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w w w. m a i n e b i z . b i z 21 Ja n ua r y 2 6 , 2 0 1 5 will need more money to grow its brand awareness and sales. Burns will be watching how it does. "We're looking for trend lines in the product, sales and pipeline to see if and how much funding the company needs and when," Burns says. He says BHB's products have some unique technical fea- tures that are superior to those of competitors, and its prices are competitive. He says BHB's board and investors hired Yancey- Wrona "because she has a PhD in science, because of her leadership [former MTI president] and because she knows how to manage and grow an organization and engender loyalty." e board comprises Mary Riley of Lonza, Ed Robinson of indoor aquaculture com- pany Acadia Harvest Inc., along with observers Dan Corey of Bioline Inc., Bob Seitz [cofounder of Applied Genomics], consultant Linda Diou, Maine Venture Fund entrepreneur-in-residence Des Fitzgerald and John Tonkinson of e Jackson Laboratory. "Janet is surrounded by a sound team," Burns says. Building a brand BHB never had much sales and marketing of its own, Yancey-Wrona explains. "But they maintained a decent amount of business and research." At least half of the company's sales are from outside the United States, mainly Europe, because of Lonza. Among its custom- ers — primarily academics and some pharmaceutical companies — the company also is known because researchers have published more than 100 scientific papers mentioning its products as part of their work. ose publications can help give the company's prod- ucts credibility and notice among its target customers. "To sell to researchers, we first needed a website. We're getting these orders — they're up from 2014 over 2013 by about 20%," she says, though she would not reveal exact sales figures. "And that's with a limited effort." She also will expand distribution and start an emailing marketing campaign, eventually hoping to get distributors on the West Coast. BHB signed four distributors in Europe in the past four months, but Yancey-Wrona says getting distributors in North America has been difficult. "We're open to opportunities. We must prove the value of our products now, and the company must be stable and sustainable," she says. With prices 20% to 30% below the competition, even with custom plates, she figures she can entice potential customers to try BHB's products, and even give a promotion for referring a friend. e company will need to double or triple its sales to turn a profit. "e com- pany goal is in the $10 million to $15 million range longer term, with more than one product. at's in our three- to five-year plan," she says. Yancey-Wrona adds that she does expect to seek a small round of funding, maybe $100,000 to $250,000. "It's easier to raise small amounts of money. It'd be more difficult in the $5 million to $10 million range," she says. "To grow these products, I need resources to put behind sales and marketing," she says, adding that she will tap existing funders, including the Maine Venture Fund, angel investors, friends and family. L o r i Va l i g r a , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r w r i t e r , c a n b e r e a c h e d a t l v a l i g r a @ m a i n e B i z . B i z www.bhbt.com • 888-853-7100 When the ice is thick and the flags are up, the dead of winter starts looking pretty good. Bar Harbor Bank & Trust understands the opportunities and challenges you face every day and is here to lend a hand. So, make the most of every moment. " " She adds, "I was interested in getting more compa- nies in Maine to hire people like me." She says Maine biotech companies still need to look nationally for top managers. However, mid-managers and lab heads can find it hard to get another job in Maine if they are laid off or fired, because of the dearth of opportunities here. Entry-level workers, by compari- son, can find jobs far more easily. One answer, she says, is to attract large companies, or branches of large companies, to the state. She also lauds the amount of activity and train- ing in Maine for specialty areas like biotech. "We have a lot of support for entrepreneurial activity," she says. Boosting biotech's ranks i n her new role as CEO of Bar Harbor BioTechnology Inc., Janet Yancey-Wrona oversees products that multiply the number of copies of DNA thousands or millions of times. In a more modest way, she's been trying to take that formula for genetic material and apply it to expanding the number of qualified workers for her industry. "I had planned to work as a researcher, and started as a research scientist at IDEXX for a couple years," she says. "But then I left to become the first head of the Maine Technology Institute. It was a complete left turn."

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