Mainebiz

V O L . X X I I N O. V M A R C H 7 , 2 0 1 6 8 B U S I N E S S M A I N E B U S I N E S S M A I N E B U S I N E S S N E W S F RO M A RO U N D T H E S TAT E selected by the U.S. Department of Commerce to develop technical writing content under contract for its BroadbandUSA Initiative, an initiative of the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration aimed at finding ways to help communities make sure their citizens have the broadband capacity they need to ad- vance economic development, educa- tion, health care and public safety. Baker Ruskinn, a precise environ- mental control technologies firm in Sanford, announced a partnership with North American distributor, SciPro, to distribute its line of anaerobic and low-oxygen solutions for cell culture in the region. PharmRight Corp., a health care tech- nology company in Charleston, S.C., announced that it signed a supply agreement with Enercon Technologies, a product development, engineering and contract manufacturing company in Gray, to assemble Livi, an automated home medication dispensing system. AM radio broadcaster buys WLAM in Lewiston AM broadcasting entrepreneur Bob Bittner purchased WLAM in Lewiston and WLVP in greater Portland, the Sun Journal reported. Elsewhere, Bittner operates WJTO in West Bath; WJIB in Cambridge, Mass.; and WJYE in central Maine. None of Bittner's air commercials. Instead they are entirely supported by listener donations and annual fun- draisers. It can cost around $30,000 to run a station on an annual basis, although the Massachusetts station costs as much as $98,000, Bittner told the paper. Bittner's devotion to broadcast radio comes at a time when Internet radio offers interested individuals, such as musicians, artists and writers a free, non-commercial forum to broadcast locally produced programming that reaches not only a local audience, but a global audience. Still, according to the website Statista, Internet radio is used by just 15% of American radio listeners, even though close to 80% of the U.S. population has access to the Internet. In general, radio is the second-most powerful medium in the United States, reach- ing 59% of the country's population daily, second only to TV, with a daily reach of 80%. Bittner told the paper that AM stations remain attractive to older listeners. "AM stations have been suffering, and older people still know AM radio. ey grew up with it; it's their friend," Bittner noted. "So if you play that kind of music which no one's playing anyway, then you've got an audience." N O T E W O R T H Y C E N T R A L & W E S T E R N KICTeam Inc., an Auburn manufac- turer of cleaning products for elec- tronic devices, announced the launch of a S|M|A|R|T Cleaning Card designed specifically for use with EMV chip card technology, the latest phase in pay- ment and transaction systems that aids in increased security and reduc- tion of card present fraud. UniTel, a high speed internet and lo- cal/long-distance phone company in Unity, announced a partnership with the Unity Foundation to continue offer- ing free digital literacy classes through February 2017. To date, the partner- ship offered more than 300 digital literacy classes with over 2,650 hours of classroom instruction for 590 stu- dents and 106 businesses from over 30 different towns/communities. Peter Chalke, president and CEO of Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston, announced he will retire this summer. Chalke has led the organization for more than 10 years. Rockland coffee roaster reaches $80K goal Rock City Coffee Roasters, a main- stay of Rockland's Main Street for the past 17 years, has achieved a fundraising goal that ensures it will stay in operation — quelling some neighborly complaints in the process. e roasting company, whose beans are available at countless eateries and retail locations across the state, launched the fundraiser in December with the goal of raising $80,000 to purchase a new smoke-free roaster after years of receiving complaints about smells emanating from the MDI researcher finds two drug candidates for chemo side-effect A Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory researcher has discovered two potential drugs that might be used to reverse peripheral nerve damage, a com- mon side effect of chemotherapy. The laboratory filed a provisional patent for the drug candidates in February. Assistant Professor Sandra Rieger identified the drug candidates, which will be advanced through MDI Biological Laboratory's first spin-off company, Novo Biosciences, with the aim of getting them into patient clinical trials. The lab said that if the drugs prove to be effective at treating the nerve dam- age, they will be licensed to a pharmaceutical company for additional studies to get to the point where they are approved for use in humans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Novo, a for-profit regenerative medicine company, was founded in early 2013 by lab President Kevin Strange and regenerative biology researcher Voot Yin, both of whom were 2013 Mainebiz Next award winners. Novo was the first spin- out in the lab's 115-year history. "Once we've completed our studies on mammalian models, we'd like to col- laborate with a medical institution or pharmaceutical company on clinical trials in humans," Rieger said in a prepared statement. She said a single drug probably won't be able to treat all the different types of peripheral nerve damage, so she is using zebrafish, an animal used commonly for lab research, to discover other possible drug candidates to treat the affliction. Such nerve damage occurs after chemotherapy treatment for ovarian, breast, lung, pancreatic and other cancers. It also occurs in diabetics and those with traumatic injuries. "Currently, there is no effective treatment for the underlying causes of periph- eral neuropathy (nerve damage), which affects 30% to 40% of chemotherapy patients," Strange said in a statement. "Our hope is that Dr. Rieger's work in the zebrafish model will lead to an effective treatment for this condition, which can cause disabling difficulty in carrying out everyday activities such as walking, writing, getting dressed and handling small objects." Zebrafish share 70% of their genes with humans, which is why Rieger used them as a research model. She does plan to test the drug candidates further in mice and/or rats and in human skin. Peripheral nerve damage can cause pain, numbing, tingling, temperature sensitivity and muscle weakness. If the damage is severe, it can lead to serious problems like falls, heart-rate or blood-pressure changes, difficulty breathing, paralysis or even organ failure. The two drug candidates could potentially reverse nerve damage, according to the lab. Current treatments are aimed at relieving pain from nerve damage, according to cancer.org. The approaches include steroids, numbing medicines, antidepres- sants, anti-seizure medicines and opioids or narcotics. — L o r i va l i g r a P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y M D I B I O L O G I C A L L A BO R AT O R Y MDI Biological Laboratory researcher Sandra Rieger looks at a tank of zebrafish. The fish are commonly used for lab research including research to reverse peripheral nerve damage, a common side effect of chemotherapy. M I D C O A S T & D O W N E A S T C E N T R A L & W E S T E R N

• Cover