Medical technology producer SafetySpect was born from two friends’ fascination with research and tech. Kenneth Barton, the Chief Executive Officer, and Dr. Fartash Vasefi, the Chief Technology Officer, launched the company to focus on food quality assessment, but market demand and the need for their expertise propelled them into medtech sanitation.
SafetySpect started from a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) laboratories to develop a food quality assessment tool. However, the government body asked the experts if they could look at some other technology the USDA had been developing with the U.S. Army.
“They had a problem with ambient light relating to a so-called contamination sanitation inspection device,” said Barton told California Business Journal.
CEO Ken Barton crop So Dr. Vasefi fixed the problem.
“Fartash fixed the issue by writing a special algorithm for the flashing LEDs to remove the ambient light. As a thank you for that, the USDA allowed us to obtain the commercial rights to all the technology we’ve collaboratively developed,” Barton said.
SafetySpect kept its development pipeline busy by working on Quality, Adulteration, and Traceability (QAT) technology and commercializing the Contamination Sanitization Inspection (CSI) device. When the firm obtained all the commercial rights and exclusive patents for the latter, the Coronavirus pandemic hit.
So SafetySpect moved and planted roots in North Dakota and received a $1.5 million state grant, essentially kicking off the company. It then entered a collaboration with the University of North Dakota by running an on-campus biomedical engineering group.
But what is the technology about? “On a molecular level, surfaces absorb and reflect photons in an identifiable and replicable way. Our technology hits objects with photons, and we create what we call ‘optical signatures’ based on how the photons are absorbed or reflected,” Barton said.
SafetySpect’s CSI product family offers handheld, portable devices to detect and document surface contaminants in seconds. The potency of the scanner shows in how it detects contaminants. “When COVID-19 hit, Fartash realized that an enzyme in human saliva has a unique fluorescence signature. We identified an optical signature for that enzyme, so if someone sneezes on their hand and touches a surface, our scanners can see the contaminants even as far as three days later,” Barton said.
However, the SafetySpect technology goes beyond identifying and visualizing contaminants; it uses UVC light for disinfection. Ultraviolet (U.V.) light has three types: UVA at 315-400 nanometers (nm), UVB at 280-315 nm, and UVC at 100-280 nm. As the shortest wavelength, UVC is the most energetic, making it practical for disinfection by damaging the DNA and RNA of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi. This damage inhibits their ability to replicate and cause infection.
“Not only can we see dangerous pathogens in the saliva or the respiratory droplets, but if there are viruses in those droplets, we can neutralize them with the same device in three to five seconds,” Barton said. The technology can reduce the likelihood of spreading dangerous and costly illnesses, including COVID-19, influenza, norovirus, and diseases caused by E.coli.
SafetySpect is also working on the commercialization of the smaller QAT device. It is based on the same platform and technology as CSI and was supported by a NOAA Technology Partnerships Office grant. QAT is a multimode spectroscopy scanner that integrates fluorescence (F.L.), visible and near-infrared reflection (VIS-NIR), and short-wave infrared reflection (SWIR) spectroscopy. It also uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) to classify and segment results.
What does this tech jargon mean in practice? “Using QAT, we’ve written spectral signatures for a variety of fish species—the majority of those sold in the United States today. Today, we can scan a fish fillet and tell the species, how many times it was frozen, and whether it was farmed or caught. As our A.I. algorithm learns more, we will be able to tell how fresh it is and how well it’s been kept,” Barton said.
As machine learning technology enables its products, SafetySpect’s devices are now being tested for healthcare applications, such as detecting inflammation in feet before ulcers develop or monitoring skin surfaces to prevent bedsores. QAT technology will help mitigate such issues. During use, thousands of spectral signatures are captured and fed into machine learning algorithms to improve the identification of potential problems and notify users.
“Detection using ML will allow us to bring a device to market that’s easy to use. The user could be a fluorescent imaging expert, a multimode physicist who understands imaging, or cleaning personnel without scientific knowledge and reap the same benefit from the device. It removes speculation and user error from measuring items of interest,” Barton said. The more these devices are used, the larger their image libraries become, which enhances the accuracy and specificity of the scanning.
The room for expanding QAT usage is immense. SafetySpect is collaborating with the University of Córdoba in Spain on a project that uses federated learning, a type of machine learning where multiple devices or servers collaboratively train a model while keeping the training data decentralized. As a result of the project, users will eventually have access to different apps, such as a fish app or an olive oil app, to identify and analyze products. Additionally, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant in the United States supports the creation of a database to one day distinguish between different types of meat products, such as Wagyu beef from Japan versus Australia, based on unique signatures from their feed and environment.
What is the timeline of SafetySpect products hitting the market? “We sold our first 100 CSI units to the U.S. Army. Now we’re doing pre-sales and planning to be fully commercial by the end of the year,” Barton added.
The company has received awards and grants from NIH, USDA, EPA, and NOAA. SafetySpect secured $13.1 million of non-diluted funding in contracts and grants, including $7 million in contract revenue in its last fiscal year. The firm’s short-term goal is to raise $10 million through a Series A-2 fundraising round. “We have filed under Regulation D, Rule 506(c), which allows us to advertise this offering. This fundraising round is open to accredited investors only,” Barton said.
SafetySpect’s proprietary technology has led the market so far. Its nearest competition is the ATP method, a testing procedure used to detect the presence of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule found in all living cells. Since ATP is present in bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms, its detection indicates biological contamination on surfaces.
“However, ATP testing or other swab tests is like searching for a needle in 1,000 haystacks, as it often misses contaminated areas. In contrast, our technology lets us visually identify biofilms and food residues, indicating where to swab. This makes our method potentially complementary to or a replacement for ATP testing. In settings like hospitals, where infections can be costly, our approach provides a more precise and effective solution than random ATP swabbing, potentially improving contamination detection and cleaning efforts,” Barton said.
If another company wants to enter the vertical as a direct competitor to SafetySpect’s technology, it will have a severe disadvantage. The technology’s intellectual property (I.P.) is filed and pending. But even more importantly, SafetySpect has done serious legwork that would take much time for a new entrant to catch up.
“We are pioneers in creating optical and different signature libraries with our unique devices,” Barton concludes. “Using A.I., these optical signatures are becoming increasingly sensitive over time. Our I.P. poses a significant barrier for competitors, making it difficult for them to catch up. In the next five years, we envision our hardware evolving into platforms and applications that can work with smart phones.”
Copyright © 2024 California Business Journal. All Rights Reserved.
