Iatia restructures, gears up for sales

Melbourne based company Iatia (ASX: IAT) has announced changes to its management structure to capitalise on the development of new industrial applications for its imaging technology.

The company's managing director Philippe Cussinet will temporarily be in charge of coordinating sales and marketing opportunities in Europe and Asia, according to non-executive director Bryan Powell.

Powell will become the interim CEO during this period, which he expects will last for four to five months.

Powell explained that the company had a number of new industrial applications for their phase imaging and electron microscopy platforms in the pipeline and the new structure was planned to take advantage of those developments.

"QPm has been principally in the biotech area, but we have found a number of areas which can be used beyond biotech," he said. "We see this as an exciting opportunity for the company."

Some of the applications include use in monitoring automotive parts for wear, detection of flaws in diamonds, and examining the surface of ceramics. The company's technology for electron microscopy also had some broader applications.

Powell said that the new company structure would allow the development of applications to the pre-sale stage in Australia, before being passed off to Cussinet for further development of sales and marketing opportunities.

But Powell said the changes did not mean that IATIA would be losing its biotechnology focus, explaining that he thought the technology could be extended into new biotech applications such as microbiology and bioprocessing.

"We'll be adding to the area rather than reducing it," he said.

Powell brings to the company broad experience in manufacturing and commercialisation, including a stint as managing director of Montech, Monash University's commercialisation initiative, where he was involved with the University's Centre for Bioprocess Technology.