UCF Innovation District Congratulates axiVEND on Program Graduation
Diagnostic Test Developer opens Winter Garden facility, adding half-dozen new employees over next 12 months
Orlando, Fla. (March 9, 2021) – After just 18 months of starting operations in the Lake Nona Innovation District, axiVEND has graduated and is relocating to Winter Garden.
The company specializes in providing sophisticated instruments and test development solutions to companies involved in the research and development and production of diagnostics test kits, sensors, and microarrays.
The company opened a new facility – a 6,000-square-foot space located at 350 E Crown Point Road in Winter Garden, Florida. The company’s CEO, Claude Dufresne, points to the region’s infrastructure to ship nationwide and how the fast-growing area will allow staff expansion as key factors in choosing this location.
“Growth for axiVEND has been substantial for its main business of providing microarray spotters and readers, along with a new line of label-free detection instruments”, says Dufresne.
In addition, axiVEND is expanding, and will develop multiplex testing products for the food industry for pathogen and contaminants detection. Using their new tests, laboratories can detect multiple bacteria or pesticides of interest with one test, a multiplex test, as opposed to multiple single tests for each pathogen or contaminant.
“COVID-19 created a large demand for testing in people, and for our equipment and services,” Dufresne says. “Beyond COVID-19, we see an emerging critical need for ongoing environmental and food supply monitoring.
“Food safety is an important factor for many consumers who trend to organic foods, but there is a significant lack of convenient accessible testing,” he adds “We have the know-how and equipment to produce these tests quickly and inexpensively.”
It has been quite a journey for axiVEND for Claude Dufresne and his wife Suzanne, who founded and owns the company. . Claude Dufresne is a Ph.D chemist and Suzanne is a microbiologist, spending much of their careers with Merck & Co. in New Jersey.
They came to UCF’s Lake Nona Innovation District based on a recommendation of a colleague. The company initially shared lab space with another startup and quickly moved into its own 600-square-foot laboratory space at the Incubator about a year ago.
“By opening in the Innovation District, using turnkey laboratory space was a quick way to get started,” Suzanne Dufresne says. “Without the incubator, we would have incurred higher start-up costs.”
The axiVEND story showcases how the UCF Business Incubation Program helps a wide range of businesses become successful by offering a variety of services. Some companies just need the lab space to grow and others need extensive coaching, but in a virtual arrangement. The entire spectrum can be found there. “The success of axiVEND is a great story for our organization and shows the impact we can have supporting these companies,” says Carol Ann Logue, director, Programs & Operations, Innovation Districts & Incubation Program. “This company will be creating high-wage, specialized jobs in our local area for years to come, the exact reason why our community is investing in these programs.” Adds Dufresne: “We’re quite thankful for having been a part of the Incubator program. They offer a very valuable service for entrepreneurs.”
###
For more information, please contact:
axiVEND: Kristen Webb, Executive Assistant, [email protected]” [email protected], 833-AXI-VEND
UCF Business Incubation Program: Carol Ann Dykes Logue, 407-635-9882, [email protected] or Alan Byrd, Alan Byrd & Associates, 407-415-8470, [email protected]
About axiVEND While newly founded in 2019, axiVEND is built on the concept of ‘truth in vending’. From the Greek “axios” for truthfulness, axiVEND promises to provide the very best solutions, with proven field performance, to the worlds of diagnostics and multiplex assays. Leveraging an expanded network throughout North and South America, axiVEND is already positively impacting life science industries in general. The early axiVEND portfolio encompasses best-in-class M2-Automation ultra-low volume, high-precision liquid deposition technologies, the latest offerings in colorimetric and fluorescence multiplex array readers, unique high-performance surface coatings for superior protein functional activity, and the next generation label-free multiplex reader. For additional information please visit the axiVEND website at HYPERLINK “https://axivend.com/”axiVEND.com.
About the UCF Business Incubation Program: The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth/impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has provided vital business development resources resulting in over 300 local startup companies reaching their potential faster and graduating into the community where they continue to grow and positively impact the local economy.
With seven facilities throughout the region, the UCF Business Incubation Program is an economic development partnership between the University of Central Florida, the Corridor, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia Counties, and the cities of Kissimmee, Orlando and Winter Springs. For the 2017/2018 fiscal years, the activities of these participating firms have helped to sustain more than 6,725 local jobs and have had a cumulative impact of over $725 million on regional GDP and over $1.3 billion on regional sales. During the same period, the program has returned more than $12.00 in state and local taxes for every $1.00 invested in the program. In addition, for every $1.00 of public investment the firms also produced $118 of additional regional GDP and $226 of regional sales. For more information, visit www.incubator.ucf.edu.