FarSounder ...Fate Therapeutics ... FEI ... Feuz Manufacturing ... Fiber Materials ... Fiber &Sensor  Fibersense ... Firefly Energy ...First Solar ... FLIR Systems ... FlowCardia ... FlowMetrix ... Fluid Innovation Group ...Follica ... Footnote ... F-Origin ... Forma Therapeutics ... Foster-Miller... Fractal Antenna Systems ... Free Flow Power ... FuelCell Energy ... Fuel Tech ...Gelesis ... GelTech GEMFIRE ...Genaera ... Gene Logic ... Genex ...Genomic Health ... Genoptix Medical Laboratory ... Genor ... GenTel BioSciences ... Genzyme ... Geospiza ... GenVec ... Geron ... GigOptix ... Giner ... GlobalPositions ..  Gore Photonics ... Graphic Surgery ... GreatPoint Energy ... GreenFuel Technologies ... GreenTech America ... GSI Technology ... GTC Biotherapeutics ... GT Equipment ...H2Pump ... HNC Software ... Hansen Medical ... Harbor Technologies ... Harvard Bioscience ... HealthTronics ... Helicos BioSciencesHeliovolt ... HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals ... Hepregen ... Herley Industries ... Histogenics .. Hitite Microwave ...Hoku Scientific ... Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals ... Hoppe Tool ... HTSS ... Humacyte ... Human Genome Sciences ... Hydra Biosciences ... HyperBranch Medical Technologies ... HyperMed ... Hypres ... Hy-SyEnce ... IAP Research ... IBC Advanced Technologies ... Ibis Technology ..Icagen ... Idaho Technology ... II-IV .. Ikonisys ...Illinois Superconductor ... Illumigen Biosciences ... Illumina ... IlluminOss Medical ... Immersion ... Immtech ... Immunetics ... ImmuneWorks ... Immunicon ... ImmunoGen ... II-VI ... Impact Science & Technology ... Imperium Renewables.. Implant Sciences Indiana Nanotech ...Infinera ... Inframat ... InfraReDx ...INI Power ... InnerOptic Technology ... InnerPulse ... Innography ... Innovalight ... Innov-X ...Innovative Silicon ... Innovative Technologies ... InnovaWave ... Inotek Pharmaceuticals ... Insight...InSite Vision ... Insitu ...Inspire Pharmaceuticals ... Insulet ... IntAct Labs ... Intaglio ... Intalio ... Integra Group ... Integration Associates ... Intelligent Automation .. Intelliphage ... Intellisense... Intermagnetics General ... Intermolecular ... InterMune ... Intersystems ...International Stem Cell ... Intevac ... IntraLase ... Introgen Therapeutics ... Intuitive Surgical ... Inverness Medical Innovations ... Inviragen ... Invitrogen ... Iomai ... Iomed .. Ion America ... Ion Optics ... Iovation Iowa Thin Film Technologies ... IPG Photonics ... iRobot ... Irvine Sensors... Isis Pharmaceuticals ... Island Data ... IsoRay ... Isothermal Systems ... Javelin Pharmaceuticals ...

FarSounder (Warwick, RI)

FarSounder (Warwick, RI; one SBIR) also got a $2M NIST grant to develop a navigation sonar system.

Fate Therapeutics

A group of venture capitalists is investing $12M to launch Fate Therapeutics, a biotech company aiming to develop drugs that spur dormant adult stem cells to regenerate damaged tissue. The budding biotech expects to have a product in early-stage clinical trials by next year [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Timers, Nov 30]

FEI

The vanguard of Oregon's nanotechnology industry was the state's best-performing stock in the first quarter. Shares of FEI Co. leapt 37% as it shocked investors with unexpectedly strong sales and a profit surge. [Oregonian, Apr 1, 07]

FEI lost 14% after reporting a fourth-quarter loss and saying it ended merger talks with Germany's Carl Zeiss.  FEI had one Navy SBIR Phase 2 in 1993 five years after the Phase 1. Note: the SBIR law imposes no time limit on Phase 2.

Feuz Manufacturing (Rotterdam NY)

GE is suing a former supplier from  for allegedly stealing trade secrets ... Feuz Manufacturing (Rotterdam NY; no SBIR), made parts that GE Energy used in the manufacturing of gas turbines, including pins, rotors and other turbine parts.  GE claims that Feuz used GE's engineering designs to make parts that it sold to GE competitors. [Albany Times-Union, Sep 29]

Fiber & Sensor Technologies (Blacksburg, VA)

Though Murphy had flunked out of Virginia Western Community College three times when he first started working with glass and light, he was smart. He had a knack for making things work better and was notorious for juicing up motorcycles he raced with friends. A would-be electrical engineer who skipped his own studies, Murphy was known as a slacker who would shout out answers to complicated math problems as he wandered the halls of his high school, from which he graduated third from the bottom in class of 430. [Nicholas Johnston, Washington Post, Dec 16,02]  Not an auspicious start for an entrepreneur, or is it notice that the education system lacks something? This Murphy founded Luna Innovations (Blacksburg, VA) to mine technology from Va Tech. It started in 1990 as Fiber & Sensor Technologies which submitted lots of SBIR proposals to embed optical fibers in almost anything, winning at least 22 Phase 2s and another 15 or so recent Phase 1s which are candidates for Phase 2. .Why not?  Feeding 100 employees is no small task. He also has five commercial companies funded privately with another 50 employees. Murphy paid hsi dues to the academics by eventually getting an MEE from Virginia Tech. Whether his tech transfer entrepreneuring returns much to Tech remains to be seen, but it at least makes a good human interest story. Like most TT stories, the emotional outweigs the economic.

Fiber Materials (Biddeford, ME)

Earmarks Too Tempting.  Two former missile-command officials pleaded guilty early this year in federal court to public-corruption and conspiracy charges. Their plea agreements detail a conspiracy in which politically connected defense contractors that lobbied for congressional funding, called earmarks, bribed the officials to steer the funds to sham subcontractors.... The Army Space and Missile Defense Command (the Army's Star Wars component) awards some $500 million a year in research work. In some years as much as one-third of the funds is directed by members of Congress through earmarks or other means to contractors in this military boomtown.   Two SBIR firms have been named in news reports of the ongoing probe: Vicus Technologies (Kennebunk, ME; $2M SBIR), and Fiber Materials (Biddeford, ME; $13M SBIR)  [John Wilke, Wall Street Journal, Apr 14]

Intermat (Biddeford, ME; $400K SBIR) landed a $12M contract for materials science R&D for the U.S. Navy. [Mass High Tech, Jan 23, 08]  The company is a subsidiary of nosecone materials expert Fiber Materials (17 Phase 2 SBIRs and counting) whose prospects were substantially dimmed by the standown of US ICBMs after the Cold War. 

Fibersense (Canton, MA)

Fibersense had three SBIR Phase 1s to engineer GPS navigation units for missiles, was bought by Northrop Grumman for $44M. (Jan 03)

Firefly Energy

Big Yellow Batteries.  Firefly Energy[Barbara Rose, Chicago Tribune, Oct 14]

First Solar

First Solar up 24% [Oct 30, 08]

First Solar down 10% [Oct 27, 08]

First Solar up 15% [Oct 16, 08]

First Solar down 14% [Oct 15, 08]

First Solar down 20% [Oct 7, 08]

First Solar down 10% [Oct 2, 08]

First  Solar down 13% [Sep 29, 08]

First Solar down 11% [Sep 9, 08]

Thin Is In. from the Southwest to Silicon Valley to Germany. Everywhere you look, thin-film solar companies are opening new, more efficient factories. .... As First Solar scaled production up, it was able to bring its costs down. Solar producers measure their costs in terms of dollars per watt of energy produced, a formula that's a combination of the cost of producing a module and its power efficiency. Right now the best crystalline-silicon makers can sell modules at $3 to $4 a watt; First Solar can sell at around $2.40 a watt, a price the company expects to reduce steadily. ... Nanosolar announced it would begin profitably selling thin-film panels at $1 a watt. ... says he can achieve radical cost savings by directly applying photoactive chemicals with an ink composed of nanoparticles. ... [dubious] competitors pointing out that the cost of raw materials alone should make it impossible to produce $1-a-watt panels profitably.   [Bryan Walsh, Time, Jun 23, 08]

First Solar stock has risen dramatically since its initial public offering in November 2006, but the threat of stiffer competition could take some of the shine off of its shares. ... trading at a price/earnings ratio of about 97.50 ... the company is vulnerable to new thin-film entrants and a potentially large drop in manufacturing costs for traditional solar makers," wrote Kaufman Bros. analyst Theodore O'Neill ...  module manufacturing costs were $1.14 per watt in the first quarter, while conventional solar cells cost about $3 per watt to produce, according to Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov. The company said it aims to get its costs down to 65 cents to 70 cents per watt by 2012 at the latest  [Riva Richmond, Wall Street Journal, Jun 11]

First Solar down 10% [May 1, 08]

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.  [Tom Friedman, New York Times, Apr 30]

I Saw it on TV.  First Solar up 10% [Apr 4, 08] after Street wag Jim Cramer told viewers of his "Mad Money" TV show, "When it comes to solar stocks, there's only going to be one winner,"  Thursday. And that winner is First Solar " [theStreet.com, Apr 4]

First Solar up 12% [Mar 11, 08]

First Solar down 10% [Mar 10, 08]

First Solar up 30% [Feb 13, 08] as fourth-quarter net income surged amid falling manufacturing costs and soaring demand [Wall Street Journal, Feb 14]

First Solar up 10% [Feb 11, 08]

First Solar down 10% [Jan 23, 08]

First Solar down 11% [Jan 16, 08]

First Solar up 10% [Nov 29, 07] to 173 times earnings.

First Solar up 11% [Nov 16, 07]

First Solar down 15% [Nov 12, 07].

First Solar up 34% as blasted past its earning estimates and drew cheers from analysts. [MarketWatch, Nov 8, 07]

First Solar up 14% as investors sang "Good Day Sunshine" upon learning that the solar energy company's new deals will bring more sales. ... First Solar's thin film solar panels use Cadmium Telluride. Others use mixtures of other materials, such as copper, indium and gallium. [Carl Gutierrez, Forbes, Nov 6, 07]

refined silicon, the most costly and crucial element in solar panels, has been in short supply for the past four years. There are only about a half-dozen companies world-wide that purify silicon .. and they haven't built new refineries fast enough to keep up with rising demand.  ... First Solar  recently came to market with the first "thin-film" solar panels that use only 1% of the silicon found in conventional solar panels. The firm's revenues are booming ... Despite decades of hype and hope, solar still accounts for less than 1% of the world's energy needs and is significantly more expensive than coal-generated power. It costs 35 to 45 cents to produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity from solar panels, compared with about three to five cents burning coal  [Leila Abboud, Wall Street Journal, Sep 21]

Overpriced and dependent on subsidy said Barron's about First Solar stock prospects. [its] technology is more cost-effective than competitors, it still falls short of the huge potential for Solar 2.0, a thin-solar energy technology based on chemicals and vapor deposition. First Solar is also highly dependent on European government subsidies, especially in Germany, which said two weeks ago it wants to cut subsidies further for solar ... Barron's also identified five 'green' stocks to watch that it believes may either be acquisition targets or become household names in their own right. SunPower, Environmental Power, Fuel Tech, Pico Holdings, and Composite Technology  [Reuters, Jul 15]  At 500 times earnings, it's easy to see overpricing.

First Solar rocketed 24% after announcing $1.6B in new business. [Jul 9, 07]

Motley Fool is flogging First Solar as an Unloved Growth Stock with a low short interest and a 65% expected annual profit growth rate. And SunPower for a 40% growth rate. Thatsalotta growth. [Jun 07]

Investors took a shine to First Solar, lifting its shares a day after the solar-cell maker said it swung to a quarterly profit that trumped Wall Street's expectations. [AP, May 4, 07]

First Solar up 11%. [Mar 12, 07]  after being included in NASDAQ Clean Edge Index.

First Solar jumped 28% on surprise high profits and plans to supply products for a solar-power plant in Germany. It started life in Toledo with a 1999 DOE Phase 2 SBIR (just one, thank you, we're a serious business) for its CdTe technology and now has a $3B market cap in Phoenix (where the sun shines more). The stock price is now up 75% from its first trading three months ago.

First Solar rose 23% after its IPO [Nov 17, 06]. The new technology is photovoltaics from CdTe, a favored material for IR sensors. Good news for American jobs from the one Phase 2 SBIR? Not quite. Earlier this year FSLR got 45M euros worth of breaks to build a 400-worker plant in Germany.

FLIR Systems

FLIR Systems received an $96.6 million U.S. Army contract for its stabilized multi-sensor systems. [Boston Globe, Sep 11]

War Brings Profit. Flir Systems which makes infrared night-vision cameras and heat-detection products, said first-quarter profit rose 42% on higher government-sector sales. The results, announced before markets opened Thursday, sent its shares soaring 10%. [The Oregonian, Apr 25, 08]

A federal appeals court threw out a lower court ruling that the U.S. attorney's office in Portland used tricks and deception in the prosecution of three former executives of Flir Systems ($1.6M SBIR) [The Oregonian, Apr 5, 08]

Flir Systems reported a 43% leap in sales, and announced plans to acquire Extech Instruments (Waltham MA; no SBIR) [ for $40M cash] and split Flir's stock. ... Flir is among many companies benefiting from the U.S. military's increased demand for battlefield tools and weapons [Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian, Oct 26]

FLIR Systems up 14% [Oct 25, 07]

FLIR Systems landed a $25M Navy deal for handheld, thermal imaging binoculars. [Mass High Tech, Jun 18, 08]

Spending on products suited for deployed troops in harm’s way remained the most dominant spending driver for the group. Companies such as FLIR (FLIR) and AeroVironment (AVAV) continued to see strong order flow, deliver strong results, and have exceptionally optimistic outlooks for 2008. [Jeff Saut, minyanville.com, Oct 22]

Forbes's annual list of the best 200 small companies had several SBIR awardees: Ceradyne #12, Flir Systems 37, II-IV 58, ATMI 69, ViaSat 90, Surmodics 105, Micrel 149, OPNET Tech 167.

Flir Systems was rated number 3 among mid-cap public companies by Forbes magazine. Cymer was #44. [Sep 07]

Flir Systems (Wilsonville OR; $1.6M SBIR in the 1990s) won a $47.6M Navy contract to develop up to 700 handheld imagers for U.S. Special Operations forces. ... From its 24 employees when it won its first SBIR, it has grown to 1900 employees with a $3.6B market cap. [Mass High Tech, Sep 25]

 Flir Systems [$1.5M SBIR in the 1990s] said it believes company stock options that vested between 1996 and 2001 were improperly recorded [The Oregonian, Nov 10]

FlowCardia

FlowCardia, a medical-device maker building catheter systems that bore holes in blood clots, raised $30 million in a third funding round; [Matt Marshall, Venture Beat, Sep 5, 07]

FlowMetrix (Maynard, MA)

Flow Metrix (Maynard MA)  is being bought by Itron for its advanced leak detection systems for underground pipelines of which the US has 900,000 miles of buried water pipe that lose about 10% of their treated water through pipeline leaks.  [Itron Press release, Aug 16, 06]  Flow had two Phase 2 SBIRs from NSF. Sale price a secret.

Fluid Innovation Group

Austin startup Fluid Innovation (no SBIR) is making a game out of the arduous task of software commercialization.  VirtualVentures.com combines aspects of fantasy football and social networking, letting players become venture capitalists who make virtual investments. ...  has five employees and an offshore development team in Brazil, is backed by $1M from private investors. [Lori Hawkins, Austin American Statesman, Sep 24]

Austin-based Fluid Innovation Group has completed a software commercialization deal with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.  Founded in 2005, Fluid Innovation works with businesses and institutions to transform their software into commercial products. [Austin American-Statesman, Jan 29, 07]

Follica (Boston, MA)

Follica (Boston, MA; no SBIR) announced a $5.5M financing to develop a novel therapy for androgenetic alopecia - male and female pattern hair loss caused by androgens in genetically susceptible men and women - and other hair follicle disorders [Boston Globe, Jan 5, 08] Not to be confused with internet hair products retailer Folica.

Footnote (Linden UT)

 A tiny company is out to digitize the world, one historical document and photograph after another. And in so doing, Footnote Inc (Linden UT; no SBIR) hopes to accomplish a couple of things - bring easy Internet access to millions of documents and tap a bunch of niche populations willing to pay for that access.  In January, Footnote Inc. signed a deal with the National Archives and Records Administration, the small agency that cares for billions of documents generated by the federal government since its inception. Footnote agreed to produce digital copies for the National Archives for free in exchange for allowing it to make the images available for a charge on www.footnote.com. ...  Footnote is but the latest incarnation of the company that began as Automated Solutions Inc., cofounded in 1994 by David Norton but which was foundering by the end of the 1990s. Norton also was one of the founders of Iomega, a computer storage company. [Tom Harvey, Salt Lake Tribune, Sep 11]

F-Origin (Morrisville, NC)

A developer of touch-screen technology plans to use $5 million in recently raised venture capital to release its first products next year. F-Origin  (Morrisville, NC; no SBIR), currently at 10 employees, expects to expand to 70 full-time workers over four years if its products take off. The company designs touch screens called "AnyTouch" that are activated by contact from an any object, such as finger, pen or piece of clothing. The screens are being designed for GPS systems, electronic books and cell phones.  [Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 24]

Forma Therapeutics (Cambrdige, MA)

Chelmsford-based Mercury Computer Systems Inc. has announced its sale of the assets and intellectual property of its biotech venture, SolMap Pharmaceuticals  (one SBIR), to Cambridge startup Forma Therapeutics (no SBIR) ... SolMap is a spinout from the structural bioinformatics laboratory of Sandor Vajda, a professor at Boston University. It focuses on computational and experimental fragment-based drug design to develop small-molecule, therapeutic drugs.  [Mass High Tech, Oct 2, 08] 

Foster-Miller (Waltham, MA)

Foster-Miller (Waltham, MA; 8 tons of SBIR) landed a $400 M deal from the Army for Talon robots, parts and services. [Mass High Tech, May 29,08]

Foster-Miller sold the Navy another $51M worth of robots. [Aug 10, 07]

Foster-Miller got another $18M robot order from the Navy. [Mass High-Tech, Jun 11, 07]

Foster-Miller acquired robotics companies Automatika Inc. and Applied Perception Inc. -- both based in Pittsburgh for an undisclosed price.  [Mass High Tech, Apr 24]

Foster Miller got another robot contract: Navy, $26M in an installment on the $257M 2005 defense contract.

The Talon by Foster-Miller has emerged as one of stars of this new class of robots. ...  Marine Colonel Edward Ward is division chief in the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office...said that his group has put 400 Talons into service, while the company said that other military purchases of the systems, which cost more than $100,000 apiece, put the number of its robots sent to Iraq and Afghanistan above 800  ... Talon's biggest competitor is the better-known iRobot   [Jeffrey Krasner, Boston Globe, Mar 12]  Did SBIR help Talon substantially?  Hard to tell since Foster-Miller had so-o many SBIRs. 

Foster-Miller, formerly of SBIR notoriety, got a $10M UKMOD subcontract for armor. Foster-Miller was founded in 1956 by three MIT graduates, and is now a subsidiary of U.K.-based QinetiQ Holdings Ltd.

Foster-Miller, the former SBIR consumption champ,  got a $64 M and a $28 M Navy contract, the larger to build robots and robotic parts for U.S. Navy repair teams deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  [Mass High Tech, May 23]

Foster-Miller got a $133M order for spare parts and service for its Talon robot. That's on top of  a recent deal of $96M for up to 1,200 robots over seven years, with a total award of $124 million, then the largest order in the company’s history.  Foster-Miller is a leading supplier of explosive ordnance robots for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, completing more than 50,000 missions.  [Mass High Tech, Sep 20] FMI was the undisputed champion of collecting SBIR money before it was bought out by a large firm.

Foster-Miller plans to buy PSI (Reston, VA) $42M in a move to be a bigger DOD contractor, pushing 700 folks. Foster-Miller was the champion SBIR harvester until being bought by a British firm which is apparently looking for a bigger footprint in DOD business. Three MIT graduates founded Foster-Miller nearly 50 years ago. [story in Mass High Tech, Aug 2, 05]$152,596,023 is how much Foster-Miller got in DOD SBIRs by Sep 8 postings in the DOD database according to a spreadsheet painstakingly assembled for 678 line-by-lines by an interesting observer.  SBA records show 679 projects (lumping Phase 1 and Phase 2 as one project) of which about 80% are DOD. That's about another $35M for a grand total approaching $200M. Maybe the best economic story to emerge from all that money was when Parvis Tayebati left FMI to start his own company, got a couple of SBIRs, and five years later sold his company for $1.6B in overvalued stock of an info-tech biggie. Would such economic success have ever happened if he had stayed at FMI with those same SBIR awards? As Fox News would say, "We Report, You Decide". 

Heavyweight Champ to Retire.  Foster-Miller, the biggest user of SBIR, will sell itself to a British organization for $163M by Britain's QinetiQ Group PLC, a public-private partnership with the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense. If the SBA would publish what the Brits call league tables, we would see that FMI has had about three gazillion dollars in mostly defense SBIR money since SBIR began in 1983. SBA doesn't publish such stats because it would reveal how concentrated the SBIR money is in companies who live on SBIR, although FMI relied on regular SBIR for only a part of its revenue and accepted the relatively low net profit margin to get another foot in the DOD door. Tons of startup companies can rejoice that the champ has liberated a lot of SBIR money for them.   The buyer QinetiQ is now one-third owned by Carlyle Group, the Washington investment firm whose executives include many retired US officials. Carlyle's role is to help QinetiQ prepare for an initial public offering of stock by 2007. [Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, Sep 8]

Foster-Miller  (the SBIR champ) got a $9M contract from the Federal Railroad Administration for more work in locomotive crashworthiness and fuel tank safety. Foster-Miller has been creating computerized simulations of collisions involving rail equipment since 1995. These simulations are used to analyze different types of railroad accidents so that designers are able to minimize injury and improve crash worthiness through design modifications. In 2000, Foster-Miller opened a 5,000-square-foot, full-scale Locomotive Test Facility in Fitchburg, with a 1-million-pound loading test fixture capable of handling 40,000-pound test locomotives. Following modeling and testing in Fitchburg, Foster-Miller conducts full-scale railroad crash tests at a government facility in Pueblo, Colo.  [Mass High-Tech, Dec 23]  Foster Miller is a regular winner of the few DOT SBIRs awarded. 

When rescue conditions are too unsafe for dogs or humans, send in a robot. In the WTC clean-up one robot was supplied by SBIR champ Foster-Miller (Waltham, MA), says Ryan Malkin in Smart Money (Dec 01). I suppose SBIR could take some credit, at least for keeping FMI alive and well for two decades of SBIR totalling well over $100M.

Coming soon to a pub near you: beer in a plastic-screw top bottle. Rick Lusignea, president of Superex Polymer Inc.. a subsiudiary of SBIR champ Foster-Miller., said the Waltham company is working with a consortium of beer bottlers and brewing companies to apply its specialized polymer film in creating the world’s first plastic beer bottles. The whole idea of packaging beer in plastic bottles has been on the shelf for 10 years, Lusignea said. Superex’s innovative way to make a polymer known as liquid crystal polymers (LCPs). In the past, plastic bottles have been shunned by brewers because oxygen seeping through the plastic changes the flavor of the beer long before its carbonation is surrendered. LCPs, however, have a much stronger barrier to keep out oxygen than previous plastics; ... LCPs were developed by Air Force engineers 20 years ago. Their stiffness, strength and resistance to water and vapor infiltration made LCPs an attractive candidate for a diverse set of products. The early process for making the polymers, however, was troublesome. Under a federal grant, many SBIR's that is, Foster-Miller began exploring ways to solve the problem in 1983. Foster-Miller created Superex in 1993 and assigned Lusignea to begin exploring the market opportunities of the technology. The first real-world application of Superex’s LCP technology is in the medical device field, where a New York company called Precision Extrusions is making and selling LCP tubular products for endoscopic instruments. The product has attracted interest from device makers because it is five times stronger than conventional tubing and has electrical insulating qualities. The big market opportunity, however, is plastic beer bottles. The U.S. produces some 54 million units of beer per year; the worldwide market is three times larger. Lusignea does not expect LCP-lined plastic bottles to compete head-on with glass bottles and cans that are cheap, but he said it does offer advantages that have brewers and packagers interested. [Mass High-Tech, Jan 17] With enough SBIR and enough time, many things are possible. Especially if the supplier of the R&D funds has no economic goals and no need for an ROI.The gripe from the SBIR rejectees is that they could have gotten a much larger ROI with a lot less money. But the funding source, your USAF, ignores such arguments.

Not Just the Army Loves Foster-Miller. A quick look at the Navy's SBIR Data Base shows that 1991-1997 Foster-Miller has won 67 Phase 1s and 15 Phase 2s. And across all DOD 1983-1996, 101 Phase 2s and 180 Phase 1s, for a total something like $70M of innovation. A start-up needing government succor? As an FMI manager said at a recent SPIE Conference Foster-Miller is a 40-year old engineering services firm. Could your start-up stand that much prosperity and do you think you might be getting crowded out by FMI, however competent. Has the Law of Diminishing Returns been repealed in Massachusetts and the results accepted by the DOD?

Foster-Miller Suit
(Oct 27) Foster-Miller (Waltham, MA) has a product. Actually FMI has quite a few products after $70M of SBIR handout. The latest product is an air-conditioned firefighter's suit pictured in The Futurist November 1997. What FMI doesn't have is any visible and compelling evidence that all that money was a smart investment by the government in a competitive investment program. Nor does the government seem anxious to raise the issue. Instead, it poured another $10M last year into the firm. But that's not FMI's problem; the public holds the government accountable for how the money was invested. For now, both FMI and the government hope the public is asleep or will accept a warm fuzzy story of good R&D by a highly competent firm.

Foster-Miller Nets a Product
(May23) Shoot-a-net got a Business Week (May26) story for the national champ ($60M) SBIR consumer. A DARPA project for a shell that fires a Nonlethal Entanglement Technology (such bureaucratic words must fit into a pistol shell) from a fat police pistol. Is that high-tech as envisioned by SBIR's inventors? Close enough; at least it's a product with some sales potential which was the real goal (other than just pushing contract business to a constituency).

Fractal Antenna Systems (Bedford, MA)

Fractal Antenna Systems (Bedford , MA; one Phase 2 SBIR) says it got its 13th patent, [Mass High Tech, Sep 13]

Free Flow Power

Free Flow Power, a New England startup company, wants to harness the mighty river for a secondary purpose — generating electricity. ... pursuing a $3 billion plan to install thousands of small electric turbines in the river bed, reaching from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico that would collectively generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 1.5 million homes. [Jeffrey Tomich, St Louis Post Dispatch, Apr 1, 08] But capitalistic innovations of technology are not free to enter the marketplace without considering any public downside that would have been ignored under Cal Coolidge's "The business of America is business." In this case, taking energy from the river will slow the flow with consequences not immediately apparent. But if the idea gathers enough energy at an acceptable cost, more such installations would follow until the river nearly stopped. The Western gold and silver rushes provide an example of unrestrained extraction.

FuelCell Energy

Fuel Cell Energy up 11% [Oct 28, 08]

Fuel Cell Energy down 12% [Oct 22, 08]

Fuel Cell Energy up 14% [Oct 17, 08]

Fuel Cell up 26% [Oct 16, 08]

Fuel Cell down 15% [Oct 15, 08]

Fuel Cell down 14% [Oct 14, 08]

Fuel Cell up 23% [Oct 13, 08]

Fuel Cell Energy up 23% [Oct 10, 08]

Fuel Cell Energy down 15% [Oct 9, 08]

Fuel Cell down 22% [Oct 8, 08]

Fuel Cell Energy up 16% [Sep 30, 08]

Fuel Cell Energy down 17% [Sep 29, 08]

FuelCell Energy down 10%  [Aug 29, 08]

FuelCell Energy ($3M SBIR) down 13% after the company reported a fiscal third-quarter loss wider than analysts expected. [Wall Street Journal, Aug 29]

Fuel Tech (Batavia IL)

Fuel Tech (Batavia IL; no SBIR; 137 employees) up 17% after winning a $7.2 million contract from a Midwest utility for its "clean-burning" coal technology. [Wall Street Journal, Oct 18]

Gelesis

Gelesis Inc. reports it has raised $16 M in its first round of venture financing to advance its treatment for obesity. Yet founders of the firm aren't releasing details about the company's technology. Gelesis was formed in 2006 with technology developed, and still manufactured, in Israel,  [Mass High Tech, Jan 3, 08]

Geltech (Orlando, FL)

Geltech Bought
(Aug 28) LightPath (Albuquerque, NM) says it will buy Geltech (Orlando, FL) for $27.5M plus $1.7M debt. Geltech manufactures precision-molded aspherical optics, which couple laser diode sources to fibers or waveguides for telecom applications. The company also makes sol-gel waveguides and recently launched a range of diffractive gratings and lens arrays for DWDM multiplexing - a market estimated to be worth USD 3.3 billion by 2003. Geltech got its start in sol-gel processing from Star Wars before it got any SBIR. Since 1987 Geltech has had only three Phase 2 SBIRs (two from BMDO).

GelTech 5-Yr Deal GelTech 5-Yr Deal  Geltech (Orlando, FL) announced a five year $manyM deal (biggest ever) to supply "micro lenses" to Seagate Technology, the world's largest maker of computer disk drives. Geltech has 95 employees, up from 40 a year ago. The technology uses lasers, fiber optics and tiny precision lenses to create high-density electronic storage in disk drives. Seagate said that Geltech has been instrumental in making the new technology possible. Geltech develops lenses -- no larger than the head of a pin -- that focus laser light with extraordinary precision. [Orlando Bus Journal, Mar 9] Geltech has had about $2.5M of DOD SBIR and had early money while still a university effort from StarWars research for its solgel lens technology and 1987 Phase 2 from AFOSR which was SDI's agent at the time for that technology under Don Ulrich (deceased). In those days, SDI was intensely interested in new technology since it didn't take SDI long to figure out that an anti-missile defense could not be built from the normal incremental technology improvements in military R&D. Its second Phase 2 was from BMDO in 1993. (SBA doesn't provide a government-wide search.)

GEMFIRE (Palo Alto, CA)

Gemfire gets big backers. Integrated-optical-component maker Gemfire (Palo Alto, CA) has raised more than $63M in its Series C round of funding from a variety of blue chip and venture investors, including Cisco Systems, Corning, Finisar, Intel Capital, and TriQuint Semiconductor. This brings the total investment in the new company to date to more than $85M. Gemfire's new products integrate passive and active functions on one optical chip. [Laser Focus World, March 16]

Gemfire for Bright Displays
(Palo Alto, CA) will exploit Deacon Research's polymeric thin panel display for low-cost direct-view, 100-inch displays for a $100B market. To get its high brightness, flexibility, efficiency, ruggedness, and viewing angle, laser light is guided to the display pixels in a thin film on a plastic substrate, using an array of optical waveguide switches. The use of polymer based materials allows the display to be extremely rugged and shock resistant, flexible, paper-thin and featherweight, and for applications requiring the viewer to "see through" the display to be transparent. GEMFIRE will manufacture display systems for special low volume applications and then license the technology to a few strong partner companies. Deacon had several BMDO SBIR's with a growing match ratio after graduating from the Free-Electron laser business.

Genaera (NYC, NY)

MacroChem (Wellesley Hills, MA; three SBIRs) has purchased the license to a treatment for diabetic foot infection. MacroChem executives report the company has exercised an option to acquire exclusive worldwide license rights for pexiganan, a novel, small peptide anti-infective, from New York City-based Genaera Corp (three SBIRs). [Mass High Tech, Oct 4, 07]

Gene Logic (Gaithersburg MD)

Gene Logic (Gaithersburg MD; no SBIR) is selling its genomics business for $10M to Ocimum Biosolutions (Hyderabad, India with US HQ in Indianapolis) [Indianapolis Star, Oct 17, 07]  founded 1994; $24M IPO 1997; $248M public stock offering 2000 [company website]; current market cap $33M; total loss for last three years $130M.

Genex

thanks to Genex Technologies Inc., a company now owned by Markland Technologies Inc. of Providence, RI .. a provider of facial recognition and 3-D imaging technology and intelligent surveillance based in Maryland, will provide Naval center with its OmniEye Cerberus system, a multi-sensor, reconfigurable system designed for long distance infrared and visible detection. [Mass High Tech, Sep 15]  Genex got its early start in 3-D technology with SBIR from, you guessed it, BMDO back in BMDO's venture capital days when founder Jason Geng was one of two employees. In all it has had about $8M in SBIR. Its website claims  nearly 30 employees and impressive annual revenues. Jason no longer appears on either the management team nor the board of advisors  did up until 2004  His name does now show up as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Before he founded Genex, he was Director of Research and Development at Intelligent Automation, a huge consumer of SBIR, where he won about $800K of DOD SBIR in  the early 90s including a neural network Phase 2 from BMDO.  Markland is a homeland security company with a cross-country history:  incorporated in 1995 as A.P. Sales, Inc. in Colorado, redomiciled to Florida in 1998 under the name of Quest Net Corporation and further changed its name to Markland Technologies, Inc. in 2001 in Ridgefield, CT.  The stock trades for a nickel a share.

Genomic Health

Genomic Health down 10% [Oct 15, 08]

Genomic Health up 10% [Oct 13, 08]

Genomic Health up 15% [Feb 6, 08] on better than expected financial results.

Genomic Health up 10% [Jan 14, 08]

Genoptix Medical Laboratory (Carlsbad, CA)

Genoptix (Carlsbad, CA; $1M SBIR), that helps oncologists determine the proper treatment for people with blood cancers, topped a list of the region's fastest-growing companies compiled by the Deloitte & Touche accounting firm. [Terri Somers, San Diego Union-Tribune Oct 11, 08]

Shares of laboratory-services company Genoptix (Carlsbad, CA; $1M SBIR) became the latest in a series of health-care-related companies to post large first-day trading gains, increasing 49% from its IPO price. [Wall Street Journal, Oct 31]

 Genoptix Medical Laboratory, (Carlsbad, CA; $1M SBIR) registered for an $86M IPO. [Aug 3, 07]

Genor

Genor up 14% [May 14, 07]  looks born to run ...  the stock market's largest player in embryonic stem cell research -- could feel good long before the company discovers any miracle cures [Melissa Davis, Thestreet.com, May 14]

GenTel BioSciences ((Madison, WI)

 GenTel BioSciences (Madison, WI; no SBIR) maker of chips that help researchers test for proteins now has a revenue-producing chip on the market. ... after "The product we thought we had, failed in final testing - and a major source of investment dollars ran into some liquidity issues," Vodenlich said. A strategic change was needed  [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Oct 17]  Company website says it has been awarded more than $2M in NIH funding for the development of novel protein arrays.

GenVec

GenVec (Gaithersburg, MD; $4M SBIR) down 13% agreed to sell $17 million worth of stock and warrants to new and current investors to raise money for operating costs and upcoming clinical trials. [ Baltimore Business Journal, Jun 6, 08]

GenVec dropped 29% after preliminary results from a trial of its TNFerade drug candidate for advanced pancreatic cancer. [Jun 4, 07]

Genzyme

Genzyme up 13% [Oct 13, 08]

Genzyme  announced the opening of its new LEED-certified science center in Framingham, today. The $125 million, 180,000-square-foot facility can house 350 employees in a building intended for the early-stage research of cancer, heart disease, genetic diseases, and endocrinology and neurological disorders. [Mass High Tech, Sep 22, 08]

Genzyme and Isis said FDA requirements will result in some delays for Mipomersen, the cholesterol-lowering antisense drug at the heart of their joint venture deal announced in January. The news sent Isis shares down 29% [thestreet.com, Apr 25, 08]

Genzyme plans to construct a 200,000-square-foot facility for research and development in Beijing  [Mass High Tech, Apr 22, 08] Maybe it could get an unadulterated source of its supplies from corner-cutting Chinese factories.

In a decision that shows how difficult it is to copy complex, biologic drugs, federal regulators rejected Genzyme Corp.'s request for permission to sell in the United States a version of its Pompe disease drug, called Myozyme, that is made at its Allston manufacturing plant, the company disclosed yesterday afternoon. [Boston Globe, Apr 22]

Genzyme announced plans today to expand its manufacturing and research facilities in Ireland.  The Irish government said it was offering confidential assistance to subsidize the $200M expansion  [Boston Globe, Apr 1, 08]

Genzyme launched its kidney disease treatment Renvela. FDA approved the drug in October. It’s a new version of the kidney disease drug Renagel, in use since 1998. [Boston Globe, Mar 7, 08]

Genzyme announced a license agreement for exclusive rights to a lung-cancer diagnostic.  [Boston Globe, Jan 16]

Genzyme said its fourth-quarter revenue rose 21% [Jan 8, 08] 

Genzyme and the town of Framingham have asked state officials for a commitment of $12.5 M in state funds toward Genzyme's proposed $260 M expansion of its biologics facility in Framingham  [Mass High Tech, Dec 31,07]

Genzyme reports the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved another use for its thyroid cancer medication. [Dec 07]

Genzyme (Cambridge MA; $1M SBIR long ago) has agreed to pay $57M for privately held Canadian Diagnostic Chemicals Ltd.'s diagnostics unit.  [Boston Globe, Nov 10]

An experimental antidiarrhea drug made by Genzyme (Boston, MA: $1M SBIR a decade ago) failed its first large test in humans, the company said yesterday, the second disappointment for the Cambridge biotechnology giant in two days. [Boston Globe, Jul 7]

Geospiza (Seattle, WA)

Geospiza, a Seattle company that makes software for crunching vast amounts of genetic data, has raised $3 million from private investors to tap the growing market for personalized medicine. [Seattle Times, Dec 1] At least $1.4M of SBIR.

Geron

Geron up 16% [Oct 28, 08]

Geron up 15% [Oct 20, 08]

Geron up 11% [Sep 16, 08]

Geron up 11% [Jan 29, 08]

Geron up 10%.  [Aug 8, 07]

The patients tolerated Geron's cancer drug, but sadly, so did the leukemia cells.  Down 10% [Jun 12, 07]

 Geron up 15% [May 17, 07] on news that its research partners at the University of Alberta were able to differentiate embryonic stem cells into clusters that secrete insulin in response to elevated glucose levels .. which implies the feasibility of producing therapeutic cells from stem cells to treat diabetes.

GigOptix

Lumera which is merging with GigOptix  of California, reported that it trimmed its third-quarter loss to $1.5 million, [Puget Sound Business Journal, Oct 21, 08]

Giner

Giner Electrochemical Systems ( Newton MA) will be bought by Ener1 (Fort Lauderdale FL). Thius Giner is  joint venture of Giner (the SBIR company) and General Motors. Giner, both forms, researches proton exchange membrane (PEM) high-pressure electrolyzers for gas production, regenerative fuel cells, and direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) stacks and systems. (Jan 05)

Giner formed a joint enterprise, Giner Electrochemical Systems LLC, with General Motors for development of fuel-cell vehicles. Giner has what the SBIR advocates call a strong strong SBIR presence, having been active in the SBIR program from the very earliest days (1983-present). Oh, yeah. Giner is proof that if the government pours enough kerosene, a blaze may start. Giner has had about $26M of SBIR in the last decade with a typical staffing of 25 people. That's about $1M per person (or $100K per year) which is enough to explain what Giner has been doing - contract government research . Whether SBIR should be such a long term research program is a political question of course. Any economic return has yet to show up; this GM deal shows technical confidence but GM has not sold any economic quantity of vehicels and even GM's research is partly supported by the government.

Global Positions (Billings, MT)

More Raincoats, Less Photonics. Gore Photonics, the fiber optics business unit of W. L. Gore dumped its parallel optical business by selling to Optical Communication Products which makes  fiber optic subsystems and modules for metropolitan area, local area and storage area networks. That Gore division started life as Optical Concepts with substantial help from BMDO's SBIR. Gore is the innovative maker of Goretex rainwear. Buying, selling, and trading photonics entities has been going on for a decade during both the boom and bust of the photonics industry.

Graphic Surgery (Creve Coeur, MO)

Graphic Surgery (Creve Coeur , MO; no SBIR) helps companies contain surgery costs through benefit plan design and patient education. Research by Graphic Surgery shows one out of three health care dollars was spent on surgeries in 2005, ... considers 75 percent of surgeries "discretionary, ...Founder Dr. Patricia Gelnar, a former neurologist, said Graphic Surgery wants to improve communication between patients and physicians, not interfere with it. She started the company to help physicians manage malpractice claims through better communication to patients about surgery's risks. Then, the St. Louis Business Health Coalition learned about the company and thought it could help employers. [Mary Jo Feldstein, St Louis Post Dispatch, Nov 14]

GreatPoint Energy

Great Point Energy (Brookline MA; one SBIR) raised $100M to commercialize its technology, which converts coal into natural gas. Dow Chemical Co. and Citi Sustainable Development Investments led the Series C financing round. [Wall Street Journal, Oct 29]

the company that has been operating the experimental reactor for 18 months now, GreatPoint Energy (no SBIR), has raised $137M from some of the biggest names in industry and venture capital, ... raised its first round of venture finance in 2005 from previous (co-founder) Perlman backers ...  applying a (undisclosed) catalyst directly to the coal and recovering the catalyst from the char ... another lucky break when they found that the Gas Technology Institute had built a $60 M test plant and was looking for revenue after losing government funding from a tax on pipelines. [Daniel Fisher, Forbes, Oct 29]

GreenFuel Technologies

A Cambridge firm developing algae farms to recycle carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and provide feedstock for biofuels and other products said it raised nearly $14 million in venture capital. GreenFuel Technologies , founded in 2001, said it is using the money to further develop its farming technology and move toward commercial scale operations. [Boston Globe, May 16, 08]

GreenTech America

Purdue University says it helped launch 10 startup companies from July 2007 to June 2008, including GreenTech America, Intelliphage and Nutrabiotix. All use Purdue-licensed technologies. Purdue Research Foundation's Office of Technology Commercialization also reported more than $4.1 million in royalties for that time frame.  [Indianapolis Star, Jul 29]

GSI Technology

GSI Technology (Santa Clara, CA) filed for an IPO  It provides static random access memory, or SRAM, chips that are used mainly in networking and telecommunications equipment. [San Jose Mercury News, Jan 11]  No SBIRs, and it makes a profit. 

GTC Biotherapeutics

GTC Biotherapeutics (Framingham, MA; $5M SBIR) and Ovation Pharmaceuticals (no SBIR) said that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to develop and market a drug treatment called ATryn in the United States. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 24]

GTC Biotherapeutics said it gained orphan status for its treatment ATryn for a rare blood disorder called hereditary antithrombin deficiency. [Mass High Tech, Dec 10, 07]

GTC Biotherapeutics (Framingham MA; $3M SBIR) won FDA fast-track designation  for ATryn, a protein produced in the milk of goats that has anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory properties. [Boston Globe, Sep 5, 07]

GTC Biotherapeutics has entered into a strategic collaboration with French firm LFB Biotechnologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of LFB S.A., to develop recombinant plasma proteins and monoclonal antibodies using GTC's transgenic production platform. LFB Biotechnologies will purchase $25 million of GTC common and convertible preferred shares, and convertible debt. [Mass High Tech, Oct 2, 06]

GTC Biotherapeutics got a $1.4 M NIH SBIR for its CD137 monoclonal antibody program. The company in-licensed the antibody from the Mayo Clinic in 2004, when it received an initial SBIR grant of $780,000.  ...  It expects to use the new SBIR grant to continue preclinical evaluation of the antibody. [Sep 06]

GTC Biotherapeutics raised another $17M.  Founded in 1993 as a spinout of Genzyme Corp. and originally named Genzyme Transgenics Corp., GTC Biotherapeutics develops and markets therapeutic proteins through transgenic animal technology. In 2005, the company, which employs 130, reported revenue of about $5 million.  [Mass High Tech, Jul 18] At least $3M came from HHS SBIR awards 2003-2005.

GT Equipment (Merrimack, NH)

GT Equipment (Merrimack, NH) claims three new SBIR/STTR awards as a sweetener to being named Environmental Exporter of the Year by the US Export-Import Bank. GT has formerly been called Ferrofluidics and FerroTec, or maybe GT Solar and GT Crystal. Perhaps its  international reputation for delivering high quality, cost effective products that consistently exceed customer expectations will keep it from going down the same photovoltaic tubes as Astropower. 

H2Pump (Colonie, NY)

New York Tech Investment.  H2Pump, a start-up in Colonie NY, will get $395K to develop a 3-in-1 hydrogen pump to separate, pump and compress hydrogen through an electrochemical process. According to NYSERDA, this would avoid high energy-consumptive methods of gas separation, and mechanical pumping and compression.  Plug Power Inc., a Latham fuel-cell developer, will get a $400,000 research grant for membrane technology. [Albany Times Union, Feb 7]

HNC Software (San Diego, CA)

HNC Bought HNC Software which had some help from SBIR in its younger days will be bought up by consumer credit scoring firm Fair, Isaac for $726M in stock. Fair Isaac says its to give them a better way to find and keep customers.

HNC Software , whose backers include the DARPA, reckons that its new approach to neural networks based on a cluster of 30 Pentium processors is the most powerful and promising approach to artificial intelligence ever discovered. HNC claims that its system could be used to spot camouflaged vehicles on a battlefield or extract a voice signal from a noisy background—tasks humans can do well, but computers cannot. Whether or not its technology lives up to the claims made for it, that HNC is emphasising the use of AI is itself an interesting development. [The Economist, Mar 16]

HNC Software reported earnings. Pro Forma (which means whatever we say it means) profit was seven cents a share. Actual Consolidated Results (which means what the accounting standards require) was a loss of 23 cents a share. The company blamed a continued slowdown in IT spending both in the US and overseas and gave thanks for a flexible business model that allows businesses to opt for payment on either a 'pay-as-you-go' or a one-time 'up-front' model.

A Wall Street Journal piece on passenger profiling says HNC Software is racing to develop an algorithm-based program for the airlines that factors such data as ethnicity, age and travel history into an equation aimed at calculating the probability of a passenger being a terrorist. HNC currently sells risk-assessment tools to insurers and lenders. SBIR gave HNC a little help while it funded lots of neural network companies who never made it public. Since neural nets are a nice clean business, there is no shortage of talent wanting government money to pursue the hobby. SBA reports 857 NN SBIR awards for neural network, of which about half won Phase 2. At an average of only $500K per Phase 2 for 400 awards, that's $200M into an industry out of which only one company went public.HNC had about $5M (2%) of that total. But neural nets is a competitive business and like most competitive industries, you gotta have something better than being good at government R&D to make a business success.

HNC Software , best known for products that help catch credit-card and insurance fraud, said it was developing a program for airlines that would sweep through reservation records for suspicious patterns and help flag potential hijackers. ... developing the software with privately-held PROS Revenue Management which manages revenue systems for major airlines,John Mutch, chief executive of HNC, said he expected the new security software would be delivered within six months. ... ``We will be able to detect patterns -- for instance, if five people of the same origin are traveling together and may use a certain kind of payment, fall between the ages of 25 and 40, and had previously limited credit history,'' Mutch said. The program would deliver a real-time scorecard to airlines, with a range of one to 1,000, which would alert airline personnel of the potential need to increase security. ... Previous suggestions to use data-mining software to sift through corporate records have drawn opposition from civil rights advocates. ...HNC has seen business slow and said it expects third quarter earnings and sales of $58-59M and operating earnings per share 13-15 cents. [Sue Zeidler, Arizona Republic, Oct. 04]

HNC Software took a 9% hit despite a favorable mention by NICK WINGFIELD, Wall Street Journal (Sep 26) of being best known for providing sophisticated software that helps the credit-card and insurance industries detect fraud by monitoring for activity that matches profiles of suspicious behavior. Following the terrorist attacks, the company has been discussing ways of using the technology to identify "high-risk passengers" with a company that installs information systems for airlines, said Joseph Sirosh, an executive director at HNC. Mr. Sirosh said executives at the company had authorized him to look at the company's entire portfolio of products to adapt them for counterterrorism measures. And just a month before the events of Sept. 11, HNC signed a three-year contract with the Defense Department to develop software that could help health-care workers more quickly identify outbreaks resulting from biological terrorism by detecting patterns within bacterial DNA.

In the latest news from HNC Software, the CFO sold 10000 shares. That makes all sales and no buying by insiders for the last year. Lots of options have been exercised at prices above today's prices.

No HNC Didn't Collapse. The apparent cratering of HNC Software, a 75% decline Monday, didn't end the world. Although one brokerage firm reduced its recommendation, the main thrust of the decvline was a distribution of HNC's shares of Retek.How much the distribution actually lowered HNC's share price needs some careful calcualtion.

HNC Acquires Another
(Sep 21) HNC Software (San Diego, CA) announced plans yesterday to acquire Open Solutions, a Connecticut company that makes software to process loans, deposits and other transactions for small banks. Open Solutions' shareholders will receive 3 million shares of HNC stock and options, which values the deal at about $124 million, based on yesterday's closing price. It is the fifth acquisition in less than a year for San Diego-based HNC, which is branching out beyond its original business of predictive software to detect financial fraud. [San Diego Tribune, Sep 17]

SBIR Firm Becomes the Standard
(Aug 17) HNC Software (San Diego, CA)says it is now in the S&P SmallCap 600. HNC was Hecht-Nielsen (Bob Hecht-Nielsen is still chairman and chief scientist) and a winner of neural net contracts from Star Wars in the 80s. Its tiny titbit of SBIR gives SBIR awarders some basis to boast about a tiny something.

Got a Saturday midnight call from your credit card company about an suspicious pattern of your card use? Especially suspicious: consumer electronics purchases in California by an East Coaster who had just bought an airline ticket adjustment, paid a hotel bill, and returned a rental car. Neural nets are watching, including a $150K version from HNC Software (San Diego, CA), says Forbes Jun 2.

HNC to OUTPERFORM
(Mar31) Morgan Stanly's hot-shot HNCS analyst upgraded HNC Software (San Diego, CA) to OUTPERFORM since the "shares traded at a discount to the company's estimated 50% long-term growth rate". The analyst was rated number 1 (of 7) in ability to predict HNCS price and number 5 to forecast earnings with an average historical error of one penny in forecasting earnings and generated "an average excess return of 7.00% when making recommendations for this company". Such a set of statistics in the dog-eat-dog competition on Wall Street. Three significant figures is pretty rich for a company public only two years. Ah well, Wall Street has to have something to talk about since it doesn't create the wealth, only redistributes it. Like politicians. Maybe SBIR program managers could also use statistics more sophisticated than 1-2-3 addition.

Big Profit at HNC
(Jan 24) HNC Software (San Diego, CA) reported a $5.3M quarterly profit on sales of $16.8M. Net profit for the year $6.4M on sales of $54M. Maybe the biggest SBIR success, although the $3M of DOD SBIR must have been no more than a modest contributor to HNC's growth. Return to Index

Spread the Merchandise Management
(Jan 14) Retek Information Systems, a subsidiary of HNC Software (a $600M market cap SBIR user) announced a new addition of software to unite large retail merchandisers' internal operations by Internet. Now Centralized Stores Inc can control all its software centrally. Wait, isn't that bringing management back to the days of the Info Systems priesthood so those pesky individuals can't innovate outside Info's control? One analyst estimates that a PC costs $10-12K per year and a network computer (semi-dumb terminal) only $2-3K per year. George Gilder would probably say, if asked, that such a move violates his theory of the microcosm (essentially infinite decentralization). Management doesn't surrender easily though.

Hold HNCS  A financial house brought HNC Software (San Diego, CA) into its watch portfolio and recommended its listeners hold HNC Software stock even at 81 times next years earnings. HNC had a little SBIR help.

Thinking Against Fraud  Where a new life form arises, there will a new life form also arise to feed on it. Feeding fraudsters applying for credit cards may be discovered by Falcon Sentry's new smart software (ever heard anybody advertise dumb software?) from HNC Software(San Diego, CA). Thus HNC's parade of new neural network product announcements marches on. Its stock price had a nice 15% boost last week also to 38, a stock that's ranged from 10 to 50 in the past year.

Claim Paternity. HNC's commercial victory offers a ripe chance for a federal agency to claim great success for its SBIR program. Such a victory should attract fathers, at least among California politicians. Divide HNC sales by SBIR input, get a large number, and smile. In cold truth HNC would have won without any SBIR, but without any real SBIR program evaluation who would ever throw such cold water on the claim? Everyone has an incentive to accept the claim except the federal career managers who would like SBIR to dry up.

Cardholder Bankruptcy Prediction  HNC Software (San Diego, CA) introduced a neural net prediction system that tells your bank when you're going broke. The scheme, ProftMax Bankruptcy, uses HNC' patented cardholder profiling technology. Such new products are how high-tech innovators keep up their momentum after the first product finds market success. Yogi may say it's not over till it's over, but for high-tech companies, it's never over. HNC got some nourishment from BMDO, both mainline missile defense research (years before it went public) and a small SBIR. 

Neural Nets for Japan Bank A Japanese bank will get neural net software from HNC Software (San Diego, CA) to fight bank card fraud. HNC got a little BMDO money for development in the late 80s and one Phase 2 SBIR for data compression. Its stock has traded many multiples above the 1994 IPO price.

Hansen Medical

Dr. Frederic H. Moll, 56, is a soft-spoken man who can look uncomfortable on stage. Yet his role in founding Intuitive Surgical ($2.5M SBIR), the company that now dominates the field, and his current involvement with three other robotics companies, has kept him in the sights of investors, health care providers and fellow entrepreneurs.  ... He took the idea to his employer, Guidant, a medical device company. Guidant decided that robotic surgery was too futuristic and too risky, so Dr. Moll rounded up backers, resigned, and in 1995, founded Intuitive Surgical. [which] earned $144M last year on sales of $600M .... He’s now best known as chief executive of Hansen Medical  (no SBIR), a publicly traded robotics company focused on minimally invasive cardiac care. But he’s also an investor in and a board member of Mako Surgical (no SBIR), an orthopedics robotics company that recently went public, and he is a co-founder and chairman of Restoration Robotics (no SBIR), a start-up company focused on cosmetic surgery. [Barnaby Feder, New York Times, May 4] 

Harbor Technologies (Brunswick ME)

Harbor Technologies (Brunswick, ME), a provider of innovative and cost-effective composite solutions to the marine infrastructure market, announces that it has received a $418,500 development grant from the Maine Technology Institute to purchase and further develop a machine to produce composite marine pilings in a continuous manner. [Mainetoday.com, Aug 26]

Harvard Bioscience (Holliston, MA)

Harvard Bioscience (Holliston MA; one SBIR), a maker of scientific research tools, reports it plans to repurchase $10M in company stock [Mass High Tech, Dec 7]  Should a company that pays dividends or re-purchases stock be barred from SBIR on grounds that it no longer needs government subsidy because it refuses to use its own $10M (in this case) capital for R&D investment? SBIR was meant as a complement to private capital, not a substitute.

Harvard Bioscience (Holliston, MA; one SBIR) completed the $5M cash purchase of Panlab SL of Barcelona, Spain. [Mass High Tech, Oct 12]

HealthTronics

HealthTronics said it made $31.2 million in the third quarter, down about 7%. [Austin American-Statesman, Nov 8] One 2004 lithotripsy SBIR probably made little difference in a public company with a $236M market cap.  Started life in Georgia and then merged in 2004 with Prime Medical Services.

Helicos BioSciences (Cambridge, MA)

Helicos up 19% [Jan 10, 08]

 Helicos BioSciences (Cambridge, MA; no SBIR)  a developer of genetic analysis systems, has formed a collaboration with a University of Massachusetts Medical School researcher to advance technology for studying RNA... a 2006 net loss of $20.6M on revenue of $160,000. The firm employs 79 workers.  [Mass High Tech, Jan 9, 08] Raised $40M VC Mar 06 and $45M by IPO May 07.

Heliovolt (Austin TX)

HelioVolt, a producer of highly-efficient thin film solar products, received a Printed Electronics USA 2007 Award from IDTechEx, a leading independent international consulting firm specializing in printed electronics, RFID and smart packaging. [company press release, Nov 15]

HelioVolt (Austin, TX; one Phase 1 SBIR) has attracted $24M in private investment as it gets ready to build a factory to make advanced solar power panels using thin films of advanced materials. The new money comes in addition to the $77M the company said it raised in August ... has raised a total of $109 M in outside capital. [Austin American-Statesman, Oct 22]

Powered by $77 M in new investment, startup Heliovolt (Austin, TX: one SBIR), will build a factory next year for mass-producing a new type of solar cell [micrometers-thick layer of a copper-indium-gallium selenide (CIGS) semiconductor]  that could, in much of the United States, make solar electricity as cheap as electricity from the grid. [Kevin Bullis, MIT Tech Review, Sep 12, 07]

The 2006 WSJ Silver Medal for Technology Innovation went to HelioVolt (Austin TX) for the fastest and most effective way to manufacture CIS (Copper Indium Selenide), the most reliable and best-performing thin film [photovoltaic] material. One SBIR (Phase I so far from MDA) perhaps created by Ron Gale. VP for Business Development and formerly Chief Technical Officer for Kopin.

HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals (Newton, MA)

Lilly Ventures of Indianapolis, the venture capital arm of Eli Lilly and Co., is giving $20M financing to HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals, [newly launched by two Boston University researchers] in Newton, Mass., that's developing small molecule therapeutics to treat blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia. [Indianapolis Star, Nov 3, 07]  Mass High Tech reports that part of the money came from De Novo Ventures, a California investment group, and Forward Ventures, of San Diego.

Hepregen (Winchester, MA)

Hepregen (Winchester, MA; no SBIR) raised a $3 million tranche of a Series A financing of $5 million, according to online reports. The -based firm is a spinout of MIT and is developing a platform to reduce the liver toxicity caused by approved drugs. The platform is based on technology developed by Sangeeta Bhatia, an associate professor in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The technology is based on engineered “miniature micro liver cells.”  [Mass High Tech, Sep 2, 08]

Herley Industries

Herley Industries dropped 13% [Jun 27, 07] after DOD suspended two of its plants from new government contracts.

Herley Industries rose 20% on news of DOD's lifting its ban on new contract awards at some of its manufacturing sites. [Oct 13, 06]

Herley led the market slide with a 34% one-day loss Tues Jun 13 after the DOD suspended procurement from Herley's factories amid the mess that includes indictment of the former Chairman.

Too Much Profit. Shares of Herley Industries were halted for trading this afternoon after the U.S. Attorney's office for eastern Pennsylvania indicted the company and Chairman Lee Blatt for alleged excessive profits on three defense contracts. ..  designs and manufactures microwave devices for use in high-technology defense electronics [Dow Jones Newswire, Jun 6] No SBA recorded SBIRs.

Histogenics (Waltham, MA)

Cartilage regeneration company Histogenics (Waltham, MA; no SBIR)  announced its closing of a $9 million Series B round of funding. ...  will support development of the company’s NeoCart neocartilage implant, currently in Phase 2 clinical trials, and VeriCart auto-regenerative cartilage matrix, scheduled for Phase 2 clinical trials in 2008. [Mass High Tech, Sep 3, 08]

Hittite Microwave

Hittite Microwave up 11% [Oct 24, 08]

Hittite Microwave down 10% [Oct 14, 08]

Forbes 200 Best Small Companies list for 2008 had several "SBIR involved" companies: Hittite Microwave 12, II-IV 23, Synaptics 33, NVE 39, ATMI 114, Cymer 166. 

A Hittite Microwave founder has led a Series B round of financing for Cambridge drug developer Syndexa Pharmaceuticals (no SBIR), Syndexa reports. Yalcin Ayasli, a founder and former executive and board member at Chelmsford-based Hittite, was the lead investor in the $15 million round of private capital. ... Syndexa was founded by scientists from Harvard University and the University of California San Diego. The firm said it has raised a total of $19 million in private equity.  [Mass High Tech, May 30]

Hittite Microwave up 10% [Mar 20, 08]

Hittite Microwave down 12% [Feb 15, 08]

Hittite Microwave up 12% [Oct 26, 07]

Hittite Microwave has an agreement to license a line of integrated circuit technology from aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman. [Mass High Tech, Oct 19]

Smart Money picked Hittite Microwave as a company doing well in the shade where Wall Street analysts don't follow.

Hittite Microwave jumped 15% after it said it expects earnings to grow 27 -34 % in the first quarter on higher sales. 

Good Profit, Bad Forecast for Hittite Microwave whacked the stock 15% [Oct 27, 06] as the price dropped off its heretofore steady rise to double its starting price a year ago. Hittite had at least 24 Phase 2 SBIRs before being publicly traded.

Hoku Scientific (Kapolei HI)

Hoku Scientific(Kapolei HI, 17 employees; no SBIR), a materials science company focused on clean energy technologies, up 18%after broker Piper Jaffray raised its rating, saying support from solar company Suntech Power Holdings may assist its search for financing. [Wall Street Journal, Sep 5]

Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA)

Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA: no SBIR; 66 employees) surged 41% after the drug developer reported promising data from animal tests of a breast-cancer drug. [Wall Street Journal, Sep 8]

Hoppe Tool (Chicopee, MA)

Mason Box (North Attleboro, MA) is among several local companies that have been selected to participate in the "Next Generation Manufacturing Initiative, or NGMI, an effort to foster best-in-class manufacturing processes. Other participants in the initiative include Hoppe Tool (Chicopee, MA), Matouk Textiles (Fall River, MA),  Munksjo Paper (Fitchburg, MA), and Spectro Coating (Leominster, MA).  The initiative is a partnership of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group representing Bay State employers; MassDevelopment, the commonwealth's finance and development authority; and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a group dedicated to helping local manufacturers remain competitive in a global marketplace.  [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 19]  No SBIR. 

Humacyte (Research Triangle Park, NC)

three years after forming Humacyte (Research Triangle Park, NC; no SBIR) to pursue their research, the three women are a year or two away from testing their blood vessels in patients.  [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News& Observer, Nov 30]

HHuman Genome Sciences

Human Genome Sciences (Rockville, MD; no SBIR) fell 44%, after it moved high-dose Albuferon patients in two continuing late-stage hepatitis C trials to the low-dose group, citing higher rates of serious lung-related problems in those using the higher dosage.  [Wall Street Journal, Jan 24, 08]

HTSS (Madsion, WI)

The Wisconsin Department of Commerce has qualified two biotech companies to receive investor tax credits, the agency said Thursday. Perscitus Biosciences LLC,

HHuman Genome Sciences

Hydra Biosciences (Cambridge, MA)

Hydra Biosciences (Cambridge, MA; 2 SBIRs) confirmed reports it raised $34M in its third round of venture capital. ... 36 employees, is in the early stages of developing potential treatments for pain management and hopes to begin clinical testing on at least one of them next year.  [Boston Globe, Mar 15]

Hydra Biosciences (Cambridge, MA; two SBIRs) raised $34M in a Series C round of funding. [Mass High Tech, Mar 13, 08]

Hydra Biosciences (Cambridge, MA; two SBIRs) inked a deal potentially worth more than $195M with  Pfizer to develop treatments for pain [Mass High Tech, Jul 26, 07]

HyperBranch Medical Technologies (Durham, NC) (Cambridge, MA)

Private investment continues to boost young Triangle companies. Biologics  (Raleigh NC; no SBIR) oncology pharmacy, $20M; . Aldagen  (Durham NC; no SBIR) biotech company, $9 M; HyperBranch Medical Technologies  (Durham NC; one SBIR) medical device startup, $1.5M. [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 15] Those who can, do; those who can't or won't depend on government handouts.

HyperMed (Waltham, MA)

HyperMed (Waltham, MA; $2.7M SBIR) says it has closed on $4M in a new wave of Series A financing to market its hyperspectral medical imaging product, OxyVu,

Hypres (Elmsford, NY)

Hypres (Elmsford, NY) got some publicity by publishing a self-congratulatory article in IEEE Spectrum Dec 2000. If you like electronics at temperatures below a North Pole Christmas, you'll like the low temperature superconductivity for which Hypres has had something like $20M of SBIR since 1986. The piece concludes with a vision that such electronics may replace conventional microelectronics as they reach "their physical and economic limits. The drivers will be the market's demand for higher bandwidth and for seamless RF and digital integration." Ok, when will the government get a competitive return in its investment? The old SBIR question arises, "how much and how long should a seed program nurse a technology that won't sell?".

Hy-SyEnce (Fall River, MA)

No fewer than four groups in Massachusetts are racing to bring so-called microbial fuel cells to market through a variety of applications. None has been commercialized yet, but industry insiders say microbial fuel cells hold the potential to become a major part of the renewable energy equation. ...  Hy-SyEnce (Fall River, MA; no SBIR) is working to generate large-scale power from the wastewater of food-processing plants, while IntAct Labs LLC (Cambridge, MA; no SBIR)  is applying its technology to similar industrial applications, as well as the possibility of generating power and recycling waste products during space missions.  A research group out of Harvard University, on the other hand, is hoping to provide power for lighting and other systems in developing nations, while Derek Lovley’s Geobactor Project at UMass Amherst is looking to create organic batteries that could one day power computers or even vehicles.  [Mass High Tech, Aug 22]

IAP Research (Dayton, OH)

 IBC Advanced Technologies (American Fork, UT; $0.5M SBIR) a company that develops and sells molecular-recognition technology, received an honorable mention in the chemicals-materials science category at the sixth annual Utah Innovation Awards Program. IBC was lauded for a process that removes bismuth impurity from copper. [Salt Lake Tribune, Jun 28, 08] Ibis Technology (Danvers, MA)

Too Cheap, says NASDAQ about Ibis Technology whose common stock has fallen below the minimum pricing requirements, and risks delisting.

Ibis Technology down another 11% [Nov 6, 07] (already under a buck) on news of the sudden death of its CEO.

Ibis up 12% [May 17, 07]

Ibis jumped 18%.[Nov 17, 06]

Ibis up 11% [Nov 14, 06]

Ibis fell 19% [Oct 26. 06] even though it made $2M profit in the quarter. When you sell an occasional big machine, the profits are lumpy.

Ibis had a big stock day last Friday (Jun 30,06) up 22%.

Ibis rose 12% [Jun 28, 06].

In a whack-em day on Wall Street, the biggest percentage loser was Ibis -20%. [jun06]

Ibis had a cold day [Mar 22] with 11% drop, second sharpest on NASDAQ. When your business sells a huge item infrequently, it's hard for anyone to project earnings and value the company.

Ibis Technology got another juicy $7M order for an Ibis i2000 oxygen implanter from a Japanese manufacturer of silicon wafers. [Mass High Tech, Oct 27]

Ibis got a 17% boost after it reported a $6M order for its  i2000 oxygen implanter in silicon-wafer production.

Someone Knows Something Good. Ibis rocketed 51% yesterday way up to 3% of its Y2K high in the gold old crazy days. No news published - yet. 

Ibis plummeted 45% after reporting soggy financials including a big charge for dropping wafer making.  And II-VI lost 12%. High PEs demand high profit growth rates. 

Ibis took an 18% dive Thursday when it reported that it would throw in the towel on making wafers to focus on SIMOX implanters. CEO Reid made the requisite happy noises about the bad news. 

Ibis reported a $15M loss for the quarter of which $11 was an "impairment charge" on its 200 mm and smaller SIMOX wafer production line. In a world of 300mm wafers, a 200mm line has value only a as scrap (which might actually salvage some real dollars on present booming world scrap markets). Even so, prospects don't seem bleak to stock traders as the price is nearly triple what it was a year ago although down nearly 90% from its info-tech bubble high. 

 Selling an occasional implanter and otherwise making big losses is not the formula for stock market price growth, discovers Ibis as it reports another multi-million dollar loss. Cash to cover the loss and to keep the operations running came from a $13M secondary offering in October. But even with yesterday's 18% hit, the stock is still more than double its price in spring 2003. [Oct 03]

Ibis Up 3/4. Ibis rose 75 cents a share (15% of a depressed price) on news of a deal with IBM wherein Ibis will takes both will develop a better, cheaper wafer-making process. IBM already takes 10% of Ibis's products. 

IBIS Takes a Hit. The stock price of Ibis got whacked 20% Friday (Dec 13) and 30% for th week when a broker advised "hold" the Wall Street equivalent of "sell".  The same broker by contrast has a "strong Buy" on Varian Semi - same industry, different prospects. Ibis stock is at about a third of its 12-mointh high. 

Nearly Breathless Press Release. Ibis Technology shouted a loud headline on its press release: Total revenue up 316% from preceding quarter, includes system sale to Chinese customer; wafer sales up 25% over preceding quarter, marking fifth consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Thereafter followed the ugly facts that losses are still mounting as costs rise faster than revenue. Net quarterly loss $2.2M, and $10M for nine months. Fortunately, cash still exceeds current liabilities although not by enough to withstand many more multi-million losing quarters.

Ibis got an $8M order for its Ibis i2000 oxygen implanter from a "major" semiconductor maker. Which is more than last year's total revenue. CEO Martin Reid claimed it was because of the i2000's ability to produce high quality, 300mm, thin SOI wafers, reliably and cost-effectively. Ibis's stock price jumped 25% which is only 1% of its Y2K high. What claim can you make about the cost-effectiveness of your innovative product?

Ibis to the Birds. Alexander Soule [Mass High Tech, Apr 26] relates Ibis to the bird of that name. He notes that artist and naturalist Roger Tory Peterson once wrote that birds are an ecological litmus paper. And semiconductor equipment manufacturers are the canaries in the coal mines of the technology industry. Last month, Ibis raised nearly $12M for a second generation of SIMOX implanters The North Shore is now home to several companies researching various SOI technologies, including Ibis, and a breeding site for the glossy ibis, a large long curved bill wading bird. Unfortunately, Ibis has not been breeding profits as fast as the birds breed. Its most recent quarter took a net loss of $3.4M following a loss of $2.4M million the year before. This month, the Audubon Society reported spotting about 20 ibises in Ipswich. - just about the number of Ibis machines that exist today. The market last week voted Ibis down 25% in a roller coaster week for semiconductor stocks like ATMI which has been up and down 20% in April.

Ibis sold a $11.7M secondary of 900,000 shares at $13 per share.

Ibis Tech has steadily climbed to more than ten times its mid-September low. On Jan 3 it said that it did the first implants using its next-generation oxygen implanter, the Ibis 2000 for big wafers, both 200- and 300mm.

Ibis Tech jumped 16% as it announced it had shipped an Ibis 1000 oxygen implanter to the Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy (SIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences. Now if all that shipping could actually turn a profit having had only one profitable year in the last five.

Ibis Starts Shipping. Ibis Technology, the leading provider of SIMOX-SOI implantation equipment and SIMOX-SOI wafers to the worldwide semiconductor industry, today announced initial shipments of Advantox MLD-UT wafers, which feature an ultra-thin silicon layer as thin as 300-angstroms and all the advantages of the IBM-developed, production proven MLD process. Ultra-thin SOI wafers have been demonstrated to provide superior results especially in terms of increased power efficiency and heat reduction in the manufacture of fully depleted substrate transistors for next generation semiconductor devices. [company press release] The news shot Ibis up another 17% which makes it doubling in three months although stilll down 90% from its winter 2000 high before the info-tech bubble burst.

Intel Loves Ibis?. Intel calls [it] the TeraHertz transistor because it cycles 1 trillion times per second, could ultimately lead to new applications, such as real-time voice and face recognition, computing without keyboards and ever-smaller electronic gizmos with higher performance and improved battery life. ... "... they've basically invented a new transistor technology that's fundamentally different and manufacturable," said analyst Dan Hutchinson of VLSI Research. "They've completely re-engineering the transistor as we know it." [Reuters, Nov 26] Although Intel has not said anything specific about the substrate, some speculation centers on silicon-on-insulator which could explain a one-day 45% jump in Ibis stock. Notice that Intel wants different and manufacturable, not just better. Government, on the other hand, in SBIR wants only a little different and cares little about manufacturability,mainly because military uses are not cost-sensitive.

Also blown by the swoosh was Ibis Technology which says Total revenues for the quarter were $1,256,000 compared to $5,920,000 reported in the second quarter of 2000. SIMOX-SOI wafer sales decreased to $771,000 from $1,442,000 in the same quarter last year. Equipment revenue, generated from implanter, parts and service sales, was $340,000 for the second quarter of 2001 as compared to $4,224,000 in the second quarter of 2000, which included an implanter sale.

NASADAQ traders dumped (-20%) Ibis Technology when it announced that due to a substantial decrease in wafer forecasts from one of its largest customers, the Company has revised its outlook for the second quarter and full year 2001, lowering its revenue projections. Ibis' customer, one which manufactures optical components utilizing Ibis' wafers, has informed Ibis that it expects to order a very small quantity of wafers in the second quarter and substantially reduced quantities for the remainder of 2001. While the impact on the first quarter is expected to be minimal, the Company is now projecting second quarter total revenue to be reduced by approximately 50 to 60 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2000. Full year total revenue is still anticipated to be up, although only slightly, compared to fiscal 2000. [company press release, Apr 12]

Ibis shot up a third on news that it has licensed from IBM the right to manufacture and sell SIMOX-SOI (Separation by IMplantation of OXygen / Silicon-On-Insulator) wafers, using IBM's proprietary SIMOX process, to IBM and to all Ibis customers.

Ibis Technology suffered the usual penalty for reporting a loss - a big dip in price. Down 72% from its high of a few months ago when it was making at least a little profit. Ibis blamed lower equipment revenues offsetting a nice business in wafers.