Spokane-based scientific-research equipment supplier MatriCal Inc. is on the verge of a potentially huge distribution contract for one of its smallest products and is preparing to move much of its operation out of the Sirti Building to a bigger space nearby.


MatriCal is close to inking a deal with GE Healthcare, a United Kingdom-based subsidiary of Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric Co. MatriCal will provide that company with a specialized part for use in one of its research products.


GE Healthcare plans to sell the MatriCal product called the MatriPlatea glass-bottomed, divided cell-sample dishwith a specialized light-detecting microscope used in genetic research, MatriCal co-owner Kevin Oldenburg says. MatriPlates have either 96 or 384 plastic-walled spaces for storing and growing biological samples, and cost between $8 and $10 each.


GE Healthcare expects to distribute 60,000 of the plates in 2008, increasing that volume to 150,000 units a year over the next three years, Oldenburg says. He says MatriCal expects GE Healthcare to start ordering the plates around the first of the year.


MatriCal has for seven years sold large automated storage unitslargely a synthesis of sophisticated robotics, medical storage equipment products, and specially designed software to run themwhich can cost over $1 million. Company owners Dan Roark and Oldenburg say they have worked hard to expand their product line to include smaller items, such as the MatriPlate, that they hope will stabilize the companys revenues.


This year, MatriCal expects revenues of about $4.5 million, but will go into 2008 with $6 million in back orders.


The companys revenues are growing over time, Oldenburg says. He says its hard to compare one year to another, however, because it can take a long time to deliver a large-scale product. If an order of one of those large products is canceled, as happened early in 2007 when several big pharmaceutical research companies consolidated, that can curb revenues in the short term, he says.


MatriCal plans to move most of its operations out of the Sirti Building to a larger space it has leased from Washington State University to accommodate production of that expanding line of scientific-research related products, Oldenburg says.


The company plans to take a 10,000-square-foot space at 412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., just across from its current 10,000-square-foot space at the Sirti Building at 665 N. Riverpoint Blvd. MatriCal will keep its administrative offices at Sirti, giving it about 12,000 square feet of space altogether, Oldenburg says.


Oldenburg says that the companys potential increase in production wont necessarily mean it will have to add many employees, since it outsources manufacturing of the parts for its products to local vendors.


MatriCal then assembles the products and tests them at its facilities. Roark and Oldenburg say much of the assembly is fairly automated, and can readily be increased.


A lot of our manufacturing is scalable, so we dont need a lot of bodies, Oldenburg says. We can grow 30 percent to 40 percent and not add anybody.


MatriCal currently has more than 30 employees, including five salespeople, between 15 and 20 engineers, and four senior managers.


Oldenburg says theres sometimes a misperception that the robotic and automated systems the company creates take jobs away from humans. What really happens, however, is that the human labor is shifted to higher level tasks, he says.


It allows (researchers) to be more productive and get more testing done, he says.


For example, MatriCal developed a custom automated leaf cutter for a seed division of Syngenta Group, in the United Kingdom, for use in its fungicide research. Before Syngenta put the leaf cutter into use, it had five employees cutting wheat leaves all day into small sections to be used in testing for fungicide development. The five employees could produce about 100 plates of samples in four days. With the automated leaf cutter, one person operating the machine produces 150 plates of samples in one day, allowing the company to do a lot more testing and ultimately to produce a better quality product, Oldenburg says.


MatriCal is rolling out two new cell-culture systems. Both can be preset to feed millions of cell cultures at certain times, eliminating the need for a person to tend to the samples at odd hours. The products are designed to be used for research that companies use to bring drugs to market more quickly through genetic testing, and to develop tests for common conditions, such as pregnancy, using antibodies produced by cells, Oldenburg says.


The new systems, which cost about $1 million, look like free-standing walk-in closets and often can be installed in a laboratorys current space.


We tried to scale it down so we dont have to wait for a new facility to be built before a customer will buy the equipment, Roark says.


A smaller piece of equipment that MatriCal is in the process of licensing is a tabletop machine for washing cell samples so they can be reused after theyve been tested. MatriCal plans to start manufacturing and distributing the washers, designed by a Tucson, Ariz.-based company named Nuvogen Research LLC, in the next few months. The washers are an example of a product that is more affordable for a scientific lab, at $40,000, and has broad appeal, Roark and Oldenburg say.


Not every lab can buy a million-dollar storage system, Oldenburg says, but everyone needs a plate washer.


Another new MatriCal product is a liquid nitrogen sample storage system, designed to help laboratories track samples better and to keep temperatures more uniform. The chest-style freezer will keep samples as cold as -238 degrees Fahrenheit, Oldenburg says.


He says laboratories often have to store literally millions of samples, and that about one in 2,000 samples gets misplaced, on average. The automated system catalogues each sample with a bar code, uses a robotic arm to put the sample away, and tracks the sample in a database, retrieving it when needed.


MatriCals products are sold throughout Europe and the U.S., Roark says. The company has an office in the U.K., has partners in Italy, France, and Germany, and is adding distributors in Spain and Belgium. He says it also has partners in Japan and Australia and is adding one in Korea.


For us, as a small company, the more distribution partners we have, the better, Roark says.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.