ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609160096
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
A sense of humor is required if you work at Techlab. After all, the Blacksburg company deals in a sensitive area of medical research - an area many people don't like to talk about.
"I just say, 'we're big into diarrhea,'" joked Tracy Wilkins, Techlab's president and one of its founders.
Techlab makes diagnostic test kits for intestinal diseases. The kits are used in hospitals and medical labs throughout the United States and Europe. It also researches the impact of products such as fat substitutes, artificial fibers and even medicines on the human intestinal tract before they are marketed to the general public.
Though few people can even say the word "diarrhea" without an embarrassed smirk or a nervous giggle, it remains a serious ailment throughout the country and the world. More than 12,000 children in Asia, Africa and Latin America die every day due to diarrheal diseases, according to Techlab's literature.
"We talk about AIDS," said Wilkins, also director of Virginia Tech's Center for Biotechnology. "It's nothing compared to the number of people who die from diarrhea."
While Wilkins and partner David M. Lyerly continue their research to help stem this scourge, they also use humor to get their message and products across. Their company T-shirts sprout sayings such as "#1 in the #2 business."
Wilkins and Lyerly, the company's vice president, also publish a newsletter called "The Techlab Diarrhea Digest," which they distribute to more than 2,000 clinical labs throughout the country. The newsletter, noted in the last edition as an "irregular publication," features informational articles on various diarrheal ailments, research, Techlab's diagnostic tests and even has a section for letters called "Dear Diarrhea Digest."
"When you're in this business, you have to have a sense of humor," said Wilkins. "It's fifth-grade humor, but it works."
Techlab, a 6-year-old privately held company, grew out of Wilkins' and Lyerly's research on intestinal diseases at Virginia Tech. They patented a test to detect a form of diarrhea commonly picked up in hospitals called Clostridium Difficile, meaning difficult organism.
When hospital patients are given antibiotics, the "good" bacterium are wiped out, leaving people open to this highly contagious and possibly life-threatening bug. Wilkins estimated 15 percent of all hospital patients pick up this particular form of diarrhea at a cost of more than $500 million a year.
The two professors began supplying hospital labs with these test kits for a nominal fee after earning a non-exclusive license to the technology. That fee quickly added up to nearly $100,000 a year and the university urged Wilkins and Lyerly to form a private business.
With help from two other investors, the two professors opened Techlab in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in 1989. Since then, Wilkins and Lyerly have bought out the two other investors and are expecting $3 million in annual revenues within the next 12 months.
They have no plans to turn the company public.
"We're growing at a slower rate than we could have, but it also means we retain control," Wilkins said.
The company now employs a full-time staff of 16 and makes eight different diagnostic test kits for various diarrheal ailments, including germs found in water supplies such as giardia and cryptosporidium. A new Techlab test for people infected with the HIV virus, which was developed by a University of Virginia professor, is awaiting approval for clinical use.
Techlab products are distributed by Carter-Wallace, a pharmaceutical company, in the United States and by seven other distributors in Europe. In all, the company sells 8,000 to 10,000 kits a year, which each can be used for 100 tests.
A loan two years ago from the Montgomery County Economic Development Commission allowed Techlab to buy the equipment needed to manufacture the test kits at its offices in the Corporate Research Center instead of contracting the work elsewhere.
In October, Techlab will open a distribution center along U.S. 460 (North Franklin Street) in a building currently occupied by Heavener Hardware & Retail.
Such growth is likely to continue. Techlab also is working with other companies to develop vaccines for intestinal disorders and is looking into tests for water quality and colitis.
Diarrhea is indeed a growth industry, despite all the advances in medical research and technology through the years. Lyerly said it probably will never be eradicated, especially as our food supply becomes more centralized, people live closer together and world travel becomes more common and convenient.
"We'll never lick the bugs," he said. "They'll always be one step ahead of us."
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. Techlab employees Joy Grant and Dianeby CNBMyers wear "bunny suits" and masks to keep the lab sterile as they
dispense one of the solutions for the diagnostic kits they
manufacture. color. 2. A Techlab employee sets samples for analysis
in the research lab.