Problem
Since the disease progression for many biothreat agents is relatively rapid and potentially has catastrophic consequences, effective treatment becomes increasingly difficult with time. Currently available decontamination and containment strategies include chemical and radiation based procedures. Many of these methods are highly toxic to people, can lead to secondary contamination and these technologies inhibit the downstream processing of forensic evidence due to their destructive nature.
Importance to Society
Current methods of decontamination are harsh and toxic to be used on human skin or for prophylaxis.2 Such aggressive decontamination techniques present serious drawbacks: - have unpleasantly strong irritating odor which can cause nausea, tearing, headache, and shortness of breath - can easily be absorbed through skin and are capable of causing damage to skin, lungs and eyes - require specialized equipment and controlled storage conditions, can be used only with proper ventilation control - working solutions have short shelf-life so fresh solution must be made regularly (high environmental burden) and waste generated must be collected for hazardous disposal
Objectives
(1) Bring the Glyco-DeCon product to the bio-decontamination market in two years’ time
(2) Maintain profitability by following a lean business model and controlling the costs in both production and operations while ensuring the highest quality product
(3) Improve market share and growth of the company over the following two years
