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w w w. m a i n e b i z . b i z 19 Ja n ua r y 2 6 , 2 0 1 5 One of the stumbling blocks was a major deal with an international distributor that initially looked like it would fan BHB's growth flames worldwide. While the arrangement did attract international cus- tomers, particularly in Europe, it did not promote the company's brand. Instead, the products were sold under the name of the distributor, Swiss biomedical company Lonza. Further obfuscating matters, the Trenton- based company had two product lines — tools and diagnostics — that confused potential investors. e result: with its growth lim- ited, it split with its distributor, separated the diagnostics business into a new com- pany and in July hired a new CEO, Janet Yancey-Wrona. She says the goal is to get the company's brand known and to focus on and grow its gene analysis tool business. Yancey- Wrona was the founding president of MTI, and previously worked for Maine Manufacturing LLC, AIKO Biotechnology and IDEXX Laboratories. "e plan for BHB is very much as a restart. We have a product and a book of business," she explains. "Our level of business isn't profitable yet, with all the changes. e company didn't have leadership for a year while we hammered out agreements, and it had no sales manager." BHB makes genetic tests and software for researchers to study which genes are turned on or off in a certain medical condition, like diabetes. e degree to which genes are turned on or off, also known as gene expression, is thought to be at the root of many diseases. BHB's products use a technique called quantitative polymerase chain reaction, or qPCR, which involves placing biological samples called "primers" into 96 or 384 tiny wells on a plate that the company sells under the brand "StellARray." ose primers can increase one or more copies of a piece of DNA thousands or millions of times, making the genetic material easier to study and the results more sensitive and accurate, Yancey-Wrona says. e data telling how a gene is expressed is then analyzed by the company's Global Pattern Recognition data analysis software to provide information to customers about gene expression. e qPCR technique is widely used by laborato- ries, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for gene expression research to understand disease and/or to create drugs or diagnostics. New York- based market research firm Karlorama Information estimates the total worldwide market for qPCR products in 2013 was $3.2 billion, and it expects that business to grow 7.9% from 2013 to 2018. BHB still is a small player in that market, which is dominated by giant, multi-national companies like Qiagen N.V. of e Netherlands. Still, Yancey-Wrona sees that as an edge for her small company. She says BHB can be more nimble than the larger companies in what she sees as a growth area for her company: producing custom primer plates, also known as arrays. P h o t o / t i m G r e e n way Building a brand Bar Harbor Biotechnology aims to make a name in genetics tools B y L o r i V a L i g r a » C o n t i n u e d f r o m C o v e r Janet Yancey-Wrona, CEO of Bar Harbor BioTechnology, was hired in July to help the company improve its brand recognition and grow its gene-analysis tool business. C o n t i n u e d o n f o l l ow i n G Pa G e » the plan for Bar Harbor Biotechnology is very much as a restart. we have a product and a book of business. — Janet Yancey-Wrona, CEO

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