Originally Published EMDM November 2005
SPECIAL REPORT
Adhesives Research Finds Solid Growth in Dissolvables
Christina Elston
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In choosing honorees for its Entrepreneur of the Year programme, international consultancy Ernst & Young looks for people who have shown that they can grow a company, build a solid management team, bring new technology to the marketplace, or “take a business to a higher level,” according to partner Bill Cole, director of the programme’s Maryland region.
The firm found such a person in Kären M. Olson, president and CEO of Adhesives Research (AR; Glen Rock, PA, USA, and Limerick, Ireland), who received a regional award in the manufacturing category in June. Olson served as vice president and general manager of the company’s global Medical Business Unit and Pharmaceutical Business Unit before being appointed to her present position in 2003. She led the company’s penetration into the oral dissolvable films market, which was a major step toward future growth. “She refocused the company, and really grew the sales rapidly by recognizing that she could use those dissolvable films to administer pharmaceuticals,” says Cole.
But she and AR didn’t stop there. While most of its work currently is in the area of diagnostic devices, wound care, and pharmaceutical transdermal patches, the company is also expanding its reach. “We find ourselves constantly being pulled in more diverse directions,” Olson says. Its new tape product, ARseal, is an advanced tape construction that serves as a microtiter plate sealing tape for sophisticated laboratory high-throughput screening systems. For this product, AR created an adhesive that does not interfere with DNA or chemical processes and detection methods. It then leveraged this technology to enter into other DNA applications such as microfluidics. AR is also working on new products in the area of covert authentication technology.
Along with leveraging existing technologies for new applications, AR prides itself on the way it partners with customers. “We work with companies to help them develop their own technologies and take them to the next level,” says Geoff Bennett, vice president and general manager of the company’s ARcare Business Unit.
The unusual level of openness AR maintains, bringing in process engineers and R&D and quality personnel to work with customers, expedites development. “In this regulated environment, it is important that the customer can see the science and methodology behind it all,” Olson says. “Others will keep you in their reception room, if you get that far.” AR is currently partnering with the New York Blood Bank, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, to develop a dissolvable film for the prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. The microbial film that women can use prior to intercourse will be in clinical trials by 2006.
It is this exciting, innovative environment that has made AR the perfect place for Olson to thrive. “The culture has provided tremendous benefits,” she says. “We are constantly looking at new applications and new, exciting technologies, and that’s where my heart and soul is.” Following her regional Entrepreneur of the Year award, Olson will be competing for a national award in Palm Springs, CA, USA, in November 2005.
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