Photonics incubator hatches biotechnology company

17 Jun 2002

MosaicTechnologies Inc, a biotechnology company that grew out of MIT, in Boston, MA, is one of the first companies to leave the Photonics Center at Boston University and move to its own facility.

Mosaic was founded in 1994 by four molecular biologists and joined the Photonics Center soon afterwards to take advantage of the business and engineering expertise offered to young companies. Mosaic has now grown to almost 30 employees and it plans to expand to about 40 over the next year.

"They truly need to move, if for nothing else than space requirements," commented Shawn Burke, the deputy director of the center. He added that the company is no longer incubating. Mosaic's first product, a fiber-based sensing system for identifying contaminants in the blood, will soon be entering clinical trials and is scheduled to be on the market in summer 2001.

The Photonics Center is proud of the achievements of Mosaic. "As an engineer, I saw the successful execution of our joint development program as the measure of their 'success'," said Burke. "However, the real measure of their success is the fact that Mosaic has been able to raise a significant amount of venture capital while in our program, thus validating them as a successful company that is capable of addressing real needs in the marketplace with their technology and products."

Michael Woehler, the president and CEO of Mosaic, said that the link with the Photonics Center site is now finished but the center still has a minority equity share in the company. Once the company has moved to its new facility in Waltham, MA it will continue to carry out research towards products for biological and chemical analyses.

SH