Ilumink, a fresh spin-out of the University of Cambridge, is building links with industry and raising seed financing to commercialise technology which aims to disrupt the counterfeit drug black market.
The company is developing liquid crystal lasers, spun out from the university’s engineering department and funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, which can be printed onto labels and make it easier to detect counterfeit drugs. The laser also has the advantage of being hard to replicate, but cheap to manufacture.
Drug counterfeiting is a global market estimated to be worth over $1 trillion, with drug piracy also affecting lives through cheap and potentially dangerous knock offs.
Damian Gardiner, founder and Ilumink, said: “The original liquid crystal laser technology stems from genuinely blue skies research within the engineering department 10 years ago but the latest incarnation is a recent evolution. We have taken the technology to a new level and to the brink of what we believe can be a successful commercialisation. Potential applications are many and varied so we are initially targeting uses within the supply chain generally, Big Pharma and the big brand owners of industry.
He added: “We feel the most successful route to commercialisation is to co-develop the product with customers and we are in that phase at the moment. While the technology is at a relatively early stage, by placing it with customers we can demonstrate that it works. We can secure market validation pretty much instantly – and we can generate early income. We’re not going out on a limb selling a vision with nothing to back it up.”
