SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — NanoSensors, Inc. (BULLETIN BOARD: NNSR.OB) , a nanotechnology development company that develops instruments and sensors to detect malicious agents in food and water, announced today that it has completed a preliminary market assessment of the Company’s biosensensor that detects e-coli in food and water.
As the Company has previously discussed, its biosensor product consists of two core functional parts. First, the product design incorporates a disposable housing unit in which the actual sensor device is mounted on a secured and sealed platform, and a separate, external data acquisition unit. The Company’s business model for this product will utilize the “Razor / Razor Blade” model. The disposable housing unit, which holds the “test strips” that will detect the targeted bacterium, will function as the razor blade while the data acquisition unit, which can be either a desktop computer or a portable PDA-sized unit, is equivalent to the razor.
The two major market segments for the Company’s biosensor product is the detection of food-borne e-coli and the water-borne e-coli. According to the Center for Disease Control (“CDC”), 85% of e-coli infections are food borne in origin. In addition, the CDC estimates that for every laboratory-confirmed infection, another 4-8 symptomatic cases are likely missed by current surveillance systems, which means the true economic costs of e.coli infections alone could be as high as $3.24 billion. The United States Department of Agriculture estimated the minimum annual cost of e.coli illnesses in 2005 to be $430 million, including $392 million for premature death, $33 million for medical care, and $5 million in lost productivity.
Two major e.coli outbreaks in 2006 involving tainted produce served at Taco Bell restaurants, and the other involving washed-and-bagged spinach from Natural Selection Foods collectively caused deaths and hundreds of illnesses across 19 states. These outbreaks validated both the Company’s strategy and the need to protect the American Consumer.
Based on the Company’s research it will focus its attention on how to best position its biosensor product so that it will gain acceptance in the food market, with an emphasis on the fast-food industry. The top 60 restaurant chains have more than 130,000 locations. The “Big Five” — McDonalds, Subway, KFC, Burger King, and Pizza Hut account for 92,000 of these locations.
Geographically, the Company plans to focus on states with the highest incident rates of food-borne disease outbreaks. According to information from the CDC, states with the highest incident rates were: Florida (224), California (208), Illinois (91), Maryland (63), Michigan (60), and Ohio (104).
The Company’s product development roadmap is directed toward the detection of other bacteria such as salmonella and others, which are identified by CDC as harmful to the American Consumer. On average Salmonella sickens 40,000 and kills 600 people a year in the United States. The United States Department of Agriculture estimated the minimum annual cost of illness caused by salmonella bacteria in 2005 to be $2.3 billion, including $2.1 billion for premature death, $181 million for medical care, and $89 million in lost productivity.
Dr. Ted Wong, NanoSensors’ Chief Executive Officer, stated, “The completed marketing assessment is extremely valuable to the Company in identifying and quantifying the market opportunities for our biosensor product. This will enable us to focus our product development to address the key issues associated with the fast food industry.”
About NanoSensors
NanoSensors, Inc. was incorporated in December 2003 and is a nanotechnology development company based in Santa Clara, California. The Company’s principal business is the development, manufacturing and marketing of sensors and instruments to detect explosive (X), chemical (C) and biological (B) agents (“XCB”), along with the management of intellectual property derived there from that will enable NanoSensors to create nanoscale devices.
Safe Harbor
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