20/20 GeneSystems Inc., a Rockville start-up, offers a cheaper test that has been popular for detecting powder hoaxes, which have overtaken bomb threats as the method of choice to disrupt businesses and schools. In Maryland, there are three or four white-powder incidents each month, according to Dennis R. Schrader, the state director of homeland security.
The BioCheck Kit sells for about $25 and tests whether certain biological materials are present in suspicious substances, indicating whether they could be toxins. Jonathan Cohen, 20/20's president and chief executive, said his company has sold thousands of tests -- to Montgomery County's hazardous-materials team, the Orlando police, the Florida Department of Health, Jacksonville police for use at the recent Super Bowl and law-enforcement agencies in Europe. 20/20 recently began marketing the BioCheck Kit to corporations.
20/20 GeneSystems' Jonathan Cohen says more than 1,000 first responders have been trained to use the BioCheck Kit.
(Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
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Products With a Crossover Appeal Government agencies were the first customers for biological detection devices, but businesses have recently started buying them as well. Here's a sampling of devices that have crossed over from government use to the private sector.
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Metro Business: Coverage of Washington area businesses and the local economy.
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It's not exactly foolproof. Wheat flour, because it contains protein, can test positive. But it can help rule out many phony threats.
"If somebody sends a company a hoax and they don't have the capability to quickly test it, they have to shut down until they can test the whole building," said Richard B. Emery, president of Emery & Associates Inc., which trains companies to use the RAMP system.
A member of a hazardous-materials team for a global pharmaceutical company -- for security reasons, the team member requested anonymity -- said after the 2001 anthrax attacks, his employer was persuaded to buy 20/20's product and a handheld biodetection system from Alexeter Technologies LLC of Wheeling, Ill., near Chicago.
"You have to have it," the team member said. "For employee piece of mind and because when you are manufacturing a product, you have to know right away whether a threat is real."
The company has used neither product.
Scott Gottlieb, who studies biotech companies for the American Enterprise Institute, said the companies likely to succeed in the bioterrorism market are those working on technologies that constantly sniff the air for traces of toxins.
One company he mentioned, publicly traded Cepheid Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif., is part of a team led by Northrop Grumman Corp. that is completing installation this year of devices to detect anthrax at 284 mail facilities. Machines placed over mail-processing areas constantly suck in air and filter it through cartridges provided by Cepheid. The cartridges process air samples, looking for genetic matches with anthrax.
Continuing purchases by the U.S. Postal Service have been a boon for Cepheid. Its sales in 2003 were $16 million. The company's guidance for sales in 2004 was $46 million to $48 million. The firm's chief executive said he is increasing efforts to sell the machines to government agencies and private companies.
Gottlieb said potential customers include airlines, transportation hubs and large gathering places such as sports arenas.
For its air-sniffing purposes, the Homeland Security Department has spent more than $35 million with six companies, mostly start-ups, to modernize its air sampling in 30 metropolitan areas.
The current system requires technicians to remove collection samples in 36-hour increments, then take them to laboratories. That would slow a response to a biological attack.
Homeland Security officials want to update the system so it both collects the samples and tests them, and then sends results electronically.
"Now is a very critical time, but this is also an opportune time," said Jane A. Alexander, a Homeland Security Department official overseeing the project. "The technology is mature enough where we can now do these things."
