Shrink Nanotechnologies, Inc. ("Shrink") (OTCBB:INKN), an innovative nanotechnology company developing products and licensing opportunities in the solar energy production, biotechnology research and development tools and medical diagnostics businesses, today outlined key milestones for 2010, which are expected to have a significant impact on the solar, biotechnology and medical diagnostics industries. The underlying technology for all the products the company designs, prototypes and manufactures is a proprietary, patent-pending plastic substrate material called NanoShrink. And this year, the company is rapidly progressing toward the commercialization of products and signing agreements with leading manufacturing and distribution multi-nationals.
"Our first objective once we developed this revolutionary NanoShrink technology – because it had so many applications across various industries – was to determine which sectors had the largest opportunities, offered the greatest growth potential, and had the biggest return on investment for all shareholders of Shrink," said Mark L. Baum, CEO of Shrink Nanotechnologies. "This led us to focus our efforts on the solar, biotechnology and medical diagnostics industries, where we have the strongest intellectual property protection, and where we believe we could make a unique and high value-added contribution. In 2010, we expect to take the innovations we have developed from the lab to commercialization, where they will help change people’s daily lives."
Shrink is already in various stages of discussions with leading manufacturers and distributors to bring products in each of its core categories to market in 2010. Management has received positive feedback from large multi-nationals, who are looking to collaborate with Shrink on manufacturing, marketing and distribution. Some of the products being discussed include OptiSol™ (solar technology), StemDisc™ (biotechnology tools) and MetalFluor™ (medical diagnostics).
*Products on their way to market
The OptiSol Solar Concentrator is a first-of-its-kind nanotechnology-based plastic solar concentrator and film. Based on electromagnetic non-optical principles, OptiSol enhances the capabilities and efficiency of existing solar cell designs by focusing and tuning the incident solar radiation from the sun for optimal silicon absorption, with less of the total spectrum lost as heat or reflection. In the second quarter of 2010, the Company expects to unveil an initial working prototype and discuss its efficiency as well as potential scaled cost per watt calculation. Because the technology can be easily incorporated into various residential and commercial construction materials, such as roofing, siding, and windows, Shrink is working to establish relationships with leading product design and manufacturing entities in those categories. It expects to have licensing and joint distribution agreements with strategic manufacturing partners in 2010.
In the biotechnology space, the StemDisc and CellAlign family of products are an important biotechnology and stem cell research tool for scientists working to eradicate some of the world’s most medically troubling conditions using the most leading-edge methods of treatment. One version of StemDisc aids in embryoid body (EB) formation. It also allows for a multitude of applications across many currently existing microwell plate formats, thereby increasing the flexibility of use for researchers. Currently, Shrink is working on an agreement to develop dyes and molds for scalable commercial quality initial StemDisc devices. During the first quarter, Shrink expects to provide potential distribution partners with devices to test and shortly thereafter it expects to begin manufacturing product and distributing it through a multi-national distributor.
MetalFluor is an innovative technology for the medical diagnostics field that is designed to inexpensively increase the sensitivity of fluorescence-based diagnostic tests. Shrink is in discussions to integrate its MetalFluor technology with existing leading diagnostic sensor platforms, replacing quartz, silicon, and other glass substrates used in products that measure fluorescent signals. Shrink’s technology has the potential to greatly increase the sensitivity of luminescent based assays, enough to allow low-cost light detectors to be used, enabling more portable instrumentation for point-of-care (POC) testing. POC applications include environmental and medical (human and animal) diagnostics.