said. "We definitely have a better understanding of the commercialization process." Carlo De Luca, president of DelSys, said the review steered him toward a different market than he had initially planned, which was the type of information and guidance he had hoped to receive from the panel. DelSys develops and markets electrodes that scan the surface of muscles to detect, record and analyze electrical signals that emanate from muscles. The electrodes are noninvasive and do not require the use of conductive gel. Networking to find commercial partners interested in long-term investment was the outcome sought by Bill Mills, the general manager of Konigsberg Instruments. His company's technology was designed under the SBIR program to give the Biomedical Engineering Office at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida the ability to monitor the health and safety of launch pad workers during Space Shuttle fueling operations. The system, which could monitor eight direct current differential inputs, eight alternate current biopotential inputs, oxygen saturation, respiration, activity and core temperature, includes a two-voice communications channel. Mills said that his company needs to "break out of the box. The panel has shed some light on some of the problems we will have in taking this to market. I came here to make the connections to do that." "The review was good because it brought everything together for us," said David Bettinger, president of The Technology Partnership, whose company develops technology that relies on visco-elastic attributes of polymers for both continuous and on-demand drug dispensing. "It was an excellent review. And the reviewers did not blast us all to pieces." The SBIR program awards contracts to small businesses in the United States to further research and develop their technologies to meet a NASA need. For more information, contact Carol Waris at the National Technology
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