Lab keys on Korea in bid for marketsDon Dodson, The News Gazette CHAMPAIGN – Korean schools and factories could be the first big users of food-contamination detectors made by a Champaign-based company. Kim Laboratories, which has developed quick ways to test for salmonella, E. coli O157 and other bacteria, has already received preliminary orders from a South Korean company for eight devices. If things go as planned, the devices would be used by South Korean school cafeterias to screen foods for possible contamination. Myung Kim, the Korean-born founder of Kim Laboratories, said industrial and school cafeterias in South Korea and Japan could prove to be a $1.3 billion market for the company if the product, known as the ValidCheck, catches on. "In Korea, there were 130 food poisoning outbreaks over 170 school days in 2004," Kim said. Japan has had problems too, he said. In 1996, thousands of school children got ill and a few died after eating sprouts contaminated with E. coli. "So not only are parents upset, but the schools are applying pressure to provide a cure for the problem," he said. Kim also sees Asian industries as potential customers. Unlike their U.S. counterparts, many companies in Japan and Korea provide breakfast, lunch and dinner to their factory workers, with some serving 3,000 at a time. One of the conventional problems in identifying food contamination is the time it takes. Normally one to seven days are required for field testing. But Kim said the ValidCheck can identify pathogenic bacteria in 45 minutes and biotoxins in 30 minutes. Plus, it's relatively easy to use. High school graduates can be trained to perform the tests, he said. Kim said he received the preliminary sales orders from Korea in January and expects to send the devices in April. The machines are being made by a Massachusetts manufacturer. Kim said the price of the device is in the $15,000 to $20,000 range. To gear up for potential demand, Kim Labs, based in the EnterpriseWorks facility in the University of Illinois Research Park, has greatly increased its staff. It now has 17 employees – five of them with doctorates and a sixth with a veterinary medicine degree. Now the company is advertising for an antibody technician, a systems engineer, a project manager and a few microbiologists. "Within four or five months, we'll need to hire three or four marketing and sales people," said Kim, who received a doctorate in microbiology from the UI in 2002. Dr. Stephen Blose was hired as the company's chief operating officer last August, and he and Kim traveled to Korea shortly afterward. They'll go again this month to show the ValidCheck to potential customers and find a distribution channel there. Kim Labs already has a liaison office in Seoul, thanks to Chris Sim, the company's director of business development, Blose said. Blose said the company plans to take "a serial approach to Asia," first establishing itself in Korea, then leapfrogging to Japan, and finally establishing itself in China in time for the 2008 Olympics. On the home front, Blose said, the company wants to convince major food processors, such as Kraft and Tyson Foods, of the value of ValidCheck. "We think our system is faster than what they're currently using. They can get answers early and not wait hours or days," he said. Blose said the company also wants to convince the Department of Homeland Security that ValidCheck could be used to test water and foods at airports and other ports of entry. It could monitor plant products that come across the border and materials that may be contaminated with bacteria, viruses or toxins, he said. "We should be able to reach out to those markets by the end of this year," he said. Kim said ValidCheck can guard against bioterrorism by identifying botulism, ricin and anthrax. He said the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has helped his company in its attempt to establish contacts with the federal government. Kim also said the ValidCheck could be turned into a diagnostic device that hospitals could use to detect bacteria in saliva and urine. The diagnostic market could prove more lucrative than the industrial applications market, but diagnostic use would also require approval from the Food and Drug Administration, he said. The company should get wider exposure to the biotechnology world when it takes part in the BIO 2006 show, slated April 9-12 at Chicago's McCormick Place. "We'll host a product show in one of the booths, most likely in the Illinois pavilion," Kim said. Sunday March 12, 2006 |