NOMIR Medical Technologies, Waltham

NOMIR Medical Technologies Inc. develops optical energy devices combat toe fungus, periodontal disease, and much of the work that the Waltham company does now began in a Massachusetts Biomedical Initiative in Worcester.

"We are on the verge of commercializing our first product, which is a treatment for toenail fungus, or onychomycosis," said Richard Burtt, NOMIR's CEO. "We went to MBI in 2005 after we got our initial funding. We took a concept that photons in light could kill bacteria and fungus and validated it at that facility."

Burtt said an introduction by a board member of his company, who was familiar with the MBI, led him to check out the incubators and he liked what he saw.

"It was clear when we walked through the place, with all of its different members, that it would be a wonderful launch pad and it was," he said.

Personnel Sharing

For NOMIR, which only had three employees at the time, the move to MBI sped up the development process for his company.

"There was a microbiologist at one of our fellow incubator companies, Blue Sky Biotech," he said. "We used him extensively and it was a wonderful marriage of our technology and the scientific skills we needed."

Blue Sky remains in MBI's Gateway Park incubator at 60 Prescott St., where it offers contract research services like protein purification and gene synthesis.

Burtt estimates that quickly locating a microbiologist with the right skills, having the right laboratory and equipment that he didn't need to buy, and having everything he needed all in the same building shortened the lab work from three or more years to two years. That extra year shaved off the development process saved the company between $3 and $5 million in capital.

And saving money for any company is important, but for a startup it can mean the difference between success and failure.

The company has moved on to new digs in Waltham, where it can continue the work into making devices that use near infrared light to knock out toe fungus and other maladies.

It will be turning its attention to uses in wound treatment and in combating diabetic ulcers. Catching the ulcers could prevent leg and foot amputations as a result of diabetic ulcers that have progressed too far.