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These articles were prepared for the June 6, 2001 edition of U.S.
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Life in the Fast Lane: InfraStor
It sounds like an entrepreneur’s dream. Put up a
website and just weeks later the federal government comes to your
virtual door and signs a contract worth well over a million dollars.
It happened to David MacRae of InfraStor Technologies Corp. in
Montgomery Knoll.
“They approached us in March because they saw our website, and they
are back for more, so we must have done a good job,” says MacRae. The
federal contract involved storing a Department of Defense website that
contains hundreds of terabytes. (A million megabytes equals one
terabyte). “We pretty much wrote the specifications, and when they put
the contract out for bids, we outbid everyone else.”
The name of MacRae’s business is meant to imply “infrastructure,”
because it integrates Storage Area Networks (SAN) and connects large
data storage devices to servers and workstations. “Relatively few
organizations have focused entirely on getting storage area networks
implemented,” he says. “It’s not rocket science, but it does require
special knowledge that we have assembled. We have our own integration
laboratory that allows us to model a business situation.” He has
relationships with such big suppliers as Gadzoox, Brocade, and
Vixel (fibre channel switch providers), DataCore Software (storage
management software), and ADIC (tape libraries).
“Our clients are medium to large-size organizations looking for
cost-effective ways to manage storage from a central resource. We
take a consultative approach to design a storage solution, customize
it, and provide equipment, software, installation, and training.”
Companies with 50 or 100 servers can find it difficult to manage
storage. The question an IT department has to answer: If you have X
number of servers and some of them run out of storage space, do you
buy more storage for each machine or have a centralized source pool
that can allocate gigabytes to each server on demand.
MacRae offers the latter solution: “Putting the storage together into
one common pool uses the capacity 50 percent more effectively, so you
don’t have to buy so much storage.” Using open systems modular
hardware, he says, results in an 85 percent reduction in storage
management cost.
MacRae went to the University of Toronto, Class of 1965, and has a
doctoral degree from there as well. A chemist by training, he was a
researcher for Colgate-Palmolive and Allied Signal (now Honeywell). He
and his wife, who runs a translation business (Specan International)
from their Princeton home, have two grown sons. One
is in a PhD program at UCLA and the other, cellist Alistair MacRae,
went to Princeton University and Manhattan School of Music and made
his debut last month at Carnegie Hall. His additional talent is as
webmaster: He crafted his father’s contract-winning website.
InfraStor Technologies Corp., 69 TamarackCircle, Montgomery Knoll, Box 8448, Princeton 08543. David M. MacRae,president. 609-683-8844; fax, 609-683-4906. Home page:www.infrastor.comTop Of PagePharmas at Cedar BrookA company that vows to kill pain, Purdue Pharma LP, hasleased 115,000 square feet in Cedar Brook Corporate Center, an officeand science park built by Eastern Properties on Dey Road at Route 130.The privately held company is known for its research on the principalcause of human suffering: chronic pain. It does small molecule andbiologics discovery research of the immunological and nervous systems.”The new facility will be the headquarters of the discovery researchoperation,” says Merle Spiegel, a spokesperson for the Stamford,Connecticut, firm. About 100 people will move into the new facility,and it is expected to open by the end of this year. “Within the nextyear or two thereafter, we expect to increase the size of the facilityto 300 people,” says Spiegel, noting that Purdue is one of the fastestgrowing pharmaceutical firms in the world.Meanwhile, the contract that Purdue had to manufacture Cytogenproducts at 201 College Road ends this month. Purdue Pharma LP paid $4million for some of Cytogen’s laboratory and manufacturing facilitiesearly in 1999, and it signed a contract to make Cytogen’s ProstaScintand OncoScint. Cytogen will now turn to DSM Biologics Company B.V. forthis service, and DSM will make these products at its own site. Purduewill retain the College Road facility, says Spiegel.Among Purdue’s products are OxyContin (oxycodone HCl) and MS Contin(morphine sulfate) for moderate to severe pain, Uniphyl (theophylline,anhydrous) for asthma, Chirocaine (levobupivacaine injection)anesthetic, and the over-the-counter Senokot laxatives and Betadineantiseptics.Purdue is part of an international group of associated companies in 18countries with more than 4,000 employees. It sponsors Partners AgainstPain, which offers more than 6,000 programs annually to encouragetherapeutic alliances between patients, their families, caregivers,and healthcare professionals.Purdue Pharma LP, Tage Honore, vice president ofdiscovery research. Cedar Brook Corporate Center. 203-588-8000.Home page: www.purduepharma.comTop Of PageMore Biotech NewsCytogen Corporation (CYTO), 600 College Road East,CN 5308, Princeton 08543-5308. H. Joseph Reiser, CEO.609-987-8200; fax, 609-750-8124. Home page: www.cytogen.comA Duke University study released on June 5 found that Cytogen’sprostate cancer screening method, using ProstaScint, identifies thespread of the cancer “earlier and in more patients than withpreviously available imaging methods.” ProstaScint is a monoclonalantibody-based imaging agent that can image the extent and spread ofprostate cancer.Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death amongAmerican men, and more than one in six men develop this cancer.Chances of survival increase when it is detected early.Among Cytogen’s other products for prostate and other types of cancerare BrachySeed, Quadramet, and OncoScint. Cytogen has a pipeline ofoncology products, licensed from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center, thatuse prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) technologies. It has asubsidiary, AxCell Biosciences, that is charting protein-signalingpathways for use in drug discovery and development.Palatin Technologies Inc. (PTN), 103 CarnegieCenter, Suite 200, Princeton 08540. Carl Spana, CEO. 609-520-1911;fax, 609-452-0880. Home page: www.palatin.comPalatin Technologies has signed a lease for 28,000square feet, the entire building at 4C Cedar Brook Drive. The R&D firmoffers products for sexual dysfunction, appendicitis detection, andultrasound testing. It will consolidateits Carnegie Center and its 15,000 square foot laboratory on MayStreet in Edison.Doug Petrozzini and Ray Sohmer of Grubb & Ellis worked with StephenWills, the CFO of Palatin. The developer, Eastern Properties,constructed this brand-new building at Cedar Brook Corporate Center.Orchid BioSciences Inc. (ORCH), 303A College RoadEast, Princeton 08543. Dale R. Pfost Ph.D, CEO. 609-750-2200; fax,609-750-2250. Home page: www.orchid.comA Korea-based firm, DNA Link, will be the first Asian company to buyOrchid’s SNPstream 25K system for high throughput genotyping. DNA Linkwill use the system for industrial scale single nucleotidepolymorphism (SNP) scoring — analyzing up to 25,000 SNPs per day —and will also use Orchid’s SNP databases.Orchid offers production services and technologies of singlenucleotide polymorphism (SNP) scoring and genetic diversity analysis.Top Of PageRCN’s ProblemsRCN Corporation (RCNC), 105 Carnegie Center, Suite300, Princeton 08540. David C. McCourt, chairman and CEO.609-734-3700; fax, 609-734-7551. Home page: www.rcn.comThe beleaguered cable company, which has laid offworkers and axed plans to build a prestigious campus on the formerUnion Camp site, made another cutback on May 24. It announced it wouldnot make its promised upgrades in Princeton Township and Borough,among other locations. The Princetons were among the first areas toget cable installed in the 1970s and they are still using a two-linecoaxial system. Last year RCN had promised to replace those lines withfiber-optic cable. But inareas of Hillsborough and Franklin, where upgrades were already wellunderway, cabling will be finished by 2003. RCN’s franchise is up forrenewal at the end of next year.In an effort to recoup some of its losses, Red Basin LLC (one of RCN’slargest investors) will buy 7.66 million shares of common stock in aprivate placement at $6.53 per share. The stock peaked at nearly $75last year but tumbled along with other telecommunications stocks.RCN is a national single-source facilities-based communications firmwith services — Internet service, local and long distance phone, andcable television — to the residential market.Top Of PageExpansionsMaximus, 50 Millstone Road, Building 300, Suite200, Windsor Corporate Plaza, East Windsor 08520. Marion Reitz,vice president. 609-919-2800; fax, 609-918-1524.Maximus has moved from 15,000 square feet at Ibis Plaza onQuakerbridge Road to 38,000 square feet, occupying the second floorat Windsor Corporate Park, and has a new phone and fax. The healtheducation and enrollment HMO has 4,000 employees nationally, and about160 people work at this location. It is based in Virginia.National Alliance for Autism Research, 99 WallStreet, Princeton 08540. Glenn R. Tringali, chief operationsofficer. 609-430-9160; fax, 609-430-9163. Home page:www.naar.org.The alliance expanded in April from 1,000 feet at 414 Wall Street to3,200 feet at 99 Wall Street and installed Glenn Tringali in May aschief operations officer. It has eight employees at this location.Founded in 1984 by Karen Margulis London, the alliance funds andpromotes biomedical research into autism and related developmentaldisorders. Tringali is a graduate of Rutgers, Class of 1973, and hasworked for the March of Dimes and several hospital foundations and wasmost recently the national director of fundraising for the JuvenileDiabetes Foundation. “I’m here to manage the growth and anticipatedgrowth of the foundation, and we are establishing chapters around thecountry,” says Tringali.Top Of PageContracts AwardedIcon Genetics Inc., 1 Deer Park Drive, PrincetonResearch Center, Suite C, Monmouth Junction 08852. Newell Bascomb,president. 732-329-1600; fax, 732-329-1616. Home page:www.icongenetics.comResearch on wheat and rapeseed will be funded by a fifth grant from anagency of the German government, the Federal Ministry of Education andResearch in Berlin. Icon will use the grant’s $2.9 million to decreasedevelopment time for these European crops by using gene recombinationsand plant hybridization techniques.WorldWater Corp. (WWAT), 55 Route 31 South,Pennington Business Park, Pennington 08534. Quentin T. Kelly, CEO.609-818-0700; fax, 609-818-0720. Www.worldwater.comCEO Quentin T. Kelly will make a presentation at a conference at theWorld Trade Center on Monday, June 11. The New YorkSociety of Security Analysts is sponsoring the Alternative EnergyIndustry Conference, and Kelly will tell about the water and solarengineering company thatmakes solar pumps and solar electrical systems.Worldwater is working with Rutgers to develop drip-irrigation systemswith its proprietary solar pumping equipment. It is a principalsupplier of renewable energy and remote water supply for emergingnations — water management and solar energy company, designing,developing and marketing proprietary technology.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
