Spokane firm sells new pharmaceutical product

A Spokane manufacturing company recently sold its newest product to two large customers in the United States and Germany.

MatriCal, which has offices inside the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute, sold a device it designed to help drug makers handle pharmaceutical compounds.

Tom Sowa
Staff writer

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=031604&ID=s1499854&cat=section.business

Called the Sonicman, the patented product sells for about $75,000. It’s used by companies to remix or reformulate products that have been stored in frozen form.

The first two sales of that product were to Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. based in Bridgewater, N.J., and Zinsser Analytic, based in Frankfurt, Germany.

“This is huge for our firm,” said Kevin Oldenburg, president of MatriCal. “It shows we’re growing.”

MatriCal was launched in 2000 in Pennsylvania, then moved to Spokane in 2002. It has about 16 workers.

The company’s main product, to date, has been the Matristore, a room-sized system that is used by drug companies for handling and storing large numbers of vials and samples. MatriCal has sold three of those units, each costing about $1.5 million.

It also makes and sells storage plates that fit inside the Matristore or similar storage systems used by pharmaceutical companies. The company sold about $600,000 worth of plates in 2003, said CEO Dan Roark.

The sales of the new Sonicman show that the company is designing tools that large companies consider valuable, added Roark.

“It’s a strong sign that people are adopting our technology,” he said. Another large U.S. pharmaceutical company, Bristol-Myers, is ready to place an order for the product, he said.

The Sonicman uses ultrasound waves to remix products that have been frozen, then thawed. Nearly all drug makers keep their compounds and chemicals in frozen form until needed. But once thawed and placed in solution, a device like the Sonicman is needed to ensure the chemicals are properly dissolved, Roark said.