Alachua County isn’t Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle, but it’s on its way to becoming a national hub of innovation.
About 150 innovative companies are now based in the county, and the industry locally has an estimated direct and indirect economic impact of $250 million each year.

The most recent success story is GlaxoSmithKline’s $135 million purchase in December of Alachua-based NovaMin Technology Inc., developer of a revolutionary toothpaste ingredient that reverses early tooth decay and reduces hot and cold sensitivity.
While many innovative products have sprung from University of Florida research, and UF ranks among the top 10 universities in licensing discoveries, it has not been the sole source of the area’s great ideas, nor of the efforts to commercialize them. UF, the State of Florida, the City of Gainesville, the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce and Santa Fe College are focused on transferring new technology into dollars that spur the area’s economy.

“As a place for new business, I think Alachua County has come a very long way in the 12 years I’ve lived here,” says Randy Scott, Novamin’s former CEO and president. “There are plenty of like-minded innovators and business people in the community to network with, share ideas with and collaborate with—even patent attorneys Saliwanchik Lloyd & Saliwanchik.”
Clearly, innovation is a huge economic driver in these parts, but still it is often a little-known one beyond the major players. For every multi-billion-dollar success like Gatorade and Trusopt, there are dozens of others that are further under the radar. To give you a better feel for some of the key companies and people who could lead this region to its next great breakthrough, here’s a look at Gainesville Innovation from A to Z.

When you order grouper or some other higher-priced seafood off the menu at a local restaurant, this biotech company ensures the fish you want is the fish you get.

Applied Food Technologies tests seafood to prevent fraudulent labeling—something that is more important than ever today, since 85 percent of our seafood is imported, says company CEO LeeAnn Applegate.
“The DNA of some cheap river-based fish is very similar to the DNA of grouper, which grows in saltwater,” Applegate says. “The difference in price is $5 to $6 a pound.” The company tests more than 1,000 seafood samples annually. Applegate has traveled as far away as Vietnam to study its seafood industry, where she saw fish being mislabeled for export to the U.S.
Applegate began seafood testing at the University of Florida 20 years ago and founded Applied Food Technologies using a Virginia-based laboratory for testing.

Initially, she set up the local division of the business at Santa Fe College’s Center for Innovation and Economic Development so she could take advantage of the college’s training and workshops.
Recently, she relocated the entire business to the Sid Martin Incubator in Alachua. She says that facility was essential to the company’s move. “We were able to use shared equipment here while we were moving, so we never had a break in service to our customers.”

Banyan Biomarkers is developing diagnostic products that could revolutionize the way doctors detect and treat traumatic head injuries. Today, doctors have to rely on expensive and time-consuming CT or MRI scans to determine whether a patient has a serious injury. And the brain injury could be worsening while the scan is being conducted. Banyan is researching ways to detect the severity of a brain injury through a simple blood test. The process has proven successful so far and Banyan is now conducting expanded tests with support from the Department of Defense.

If you’re worried that you are genetically predisposed to get glaucoma or some other inherited disease, CyGene Labs could well be able tell you. This genetic testing company, which started at the Sid Martin Biotech Center, says it can map anyone’s DNA by growing cheek cells that can be easily collected with a swab. CyGene also has a direct-to-consumer division that markets less sophisticated DNA kits that people can use at home.

As director of UF’s Office of Technology Transfer and the Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator, David Day is the University of Florida’s chief ambassador forging relationships between UF inventors and the business world. He doesn’t take himself too seriously and peppers his conversations with dry humor.
But don’t let his folksiness fool you, says William Knab, CEO of StatLink. When Knab was looking for an innovation around which to build a business, Day presented him with a group of clear, simple write-ups on UF discoveries. The list included a description of the knotless surgical fasteners behind StatLink. “I said ‘This one has the best shot,’” Knab says.
“David has technology transfer down pat. His office is incredibly user-friendly and customer-oriented. UF is far ahead of other universities.”

Exactech of Alachua helps restore people’s mobility by creating, manufacturing and marketing implants to replace bones and joints that have been damaged by injury or aging. Its products are so successful that the 25-year-old company, which also develops related surgical instruments and biologic services, has established a market among physicians in the U.S. and in more than 30 countries around the world. It expects earnings of $190 to $197 million this year. In May, the company expanded by paying $5.5 million cash to acquire Brighton Partners, the sole supplier of the bearings used in Exactech’s flagship knee replacement system.

Gainesville-based Evolugate is offering its hand in cleaning up in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
It’s scurrying to grow microbes tailored to eat oil from the spill.
Using microbes to gobble up oil is nothing new, but most attempts don’t work well, says Tom Lyons, the company’s principal research scientist.

Evolugate’s innovative approach grows microbes specifically designed to work on the salt water and oil in the gulf. “Often the microbes that are tried aren’t adapted to the temperature or salinity of the water they’re treating and aren’t even from a marine environment,” Lyons says.
Evolugate has collected samples from water off Mississippi and brought them to its laboratory at the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center.

The company is using its unique approach to grow various microbes in the oil and mixture from the Gulf. “We let evolution take its course to create strains that will eat oil in this environment,” Lyons says.
Evolugate focuses on developing designer microbes for three applications—biofuels, biologically-based insecticides and bioremediation.
The company is negotiating agreements with several companies that are interested in using its process to make biofuels, Lyons says. 
Evolugate founder Eudes deCrecy, a native of France, went into business in 2005 when his wife joined the University of Florida faculty.
“Our proposal is in the pipeline with BP and is moving up the chain of command,” Lyons says.

Firebird Biomolecular Sciences supplies chemical material related to the work of UF researcher Steven Benner, who was the first scientist to develop an artificial DNA-like molecule. His protein engineering is helping researchers develop potential treatments for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

When UF student Sam Tarantino came up with the idea for Grooveshark, he was so positive he had a winner, he dropped out of school to develop his product. Apparently millions of people worldwide agree it was the right move because they’ve  signed on to take advantage of his online legal music sharing system.
Now a four-year-old venture, Grooveshark lets users buy songs, create and share playlists on the Web and even rate playlists compiled by other users. And unlike iTunes, Grooveshark lets users listen to an entire tune before deciding whether to buy it.
To keep the program legal, Grooveshark has negotiated deals with the major record companies and pays royalties for sharing the music.

Grooveshark surpassed two million registered users in February and hopes to have 50 million unique visits by the end of the year.
If you think of venture capital as the life blood that keeps innovative start-ups going, then Harbert Venture Partners II could be considered the heart. The group typically invests $1 million to $3 million in cash and provides advice and support to innovative companies in the first stage or two of their development.  Harbert Ventures opened an office in the Sid Martin Biotech Park last year so it could be closer to the discoveries coming out of greater Gainesville.

In 1994, founders Darin Cook and Rich Blaser set up Infinite Energy to buy and sell natural gas on the wholesale market. It was a simple concept, but the innovative software and customer service systems the two have developed to grow the business—and their near-fanatical commitment to staff—have helped Infinite Energy expand into multiple states, generating more than more than $700 million in business annually in 2008. The Gainesville company is regularly listed among the fastest growing in Florida and Florida Trend magazine has named it one of the 25 best large companies for which to work in the state.

More than 40,000 professionals and 40-plus states use software developed by Info Tech to help manage road and infrastructure work. The company’s products include an Internet bidding system that has processed more than 160,000 bids valued at more than $500 billion. Info Tech also runs a consulting group that has helped governments recover more than $1 billion in fraudulent bids. Info Tech, which has been in business 30 years, earned the Gainesville Chamber’s Business of the Year designation in 2009 and was named one of the best companies for which to work by Florida Trend magazine.

Founded in 1985, Jenmar International is recognized as the leader in dental laboratory software and technology. It develops tools that make it easier for dental labs to manage their businesses. Its products include software that helps labs schedule jobs and track such things as dental crowns as they’re being manufactured. Jenmar also has developed software to help labs interact with customers and improve their efforts to retain them. customers. 

If you’ve ever watched surgery on TV, you know how hard it is for surgeons to tie those tiny knots when stitching together a wound. Now, thanks to an invention by UF surgeon Juan Cenden, they may not have to.
Cenden has developed Knotless Surgical Fasteners, a stitch that has an anchor button at one end and a locking button on the other end. The fasteners, which can be used in minimally invasive surgery, are being developed for commercial sale by Naples-based StatLink Surgical.
The invention is not only faster for surgeons, but also reduces tissue damage by distributing tension more evenly across the incision.

Surgeons who have tested StatLink’s product welcome it, says CEO William Knab. “Fifteen to 20 years ago, closing external wounds was revolutionized by the introduction of clips and glue,” Knab says. “We can revolutionize stitching soft tissue in minimally evasive surgery.”
The market for the company’s products is huge, due to the mushrooming growth of minimally invasive surgery, much of it performed in outpatient centers. In recent years, outpatient surgeries have increased from 15 percent of the total number of surgeries to 70 percent.
Knab hopes for federal approval of StatLink’s technology within a year. He is negotiating with Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson company that is the leader in surgical supplies, about becoming involved with StatLink.

Agapitus Lye might be deemed the 21st Century version of a Renaissance man. He’s an inventor, entrepreneur, business CEO and musician, and he has his hands in multiple products and disciplines.
Consider his ToneRite musical device. It takes years to break in a string instrument so it reaches its full, rich sound. Lye, a cello player in a hurry, found a way to accelerate the 20-year break-in period to one week. He invented the ToneRite, an electronic device that sends subsonic sounds through the strings to mimic the act of playing when an instrument is at rest.
Musicians are buying 300 to 400 of his devices monthly to use on guitars, violins and other instruments. And ToneRite has won high praise among professional musicians. John Sherba of the Grammy-winning Kronos Quarter says the device “creates a definite, noticeable, positive audible difference.”

Lye also operates a flourishing video game company, Trendy Entertainment. And, he’s invented a system that lets gamers use the video camera on a computer to play action video games, such as tennis, without a hand-held controller like the one in Wii games. Lye’s invention, which earned him a nomination as a semi-finalist for the first Cade Prize for Innovation, will allow players to compete remotely from computers anywhere in the world.

Using ethanol instead of gasoline as a fuel sounds good in theory, but the math hasn’t added up—until now. A new ethanol plant using breakthrough technology developed by UF microbiologist Lonnie Ingram is changing the equation.
Myriant Technologies and UF are building the plant in Perry, Fla., with the help of a $20 million grant from the Florida legislature. The goal is to prove that Ingram’s method is commercially viable, which could lead to a full-scale ethanol refinery at the site.
Ingram’s process employs microbes like the ones in a cow’s stomach to break down fibrous material and turn it into fuel. This approach is cheaper than the fermentation process that is typically used to create fuel. Also, Ingram’s method can produce ethanol from wood, yard waste and other low-grade materials that are high in cellulose. The fermentation process only works with sugar-rich materials such as corn crops, reducing the amount of corn available for food and animal feed.
Ingram’s process, which is licensed to Verenium Corp., is already being used profitably at a Japanese facility that is generating royalties to UF.

Beyond ethanol, Ingram’s technology can be used to make cellulose-based plastics for use in bottles and other products. Because it’s made of organic material, the new plastic will break down in landfills, unlike petroleum-based plastics which last for decades or longer.
Ingram’s work is considered so significant, it has won him membership in the National Academy of Science. He holds 15 U.S. patents in total.
“We’re trying to break our dependence on petroleum,” Ingram says. “Fuel is a big part of that, but not the only part. We can also make things like plastic water bottles that break down in landfills.”

NovaMin Technology, Inc. went from an idea to being purchased for $135 million by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in December. NovaMin’s value comes from its ingredient for toothpaste that reverses early tooth decay and reduces hot and cold sensitivity. The technology stems from UF Professor Larry Hench’s development in the late 1960s of a bioactive glass that replaces bone material. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared NovaMin for over-the-counter use in 2004. Nupro with Novamin has become the leading cleaner with dental hygienists since it was launched in 2008. Intersouth Partners of Durham, N.C., which invested $10 million in NovaMin in 2004, said that NovaMin provided one of its greatest returns on investment of any company it has supported.

Just as Dannon’s Activia yogurt helps regulate digestion, Oragenics’ products—EvoraPlua, EvoraKids and Teddy’s Pride for pets—provide beneficial bacteria that suppress tooth decay, periodontal disease and bad breath. The secret ingredient is a genetically engineered mutant strain of the bacteria created by UF dental researcher Jeffery Hillman. In 2009, Popular Mechanics labeled Oragenics as No. 1 in its “20 New Biotech Breakthroughs That Will Change Medicine.” The company also is in clinical trials for its SMaRT Replacement Therapy, a one-time treatment for tooth decay.

Pasteuria Bioscience has developed an environmentally friendly pesticide that can kill the harmful nematodes that live in the soil and damage crops. It’s estimated that these nematodes produce more than $100 billion in damage to agricultural crops each year and before now the only solution was to use poisons that had the potential to harm workers and the environment.
There are many different types of nematodes, some of which are actually good for crops. To eliminate the bad ones, Pasteuria custom-designs bacteria that can attack the nematodes as they develop, eventually causing them to explode. Its first product, Econem, was launched this year. It attacks the nematodes that damage the grass used on golf courses and sports fields. 

Psigenics Corp.’s innovative software is winning fans as diverse as state lottery operations and firms that encrypt computer information. Invented by Scott Wilber, the software can create truly random numbers like those that are needed for lotteries or software and data encryption. 
For years Wilber has been at the cutting edge of research on how to shift the odds of winning in various situations. Initially he used his software to develop a winning record in online roulette.
Now he’s demonstrating the power of the mind to increase odds. He’s packaged the Psigenics software in a device the size of a computer thumb drive.

An inventor with eight patents, Wilber also put on the market the pulse oximeter, a device that pinches on your finger and measures the oxygen level in your blood. And he invented the first commercial optical scanner.
His latest invention and company are transplants to Gainesville from Rosewell, N.M. When Wilber decided to move Psigenics two years ago, he sent letters to chambers of commerce across the United States. Only the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce responded.

The chamber had lots to offer, including a spot at the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center. Wilber likes operating from the business incubator. “It makes our life simple,” he says. “All we have to do regarding our space is pay the rent.”
Wilber enjoys the community’s overall support for entrepreneurship, the cost of living and the quality of life.

As everyone knows, infection is one of the greatest dangers to any open wound. But how can you keep germs out of a wound when the dressing has to be porous enough to let the wound “breathe?” Quick-Med Technologies has the answer in what it calls the world’s most advanced antimicrobial technologies.  Developed by UF scientists and engineers, the company’s wound-dressing serves as a barrier to infections and kills any bacteria that are absorbed into the dressing. Quick-Med also is developing products that reduce the causes of skin wrinkling and aging for the general consumer market.

Jamie Grooms and Richard Allen transferred bone transplant technology from the University of Florida Tissue Bank, which Grooms previously headed, to create Regeneration Technologies, Inc. in 1998. Before that, surgeons carved bone transplants themselves to fit the recipient. The company at first focused on products for spinal fusions, then moved into ligaments, tendons and other material used in sports medicine.

At RTI, now called RTI Biologics, workers sterilize donor body parts, then shape them using saws, lathes and other equipment you would see in machine shop. In 2008, RTI merged with Tutogen Medical Inc., a European company specializing in transplanting soft tissue uses such as skin graphs, breast reconstruction and hernia repair.
The company, which has a manufacturing plant in Germany, employs 543 people at its headquarters in the Progress Corporate Park in Alachua, and another 242 in Europe and elsewhere in the U.S.

Since, Sentricon Termite Colony Elimination System was introduced to the market in 1995, it has been used to safely kill termites in hundreds of thousands of homes, in the process substantially reducing the chemical termite treatments that otherwise would be the only option. Sentricon successfully ended a termite infestation in the Statue of Liberty and in many historic buildings in New Orleans. UF entomology Professor Nan-Yau Su developed the Sentricon system.

One of the biggest risks of being hospitalized is that you will get an infection that is being passed around. Sharklet Technologies has developed products, based on the intricate patterns on a shark’s skin, that stop infections from spreading. The products include catheters, as well as plastic films that are applied to bed rails, table trays and other spots where bacteria colonize. The Sharklet technology is based on discoveries that UF engineering researcher Tony Brennan made while conducting studies for the Navy, where he was seeking a non-chemical bacterial coating that would prevent algae and barnacles from growing on ship hulls.

Sinmat has developed high-tech improvements for working in the decidedly low-tech world of polishing computer chips. Using its patented materials, Sinmat can produce ultra-smooth, defect-free Sinmat microchips that help power smarter energy systems in hybrid cars, lighting, solar power and LEDs. Sinmat received an R&D 100 Award—the Oscars of invention and innovation—in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009. In 2009, President Obama recognized Sinmat as an example of a company helping America overcome its economic crisis through clean-energy jobs and the company received the Governor’s Innovation Award. Sinmat is housed in the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center.

Invented by the late Dr. Thomas Maren, graduate research professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at UF, the Trusopt eye drop medication is the worldwide standard for treating glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness. Trusopt, which Merck and Company released in 1995, is one of the top income-generating products of UF research. Merck’s sales of the medication and related products totaled $503 million worldwide in 2009.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In the world of high-tech aerial surveillance, Gainesville is fortunate to have two cutting-edge companies with big roles: Prioria and IA Tech. Their model-plane-sized eyes-in-the-sky can be used for everything from helping soldiers see over the next hill to providing firefighters with infrared pictures of hot spots in burning buildings.
Both companies are owned and operated by graduates of the University of Florida’s mechanical and aerospace engineering program.

Prioria, which was founded by Bryan Da Frota, makes a two-and-a-half foot long plane with collapsible wings so a soldier can carry it in a six-inch-diameter shoulder tube and quickly launch it to see hazards that may be just beyond the horizon. The company is now completing a $140,000 Navy contract to provide planes that can be used for surveillance flights of up to 10 miles, but it is deep in negotiations for other work.
Prioria also expects to be awarded a $400,000 Navy contract soon, and it plans to apply for a $3 million contract with the Canadian military.

IA Tech, which stands for Innovative Automation Technologies, makes a 51-inch long plane with a wingspan of eight feet that also can be launched with a hand toss.
What sets the plane apart is its sophisticated GPS-based autopilot system that allows it fly over several specific points on a flight.
IA Tech founders Erica and Don MacArthur, who were sweethearts and robotic team members in high school, developed the miniaturized guidance system while at UF. It serves as a GPS, magnetic compass and tilt sensor, much like the navigation system of an airplane, only much smaller and cheaper.

The guidance system has been used to steer small helicopters and it has the potential to guide cars, trucks and boats.
The company has a $750,000 contract with the Air Force to develop a way that small unmanned planes can be retrieved by a larger aircraft—a mother ship—rather than being left in the field. IA Tech’s customers also include researchers at Oxford University, which mounted their sensor and camera on a steppe eagle to analyze its flight as part of a project funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Their company, which started out at the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center, recently moved to a location across from Home Depot on U.S. 441.

Radiation therapy for cancer kills too many healthy cells in the process of zapping unhealthy ones. ViewRay, Inc. is using technology developed by UF researcher James Dempsey, who is a physist, to pinpoint radiation therapy to create a new generation of radiation devices that it says could revolutionize radiation therapy.
The potential benefits for patients are that their cancer will be treated more precisely and that they will experience less nausea, hair loss and other side effects resulting from radiation attacking healthy tissue.

Dempsey found a way to track exactly what tissue radiation therapy is hitting by using a new combination of magnetic resonance imaging and radiation therapy. “We’re designing our equipment to allow clinicians to see the tumor, refine the target and deliver a precise treatment—all in real time,” says ViewRay Executive Vice President Richard Stark. “This if especially important if the patient moves during treatment. Taking a breath or swallowing can be enough to shift internal organs.”
The potential payoff for the company is that it could become a leader in the sale of radiation therapy devices, which approaches $3 billion annually.

Dempsey received help in establishing ViewRay from two of the founders of  RTI Biologics—James Dempsey and Jim Carnell. ViewRay, which has moved to Cleveland, received the 2010 NorTech Innovation Award, sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition and Crain’s Cleveland Business.

Tired of juggling the separate chargers for all your cordless devices? Sick of searching for yet another socket to power up the battery on your newest purchase? WiPower has the answer. The Gainesville company has developed charging pads that use magnetic pulses to charge devices wirelessly. This allows users to simultaneously charge multiple devices without plugging them in. Ryan Tseng, the company’s founder, developed the technology for WiPower while earning a degree in electrical engineering at UF. WiPower has been featured on the Today show and in Fast Company magazine. Recently, it was named to the “25 Must-See Products at Consumer Electronics Show 2010” list. The charging pad is scheduled to hit store shelves soon.

Xhale Innovations, Inc. is developing products that monitor everything from whether patients have taken their medicine to hand hygiene, but its hand hygiene system, HyGreen, is getting the most notice these days. HyGreen helps prevent infections in hospitals and other medical settings by reminding busy healthcare workers to wash their hands.
After cleaning their hands with alcohol-based sanitizers, healthcare workers place them under the HyGreen sensor, which sniffs for alcohol and sends a wireless message to the worker’s badge. A wireless monitor mounted above a patient’s bed searches for the message. If the worker didn’t wash, the badge vibrates, reminding the worker to wash. HyGreen received Popular Science magazine’s 2009 “Best of What’s New” award and the 2010 Medical Design Excellence Award.

E.T. York. York is a long-time champion of agricultural innovation in Florida and the Third World. While UF’s vice president for agricultural, natural and human resources, he led the move that merged several programs into the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences. After leaving UF, he spent five years as chancellor of the State University System of Florida then devoted himself to fighting global hunger by helping developing countries improve their agricultural research and education.
He founded SHARE (Special Help for Agricultural Research and Education), a UF Foundation program that has raised more than $169 million through cash and in-kind gifts to support agricultural research.
He is the former chairman of the board for International Food and Agricultural Development, a subsidiary of the Agency for International Development, which helps land-grant universities assist developing countries in improving their agriculture.

Home-grown discoveries sometimes need outside nurturing to help them bloom. That’s the case with AxoGen Inc., an Alachua company that turned to Karen Zaderej to bring to market its innovative products to help nerves regenerate.
Zaderej used the expertise she gained at Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson company, to help AxoGen reach market less than a year and a half after the company started development.
“We moved at lightning speed,” Zaderej says, who is AxoGen’s CEO.
She credits the Sid Martin incubator with helping AxoGen progress quickly. “We were able to get testing started in 30 days instead of taking six months to lease our own lab and equipment,” she says. “Six months is an eternity when you’re burning through cash as a start-up.”

AxoGen also benefited from the Gainesville Technology Enterprise Center, where it started in 2003, before moving to the Sid Martin center. AxoGen now maintains labs at the Sid Martin incubator and offices across the street in the Progress Center in Alachua.
Zaderej sees herself as a translator, communicating between the scientific world and the worlds of regulation, manufacturing and sales.

Telling the AxoGen story is easy because of the difference it’s making for patients. Military surgeons use the company’s Avance nerve graft to mend injured soldiers in Afghanistan.
The grafts are made from processed and sterilized donor tissue to provide a scaffold for nerve regeneration. “It’s important to help our wounded warriors,” Zaderej says. 
Zaderej’s favorite patient is a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who suffered nerve damage during a prior surgery. This injury had taken away sensation in her foot and severely limited her ability to walk. After an Avance implant, the girl was able to walk and feel sensations again.
“Seeing people become mobile and happier makes it exciting to get up every day,” Zaderej says.