Mark’s passion for his technology and work is contagious.
Throughout our interview, it didn’t take long to realize that he and his team
have tapped into something special. Stratix Labs is a manufacturer of
specialized microbiology products related to biofilms for the life science,
pharmaceutical, and disinfectant markets. Stratix Labs' research tools are
transforming the way companies handle their biofilms.
Stratix Labs NSF
I-Corps team
Did you take the MIN-Corps Startup course?
Yes, I did. I have a mix of science and business backgrounds
and graduated from the full-time Carlson MBA program in 2017. While I was at
Carlson, I took the Startup course. Also, through Carla Pavone we applied and
were accepted to the national stage NSF I-Corps program. We finished the
program in March and are excited by the potential for our technology to solve
real unmet needs.
Tell me about your journey both personally and
academically that led you to Stratix Labs
My background is in biology and chemistry. I did some research
in antimicrobial drug discovery. Including a stint here at the Center for Drug
Design at UMN in Christine Salomon’s lab. I always knew that I wanted to get
more into the business side of science but didn’t know when. I did end up
getting a master’s in chemistry, but I then decided to jump to the full-time
Carlson MBA program. I was able to build experience in evaluating the
commercial potential of new technologies and also in intellectual property
strategy through a prior venture, which have been a big help with getting
Stratix Labs off the ground.
The resources I was able to get through the MIN-Corps
program, especially the seminar series and the startup class, were really
helpful. Then where we really started taking it to the next level was when we teamed
up with my previous professor Christine Salomon and our industry mentor Mary Jo
Baarsch and we applied to the NSF I-Corps program. The NSF I-Corps program has
been a game-changing opportunity, enabling us to understand our market, product
market fit, providing a lot of clarity and direction on how we should move
forward.
Tell me about Stratix Labs
Biofilms are these communities of bacteria that behave
totally different than single cell bacteria. When you’re trying to come up with
new antimicrobials, whether it is a disinfectant or drug, it’s really important
to study the pathogens as biofilms and not single cell bacteria. Biofilms are
how the bacteria actually exist. The problem is that growing biofilms is complex.
They’re difficult to grow, there are issues with variability, and it takes a
long time. All of these factors make this time consuming and resource
intensive. The tech we’re developing enables us to grow and preserve biofilm
samples so that they are stable, well-characterized and ready to go for testing
right off the shelf. Right now companies spend 3-4 days growing these biofilms
and but only spend a few hours doing analysis, almost all the difficulty is in
growing them.
So rather than spending all week growing the biofilms,
researchers at companies can take our product right off the shelf first thing
in the morning, within 20 minutes they can run their tests, and they’ll have
their answers by lunch time. Eliminating 99% of their prep time and
accelerating their R&D. What we’ve done to date is develop the foundational
technology that allows us to preserve biofilms. Now we’re trying to apply it to
specific bacterial biofilms that are of interest to these companies.
How are you able to eliminate this time constraint?
We are taking on the growth time for them. We grow the
biofilms how they want it. We preserve it for them so that they don’t have to
use their resources and allow them to get right to the testing.
Do you know when you’ll release it to the public?
We hope to have our first product on the market by early
2020.
Have you encountered anything particularly challenging
with Stratix Labs or entrepreneurship in general and how did you overcome that?
Ambiguity – There are a million different paths we can go
and it’s up to us to determine what path works and what path is the best use of
our resources and time.
MIN-Corps and I-Corps taught us to be sure that we’re not
developing a technology and then trying to find a problem to solve with it. We
want to make sure that we start with the customer’s problem.
Do you have any plans for the future?
We plan on using our foundational technology to develop research
tool products for many different areas where biofilms are important. Our first
focus is on research tools used in the development of commercial disinfectants for
food and beverage processing and healthcare settings. We’ll then expand to
other areas after that.
