Intezyne Technologies Inc. Research without worry.
Biotech startup discovers cure for headaches
The startup occupies a special place in the popular imagination. The word conjures up thoughts of generous stock options, potato chips and sugary snacks, caffeine-fueled late nights at the office, volleyball, and no dress code.
At Intezyne Technologies Inc., a Tampa, Florida-based biotechnology startup, the late nights part is true.
Founded in 2004 by scientists from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Intezyne applies a broad spectrum of scientific knowledge—including organic and polymer chemistry, polymer physics, materials science, biochemistry and biology—to discover better treatments for cancer and for Alzheimer’s disease.
Speed to market—without compromising scientific rigorousness—is essential, and it goes without saying that the company’s cerebral research scientists are passionate about what they do.
“We started this company because we are people who truly love science and wanted the freedom to direct research into areas where we saw unique potential,” says co-founder Kevin Sill, Intezyne’s VP of Product Development. “You will rarely hear me say, ’I’m heading into work,’ because I don’t think of performing research in the lab as work. It’s more like trying to solve a complex puzzle while hanging out in lab with a few of my friends.”
The tipping point
But, being a startup, research isn’t all they do. The founders at startups typically wear many hats, and Intezyne is no exception.
In addition to pushing the boundaries of medical science past their known limits, Intezyne’s scientists routinely design and make presentations—lots of them—to keep investors and the media updated on their progress. This wasn’t always easy to do on a PC, and the scientists weren’t thrilled.
“When you are running a start-up research company, you don’t want to worry about viruses, spyware, and crashes,” explains Kevin Sill. “Any time that we spend fixing or maintaining computers is time that is taken away from research.”
As Rebecca Breitenkamp, Intezyne’s CFO, notes dryly, the company had a “less-than-stellar history” with PCs. Still, too busy to consider other options, they had muddled along with their machines.
The tipping point came in the guise of a PC that suffered a meltdown when it was just a week shy of a year old. After such standard computer CPR methods as reformatting its hard drive and re-installing the software failed to resurrect it—and led to a less-than-satisfactory encounter with the manufacturer’s support personnel—Intezyne’s scientists decided they couldn’t afford such headaches. They needed tools that worked.
Intezyne makes the switch
“I went to the online Apple store at the suggestion of one of the other founders, and still a bit skeptical, I started comparing prices between Apple and a PC with the same features,” says CFO Breitenkamp. “I found that they were the same price, or the Mac was less expensive. Apple computers also came with the bonus of a reputation for working.”
Still, questions remained. “We need computing power to run our accounting software, prepare business documents, analyze scientific data, create scientific and business presentations, and run instrumentation and microscopes,” notes Ms. Breitenkamp. The question was, could the Mac do it all?
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Intezyne's Website
Toolkit
Hardware:
Software:
- Mac OS X Leopard
- iWork ’08
- VMware Fusion
- Boot Camp
- iLife '08
- iTunes
- iCal
- iChat
- Address Book
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Quickbooks Premier Edition
- Microsoft Office
- CambridgeSoft ChemOffice
- EndNote
