Three Patents For Universal Display
Corrections or additions?
These articles were published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on December 8,
1999. All rights reserved.
Life in the Fast Lane: Paytrust.com
Paytrust.com, the Emmons Road Internet start-up that
allows customers to pay bills online, may have gotten a jump start
on competitors like PayMyBills.com and Cyberbills.com with an infusion
of cash from investors and a marketing deal to boot.
Secure Commerce Services Inc., the company behind Paytrust.com (U.S.
1, August 25, 1999), announced on Monday, December 6, that it raised
$30 million from a group that includes Softbank Corp., American
Express
Co., and General Electric’s G.E. Capital. This brings total investment
in the company up to $37 million. The company is currently valued
at about $90 million.
The real diamond in the deal, though, is an agreement by American
Express to market the Paytrust service to its 29 million members.
At the moment, Paytrust has only 20,000 customers. This deal could
cause membership to soar.
Meanwhile, Cyberbills Inc. raised $9 million in September.
PayMyBills.com
raised $5 million in May, but the company is in the process of another
round of fundraising that CEO John Tedesco hopes will be tens of
millions
of dollars.
B-30, Princeton 08540. Ed McLaughlin, president and CEO. 609-720-1818;
fax, 609-720-1819. Home page: http://www.paytrust.com. (U.S.
1, August 25, 1999).
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Three Patents For Universal Display
A flexible laptop computer screen that is easy to read
in bright light. A solar panel that produces even more energy from
sunlight. These are some of the commercial applications of technology
developed by Princeton University professors and Universal Display
Corporation that secured patents this week.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just issued three patents to
Princeton University as part of the Organic Light Emitter Project,
a joint effort between professors at Princeton, researchers at the
University of Southern California, and Universal Display Corporation
at 375 Phillips Drive. This brings the number of patents issued to
the company on this project up to 18.
A technology that makes electronic displays easily readable in bright
light is the first patent. The "High Contrast Transparent Organic
Light-Emitting Device Display," as it is called, involves
integrating
a black background into the display to increase the contrast ratio.
The second patent secured by the company involves a new process for
creating "Organic Light-Emitting Devices," or displays. The
displays are created by applying layer-upon-layer of carbon-based
molecules. Researchers, however, discovered a process that would
reduce
damage to the layers beneath the one being grown, thus speeding up
the fabrication process of the displays. It’s called "Method for
Depositing Indium Tint Oxide Layers in Organic Light Emitting
Devices"
The third patent is for a process of applying an organic film over
light detectors, which researchers discovered increases the efficiency
of those detector. The technology could be used in solar cells, for
example, where sunlight is converted into energy. Theoretically, the
application of the film would cause more energy to output from the
same amount of sunlight. It’s called "Organic Luminescent Coating
for Light Detectors."
Although none of the new technologies have been licensed to a
manufacturer,
Universal Display did sign a letter of intent with Luxell Corporation
in Canada, a custom-display house for high contrast display, for the
"high-contrast" technology.
Steve Abramson, CEO of Universal Display, foresees plenty of
opportunity
in this electronic display industry. "The flat panel display
industry
is about a $16 billion a year industry," he says, "and the
industry in general is looking for a cell phone or a portable
electronic
device that is legible in sunlight" (U.S. 1, February 25, 1998).
The company leased a 11,000 square foot building in Ewing, which will
serve as a development center, a technology transfer center, and a
pilot line facility to scale up the processes for this technology.
A grand opening is scheduled for Friday, December 10, 2 to 4 p.m.,
by invitation only. Abramson expects initial commercial prototypes
to be out by next year.
Phillips Bouvevard, Ewing 08618. Steven Abramson, COO. 609-671-0980;
fax, 609-671-0995. Home page: http://www.universaldisplay.com.
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New CRO in Town: ABR
Another clinical research organization (CRO) has moved
to Princeton to be in the heart of the "pharmacorridor,"
defined
as northern New Jersey to Wilmington, Delaware. Advanced Biomedical
Research aims to expand its space in a permanent location. The
clinical
research center for Phase I studies remains in Hackensack.
Founded in 1994 by Michael Willitt, the firm’s clients range from
the largest pharmaceuticals to small biotechs. It can do Phase II
to Phase IV studies on an outpatient basis, do Phase III management,
medical writing, regulatory submissions, clinical trial reports, and
manuscripts.
The son of an electrical engineer for Bell Labs, Willitt is married
and has three school-aged children. He earned a pharmacy degree at
the University of Illinois, Class of 1984, his PharmD degree in 1986.
After doing a residency in Kansas City he worked at a community
hospital
in Greensboro, North Carolina, then returned to Missouri for a job
at what is now Hoechst Marion Roussel, where he worked on internal
clinical trials. He worked on Phase III and IV trials at Bristol-Myers
Squibb. In 1992 he moved to a CRO in north Jersey, Health and Sciences
Research. When that company was sold off he started his own firm in
the same location.
What distinguishes his firm, Willitt says, is that it is a
scientifically
driven organization; it eschews templates, and includes "a fair
amount of insight" into its reports.
Road, Princeton 08540. Michael Willitt, director of pharmacokinetics
and medical writing. 609-514-4422; fax, 609-514-4466. Home page:
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Expansions: Novaflux
If cleanliness is close to godliness, then you might
call Novaflux Technologies the angel of the medical industry. The
company, a product division of Princeton Trade & Technology at 1 Wall
Street, is the result of research on a new method for cleaning medical
instruments — specifically, medical tubing.
"To put it simply," says a company spokesperson, "we’re
able to clean really small tubes, really well." For a business
idea, it’s not sexy or dramatic, but if you’ve ever tried to clean
out a straw you can appreciate the genius in it. The tubes that
Novaflux
cleans are even smaller — as small 200 microns (or one-fifth of
a millimeter) — and they are routinely used in dental offices
and hemodialysis centers, where sterilization is paramount.
"I think we are deemed by several people in the industry to have
the best solution," says Mohamed E. Labib, president and founder
of Princeton Trade & Technology. The sterilization technology involves
a two-phase cleaning process that mixes both liquid and gas to rid
the equipment of organic bacterial slime, or biofilm. Rather than
use a toxic and corrosive biocide to directly kill the bacteria, the
company uses a surfactant, a non-toxic chemical that breaks up the
organic material stuck to the surface of the tubing, to create a
sterile
atmosphere. The company claims to be able to complete the process
in about three minutes.
Prior to starting Princeton Trade & Technology, Labib worked for 14
years at RCA Laboratories and the Sarnoff Corporation as a member
of the technical staff. He has a BS in chemistry and geology from
Alexandria University, Class of 1967, as well as a PhD from McGill
and an MBA from Monmouth University.
So far, Labib has found three different applications, and at least
as many interested customers, for Novaflux’s process. The most
promising,
so far, has been in cleaning up modern dentistry.
Novaflux has had a contract with the United States Air Force since
1997, and with the Navy since 1998, to engineer a new approach to
removing biofilm in dental unit waterlines. The imperative to clean
the dirty water came right from the American Dental Association, says
Labib. "When you go to the dentist biofilm grows on the lines,
and the count is measured in bacteria is something like 1 to 10
million
colony forming units," he says. "The ADA doesn’t want to see
any more than 200." Labib says that the company is in the final
stages of negotiating an agreement with a major manufacturer of dental
units for the Novaflux process.
Novaflux’s technology is also being applied to the cleaning of
endoscopes,
hemodialyzers, and equipment used in water treatment plants. For
hemodialysis,
where the tubing pumps fluid directly into the body, the Novaflux
technology may be a real godsend. Earlier this year, the National
Institutes of Health contracted with Novaflux to find a way to remove
rogue blood cells proteins from hemodialyzers.
— Melinda Sherwood
Princeton
08540. M.E. Labib, president. 609-683-0215; fax, 609-683-5003. Home
page: http://www.novaflux.com.
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Start-Ups: New Media Partners
1375, Plainsboro 08536. Gary LaSasso, president. 609-799-8700; fax,
609-799-8840. Home page: http://www.nmpartners.net.
This company focuses on cost effective multimedia
presentations
complete with animation and interactivity. A native of Hammonton,
Gary LaSasso was a communications major at Rutgers, Class of 1987,
and worked for a business to business communications company in
Liberty
Corner as a project manager, doing everything from brochures to
producing
meetings. He and Michael Gallagher, with whom he had worked at two
previous companies (Speaker Support Group and Visual Media), founded
the firm this year.
The partners recently returned from an asthma conference in Copenhagen
where, for a major pharmaceutical, they coordinated a presentation
based on audience response polls. Their major clients are in the
pharmaceutical
and financial areas and include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merrill Lynch,
Merck, and Bell Atlantic.
Kingston
08528-0407. Lucille Conti, business manager. 609-921-2900; fax,
609-924-2536.
The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy has opened at the New
School for Music Study, and the New School will continue as an
experimental
laboratory to do research in music education at the keyboard and as
a year-round community music school.
The late Frances Clark, a leader in piano pedagogy, applied her
methods
applied to all levels, from beginners to concert artists. The center
will be the first organization created exclusively to make independent
inquiry into why some students succeed at music study (and others
fail), why some published materials are more effective than others,
and what is the most appropriate way to teach future keyboard
teachers.
The center will develop, test, and disseminate new applications of
her philosophy. Louise Goss, co-founder of the New School for Music
Study, will chair the board.
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Name Changes: Robert Powell
Princeton 08540. Robert S. Powell Jr., principal. 609-430-9700; fax,
609-466-4164.
Arete Capital Advisors LLC has changed its name and added a partner,
Michael Schonberger. Schonberger majored in marketing at Pace, Class
of 1984, has a master’s degree in finance from New York University,
and a law degree from Rutgers law school. As a commercial mortgage
broker he worked for Dorman & Wilson (now Legg Mason Real Estate
Services)
in Parsippany and in Manhattan for Ackman Ziff Real Estate Group.
He teaches at Rutgers and specializes in real estate mortgage banking
and investment sales.
Powell founded this firm after leaving DKM, where he had been in
charge
of DKM’s development activities (U.S. 1 April 9, 1997) and is working
on deals concerning the proposed hotel for downtown Trenton. The firm
provides financial services to the real estate industry including
investment sales, economic development incentives, and public/private
development projects. It is not associated with Nassau Capital LLC,
the Chambers Street-based firm that manages Princeton University’s
alternative asset investments.
Boulevard,
Suite 206, Princeton 08540. Kenneth Kamen, president. 609-987-0500;
fax, 609-987-1715.
This full-service broker, a market maker in over-the-counter stocks,
has been acquired by Kirlin Holding, based in Syosset, Long Island
(800-899-9400). The deal was announced in November and is waiting
for regulatory approval.
"We really like what Kirlin is doing and it made strategic
sense,"
says Kamen. "In line with a lot of the consolidation in the
financial
industry, we wanted to link up with a larger organization with more
in-house capabilities."
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Deaths
Institute for Advanced Study.
supervisor at Princeton University.
University physicist, known for his work in the field of elementary
particle physics.
Division of Youth and Family Services, she was also an artist whose
work was frequently exhibited, most recently at the State Museum.
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