Success Stories
Technologies spun off from the universities, research institutes and hospitals form the basis of many new companies in Massachusetts. Here are some examples of growing technology companies that are helping to drive the state's technology-based economy.
Millitech, Inc., a company that develops and manufactures sophisticated millimeter wave technology components and products, evolved from Nobel Prize-winning research conducted in UMass Amherst's Physics and Astronomy Department. Functioning on the same principle as radar used for military surveillance and air-traffic control, Millitech's products operate at a much higher frequency. They are used to monitor energy consumption at power plants, to power communications satellites, and to perform functions using radiometry, radar and remote sensing.
Founded by five UMass professors in 1982, the company was acquired by Bill Hanley in 2000. It continues to enjoy close ties with the university, whose faculty members serve as technical experts and consult with technicians about projects in development. Millitech currently employs 100 people. Its total sales quadrupled from $6.5 million in 2000 to $25 million last year. The company's presence in Western Massachusetts-and its symbiotic relationship with UMass Amherst-have helped make the area a hotspot for high-frequency engineering interests.
To harness the power of light, Lowell-based Konarka Technologies, Inc. is developing flexible, low-cost cells that convert solar or artificial light to energy in strips of plastic. The company grew from the vision and inspiration of Dr. Sukant Tripathy, founder and director of the Center for Advanced Materials at UMass Lowell, whose research team's work was funded by the U.S. Army.
With the help of the Commercial Venture Development (CVD) Incubator at UMass Lowell, Konarka attracted $18.5 million from investors in its most recent round of venture capital funding. These investors include two clean energy funds: the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund and California-based Angeleno Group, and the European venture capital community.
Konarka has consolidated its position as the world leader in the field of low-cost photovoltaic cells by acquiring its main competitor, the solar research branch of electronics giant Siemens. This positions the company to take advantage of a solar market that could be worth $27 billion by 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Consumer products are planned for rollout this year.
Biomedical Research Models, Inc., a company spun off from research conducted at UMass Medical School, develops and utilizes specialty animals to determine the efficacy of new drugs in preventing or treating human diseases. Sales at the company (which currently employs about 40 people) are about $6 million annually and growing. In addition to its two Worcester locations, the company recently adapted a $1.4 million, 10,000-square-foot facility at Springfield 's Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute to accommodate more employees.
Gene-silencing technology known as RNA interference, developed at the UMass Medical School in Worcester, has been licensed to more than a dozen companies. Heralded by Science magazine as the number-one scientific invention of 2002, the technology is being used to develop treatments for major illnesses. CytRx Laboratories (formerly Araios), a Worcester subsidiary of CytRx Corporation in California, is developing drugs to treat obesity and Type II diabetes-illnesses that, it is estimated, result in medical costs in excess of $100 billion per year. The company is also developing treatments for ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and a DNA-based vaccine to prevent HIV.
Woburn-based Nantero, a Harvard University spin-off, is the first company in the world to use carbon nanotubes in a production semiconductor fab. Nanotubes have been widely heralded as a key material for the future of electronics, as they offer better electrical conductivity than copper, better thermal conductivity than diamond, 100 times the strength of steel, and flexibility.
Nantero's first product is called NRAMT (Nanotube-based/ Nonvolatile RAM), which combines the nonvolatility of flash with the speed of SRAM and the density of DRAM. Fast nonvolatile random access memory such as NRAM will serve as a catalyst for all kinds of innovations in electronics and other new products.
Nantero has received venture capital funding from Charles River Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Stata Venture Partners, and Harris & Harris Group.