High Desert Pharmaceuticals gets boost from export deal

An overseas distribution agreement could bring a much-needed financial lift to High Desert Pharmaceuticals.

The small Reno company, founded in 2007, recently found a distributor to export the company's products to Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Poland and Israel. High Desert Pharmaceuticals has two primary products: CompressionAssist, used by people who wear heavy compression stockings to combat lymphedema, which causes painful swelling in the lower legs; and GloveGlide, used by medical professionals and others who wear surgical gloves. The products allow easy fitting and donning of compression stockings or of PVC, nitrile, and latex gloves.

"We are hoping that is a nice opener for us on a global scale," says John Wyaux, High Desert's executive vice president. The company's other principal, Dieter Berndt, is a chemist who created, patented and trademarked the two products. High Desert Pharmaceuticals won "Product of the Year" for 2009 by Caregiver.com for CompressionAssist.

The company's products are manufactured at a small Carson City facility, while the small bottles are labeled and boxed in China. Hoping to extend its reach, High Desert has begun marketing CompressionAssist to schools that train medical staff about lymphedema. Other potential sources of revenue include medical offices, hospitals and hospices.

"The three major lymphedema schools train 400 to 500 students each year, and 200 returning students each year, and those are our potential customers," Wyaux says.

For GloveGlide, High Desert Pharmaceuticals is targeting workers who routinely use surgical gloves, such doctors, mechanics, law enforcement and security screeners at airports. Getting the word out about the products, finding the right channels, and getting potential customers to spend money on a new product have been major obstacles to widespread use, Wyaux says.

"Given the state of the economy, we have had to be resourceful," he says.

Last year was the first in which High Desert Pharmaceuticals posted a modest profit, Berdt says. The company has been self-funded since its inception. However, in order to advance the company's products, High Desert Pharmaceuticals is seeking project financing to attract new capital.

Berdt says he came up the idea to create a donning lubricant after taking his wife to a doctor's appointment and watching a nurse struggle to put on latex gloves. He had extensive experience working with silicone-based products, so he began experimenting with different types of lubricants. An added side effect he stumbled across was an 80 to 90 percent reduction in sweat inside the gloves.

New products include a long-lasting surface wipe called NanoSept that uses nanotechnology to counter bacteria, fungi and viruses.

"It is nearly indefinite," Berndt says. "It will virtually last forever, unless it is abraded."

Berndt hopes to eventually place the small NanoSept wipes inside the packaging of electronic devices such as cell phone and tablet computers so consumers can permanently keep the surfaces of their electronics clean. Hospital settings, and commercial uses such as keyboards and phones or escalator handrails are other potential use for the wipes, Wyaux says.

Berndt says High Desert Pharmaceuticals will commercially introduce the NanoSept wipes this year, and he plans to establish a pilot program with the product at several Washoe County schools later this year.

"It has spectacular potential," he says.