Featured Articles
Dallas-based company reaps the rewards of its successful alliance with UK University - 07/04/2008
A US firm’s award-winning knowledge transfer partnership with a university in northern England has built on its early success by developing an innovative handheld drug detector.
Dallas-based Authentix – a global leader in developing technology to tackle counterfeit products – and the University of York, where the company’s European arm is based, have created the detector for use in field investigations.
The device works by detecting hidden nanoscale taggants, which have been developed in-house for clients, in drug products. Nanoscale technology operates at the level of atoms and molecules, a nanometre equalling one billionth of a metre. Taggants are microscopic, encoded particles, made of various substances, such as muti-layered coloured plastic, which are added to products to indicate their source of manufacture.
Authentix invents and develops nanoscale-based answers such as this to counterfeiting, adulteration and smuggling for clients in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, consumer, tobacco, spirits and agrochemical industries. The organisation currently protects more than $50 billion worth of the global prescription drug supply, for example.
The company also provides services to national governments, which include recovering tax lost through counterfeiting and smuggling, and providing advanced security options to protect banknotes and documents.
Formed in 2003 through a merger between York firm Biocode and US-based Isotag Technology, Authentix has so far helped to recover more than $5 billion in sales and tax revenues for Fortune 500 companies and 11 governments on five continents, which would otherwise have supported criminal and terrorist activities.
Its partnership with the University of York has been running for five years and has involved a series of specialist research projects into the development of new technologies.
Two years ago, the alliance was named top knowledge transfer partnership in the annual award scheme of the UK Government’s Department for Trade and Industry. It was recognised for developing a device that detects illegal fuels for use in the field, as part of the global crackdown on smuggling.
The implement uses technology developed in York and the expertise of Authentix to work out how much illegal fuel is in a sample, applying ideas and sciences previously confined to laboratory notebooks.
About 40 people work at the York Authentix site, which houses technical development teams and business development leaders, servicing clients throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.
The York operation’s expansion last year led to the creation of facilities for specialist research and development projects, as well as production. The site now accounts for around 50 per cent of the firm’s turnover and undertakes more than 60 per cent of its research and development work. Authentix, which employs 100 people overall, has other offices in Mumbai, India and Cape Town, South Africa.
Explaining the reasons for the company’s location in York, Duncan Ritchie, Authentix managing director, Europe, said: “More than 75 per cent of our York-based staff are degree or PhD qualified and, with good universities nearby, Yorkshire is an excellent location for attracting high calibre graduates and post-graduates. The area also offers a good quality of life, which, together with minimal local competition, means our staff retention rates are high.
“In addition, the region’s outstanding transport links mean we have easy access to institutions in other areas and are well placed to export our specialist materials in accordance with our numerous contracts across the globe.”
Authentix is one of a growing number of US firms that have chosen to invest in Yorkshire and Humber during recent years. Statistics from Yorkshire Forward, the agency responsible for attracting investment to the region, show that at least 170 US companies have put significant sums into the area during the last decade.
This involvement has helped create or secure more than 37,500 jobs and, although the aggregate amounts have only been disclosed for about half the relevant deals, these have been worth more than $14 billion.
Tom Riordan, Yorkshire Forward chief executive, said: “I’m delighted to hear about the latest groundbreaking result of the partnership between Authentix and the University of York. Authentix is among a growing number of American companies which are reaping the rewards of investing in the Yorkshire region and I wish them continued success in their operations here.”
