Name change pens new era in health

March 24, 2008

Machine operator Valentina Peters of Caledonia, Livingston County, makes an electrocauterization probe at MicroPen Technologies. Micropen is focusing on devices such as medical probes, above, rather than electrical resistors. Jay Capers staff photographer

Ed Petrazzolo isn’t from Texas, but he clearly understands one favorite expression of the Lone Star State: “Ya gotta dance with the one who brung ya.”

Petrazzolo, president and chief executive officer of Ohmcraft Inc. in Honeoye Falls, is moving the company into the growing medical-device market on the strength of its core technology—a machine that can deposit, or “write,” superfine lines of flowable material, or “inks,” onto a wide variety of surfaces.

Indeed, Petrazzolo and his board of directors believe so strongly in the potential of the MicroPen that they’re changing the name of the company to MicroPen Technologies.

“It really is who we are,” Petrazzolo said. “The MicroPen technology is what we’re all about.”

Invented by the company’s late co-founder Carl Drumheller, the MicroPen is mounted on a multi-axis table and can sense and maintain the distance from the pen tip to the surface on which it is writing.

Using computer-automated-design patterns, the pen head can remain perpendicular to the surface and deliver an even flow of materials in lines finer than the width of a human hair on surfaces that could get lost on a fingernail.

“Our precision is really our competitive advantage,” Petrazzolo said.

Because the inks can be conductive, resistive or dielectric, the MicroPen is most commonly used now to create electrical resistors—hence the name Ohmcraft.

But in recent years, the company has been taking jobs to write lines on medical devices, such as stents, probes and balloons.

These lines can be made of pharmaceutical compounds, precious metals and other materials to do such things as deliver doses of radiation to cancer cells, cauterize internal wounds or carry cardiac information to anesthesiologists during a surgical procedure.

“All of our projects begin with the question: ‘Can you do this?’“; Petrazzolo said.

Because the custom resistor market is so small, revenue growth has been incremental in recent years, Petrazzolo said.

In 2002, the board of directors hired Petrazzolo, who was an investment banker in Phoenix, to broker a sale of the company. A former executive with Digital Equipment Corp. who had launched two high-tech companies, Petrazzolo traveled to Honeoye Falls and studied the technology to determine its value.

He noticed a growing base of customers from health care companies looking for a means to affix materials to odd-shaped items.

But he couldn’t find a buyer who was willing to pay what he thought the company was worth. So Petrazzolo offered to become the chief executive officer and establish the company’s niche in the health care business.

“I wanted to get back in and grow a company,” he said.

Frank Collins, the company’s co-founder and chairman, managed Ohmcraft until Petrazzolo was hired.

Now retired but still chairman, Collins said he’s excited about the company’s new direction.

“The prospects are enormous,” he said.

Dan Goia, a professor of chemistry at Clarkson University in Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, said he has seen the MicroPen while helping Petrazzolo’s team develop its library of inks, or flowable materials. The ability to write evenly along uneven surfaces is very impressive, he said.

“That has the potential for a lot of applications,” he said.

Petrazzolo said the growing medical demands of the aging baby-boom generation, coupled with the industry trend for less invasive medical procedures, is driving the demand for devices that can deliver health care materials through small spaces. He expects the 65-worker company to employ more than 180 people by 2011.

“We certainly found our legs,” he said.

Article reprinted with permission from Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
Article orginally ran February 20, 2008. Author: Patrick Flanigan.

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