Microfabrica Inc.

Founded:

1999


Core Business:

Manufacturing miniature, intricate tools for a variety of industries


Employees in 2007:

40


Employees in 2006:

40


Goal:

To expand the application of its technology to more industries, including health care


Driving Force:

Companies seeking to reduce manufacturing costs and create complex products more efficiently

One local company is doing big things, on a small scale.

Microfabrica Inc. has drawn attention for its cutting-edge manufacturing process used to produce a variety of highly complex tools that can poke, prod, slice and grab and most all of which can fit on a pencil eraser.

With names like micronibbler and forceps, the tiny mechanical devices are opening up new possibilities for the aerospace, automotive, communications and other industries. But the Van Nuys company’s push lately has been in producing devices for doctor and surgeons that give them greater precision and allow patients to heal faster after medical procedures.

“Our primary focus right now is on medical devices,” said Adam Cohen, the company’s chief technology officer. “We really didn’t even start looking at it until a year and a half or two years ago but it’s become a high growth field for us.”

Microfabrica has ventured into endoscopy, which uses cameras to see inside the body, as well as medical fields such as radiology and cosmetic surgery. The company recently made a batch of tiny grabbing devices, each about one millimeter long, that are used to take tissue samples from the digestive system.

While it has gained several new customers as a result of its foray into medical devices, the company is keeping tight-lipped about them.

The 8-year-old company has had about two dozen customers, some of whom have placed big orders with Microfabrica, but Cohen will not give the names of those customers due to issues related to competition. And while the company claims annual revenue in the millions of dollars, it would not disclose the exact figure.

The company manufactures its devices, which typically cost under $100, in a factory near Van Nuys airport capable of producing as few as several thousand to more than one million units per order. The company has plans to expand its facilities, which should quadruple its production capacity.

The advantage Microfabrica provides to its customers lies in its technology, which is licensed from USC. The intricate and innovative process allows the company to efficiently and cheaply manufacture large quantities of the devices that can have joints, gears or other complex parts some no more than a few microns in size. The devices are passive and do not contain any motorized parts, though that is a future innovation the company has its eyes on.

“The process enables very quick realization of real-world designs,” said Chief Executive Vacit Arat, who knows of no other companies engaged in such complex manufacturing.

Unlike traditional manufacturing, which requires assembly of individual parts that are then combined to make the final product, Microfabrica’s so-called Efab process uses computers to design the whole device at once. It is then built in successive layers in a process similar to the way semiconductors are made. It requires no welding or other difficult assembly that can limit the functionality of miniature devices.

This also keeps costs down significantly and it allows a greater level of precision, which appealed to researchers at Boston University, who are developing devices to be used in heart surgery.

Pierre Dupont, a professor of space and mechanical engineering at Boston University, said he had difficulty finding a manufacturer who could produce tools intricate enough to be used for heart surgery and cheap enough to be practical.

“When you’re trying to design tools at a millimeter scale it’s this sort of manufacturing no-man’s land,” he said. “We were struggling to find the right technology but I think Microfabrica’s a great fit.”

Academic roots

The manufacturing process grew out of work done by USC researchers in the 1990s. Cohen, then a full-time university researcher in the university’s Information Sciences Institute, helped invent the technology that would simplify the design and manufacture of complex devices.

Cohen and several of his colleagues started Microfabrica in 1999, backed by $40 million of venture capital. The company started making inroads in the aerospace and defense industries with both private and government contracts. One of the company’s early successes was a government contract for a device that prevents guns from going off prematurely.

The company was awarded a license from USC to commercialize the manufacturing process and now holds about 150 patents related to the technology.

One of the company’s primary investors is Menlo Park-based Atherton Venture Partners LLC, which has backed the company since the beginning.

David Neubauer, managing partner of the firm, said he expects the company to revolutionize medical device manufacturing.

“Wonderful ideas are constrained by manufacturing limitations: Most devices have to be nipped and tucked to the point that it decreases the clinical value of the device,” he said. “Microfabrica is point in fact one of those companies that is a tectonic shift in the way manufacturing is done. In its purest form, it actually builds the device exactly as the entrepreneur wants.”

Though manufacturing jobs have been declining in recent years due to the competitive threat posed by less expensive foreign countries, technologically advanced manufacturing has been a strength of the United States, said Bill Canis, acting president of the Manufacturing Institute, the research and education arm of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Nevertheless, he said, companies trying to promote a new manufacturing process face a marketing challenge with customers who may be wary of brand-new techniques.

“Is there a customer for your product?” Canis asked. “Marketing is a huge thing for manufacturers.”

To that end, Microfabrica is looking beyond the private sector. It has partnered with universities to prove its viability and attract future customers with a recently-launched effort to develop tools that could dramatically change the way surgeons repair heart defects.

The company teamed with Boston University researchers and Harvard Medical School to develop robotic instruments to clear arterial blockages and repair damaged hearts, including faulty valves. Already the partnership has won a $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to pursue the project.

Currently, surgeons use one of two methods to perform repairs inside a heart: open heart surgery or catheter intervention. Open heart surgery allows surgeons great precision, but it is a highly invasive process that requires extensive recovery time. Catheters, on the other hand, are inserted in the groin and are moved up an artery or vein until they are in the heart a relatively simple process but one which does not allow much precision.

The prototype heart tools, only a few millimeters long, are controlled by joystick and allow a surgeon to perform heart surgery with ultimate precision through a needle-sized incision something especially beneficial for children and even fetuses.

“We’re trying to come up with tools that offer the best of both approaches,” Dupont said. “The idea would be to insert our instrument through a small incision in the heart wall while the heart is still beating.”