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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Disintegration Tester Coming Together for Firm

Hanson Research is wrapping up development on an updated piece of test equipment used in the pharmaceutical industry. The device is a disintegration tester, and the Chatsworth company plans for it to be available to customers starting early next year. “It is an important milestone for us because this will be a nice addition to what the market needs and what our customers have been asking for, for years,” said Hanson President Keith Hamman. The new disintegration tester will phase out one that Hanson developed in the 1990s. The device can hold up to 12 pills – caplets, tablets, gel caps, etc. – and using mechanical arms, it dips them into a liquid media. A chemist watches and notes how long it takes for the pills to disintegrate, which gives an indication of how long it would take them to come apart in the human body. The instrument is about the size of three shoeboxes stacked on top of each other and has a list price of $8,000. “There are very strict regulatory compliances that pharmaceutical companies have to comply with before they ship their pills,” Hamman said. Updating the disintegration tester allows Hanson to add in new technology and software that control motors and other parts of the instrument as well as assist in data collection. “Our customers are Ph.D. scientists so all they want is data,” Hamman added. Hanson has a workforce of about 45 who design, assemble and test the equipment made there. The manufacturing of the parts is done by Valley machine shops, including Absolute Machining Inc. and Precision Molds & Molding Co., both in Chatsworth. About 70 percent of Hanson’s business is with international customers. Hamman said Hanson does not have many competitors and is the only pharmaceutical test equipment manufacturer on the West Coast. About five companies have 85 percent of the global market for this equipment with Hanson being one. Hanson’s products are on the expensive side compared with competing manufacturers who have moved their production offshore. The company is committed to having its products made in the United States and doesn’t lower prices by sourcing parts from overseas, Hamman said. “Sometimes we lose business because of that, when customers want the lower price,” he said. Accelerator Revs Up Manufacturing accelerator Make in L.A. has an international flavor to its first class of companies. The Chatsworth program chose startups from Los Angeles, New York, China and India to take part in a four-month curriculum that will culminate with an appearance at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Shaun Arora manages the program, which was started in the spring by Neo Tech, a Chatsworth microelectronic components manufacturer that is owned by Arora’s father, Sudesh. The four startups chosen for the first class were taken from 100 applicants, of which only about 30 percent came from the L.A. area. Applications also came from such far-flung locations as Australia, Ireland and Chile. “It was phenomenal the diversity of applications,” Shaun Arora said. Neo Tech has set aside about 20,000 square feet of space for offices, manufacturing and warehousing for the accelerator program. It will make equipment available to the startups, including 3-D printers and a compact computerized numerical controlled milling machine. The fledgling businesses will not have to make any financial contribution to use the space, but Neo Tech expects to take equity stakes in most of them. Arora said the names of the companies could not yet be released as paperwork for their participation is still unfinished. One of the companies is making a device that detects concussions; another is creating a device for the skateboarding crowd that can record tricks and moves they do on their boards. A third company has a wearable device that can track wearer’s emotions. And the fourth is developing an interactive toy that teaches children how to do computer coding, Shaun Arora said. “I call that one the STEM robot,” he said of the toymaker, referring to science, technology, engineering and math curriculum for students. Accelerators focusing on making physical products are not unheard of. San Francisco has Highway 1 and Lemnos Labs, but they are not as common in the L.A. area. The Aroras started Make in L.A. as a way of keeping fledgling manufacturers in the Valley. Make in L.A. scheduled an investors day for Aug. 19 to meet with those who might be interested in putting money into the program. Shaun Arora said he was getting so many requests that he figured meeting with investors collectively where they could learn more about the program and ask all their questions was better than doing it one on one every few days. “Hopefully, the group thing will work for us and not against us,” he said. Staff reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected].

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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