Article Excerpt:
TWST: Would you give us a brief historical sketch of the company and a picture of the things you are doing at the present time?Mr. Witoshkin: The company was founded in 1986. It was founded on a technology called PAD, which was patented and invented by Dr. Shalom Hirschman. The original use of the PAD technology was for light urinary incontinence and also for tissue specimen collection from female patients. The company took this technology and introduced a feminine hygiene product. It launched the product in regional tests in the Northwest and got 2.7 share of an extremely competitive market dominated by Kimberly-Clark and P&G. After about a year and a half to two years, the company actually went dark because 44% of the stock was owned by a pension fund that was closed by the SEC, at which point funding dried up. Then, about two years ago, a group of investors out of New York purchased the outstanding preferred shares of the company and infused operating capital. The main reason they were interested in the company was the company's incredible portfolio of patents that could be used in multiple diagnostic areas. After they recapitalized the company, they recruited me to join as CEO. We relaunched the company about a year ago using the patents as our base. Most of the patents, if not all of the patents, are diagnostic. We decided to create a very robust diagnostic platform with the best of the products we had in-house and acquire or license other technologies to expand this space. The company is very aggressive in its growth plans. Our first products will be market ready at the end of this year. The sell-in will take place at the end of this year and products will be launched in 2007. We also recruited a number of very talented people to join the company, and built a Board of Directors that I would say is unequalled by any company of our size in the diagnostic space.
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