(Apex, N.C.) The thousands of visitors to the recent BIO 2009 tradeshow in Atlanta were a welcome site to NCSRT, Inc., an Apex-based filtration and separation company which has utilized the seminal biotech industry event over the past few years for major business development.

“It’s a great opportunity to talk directly with upper-management decision makers,” said the company’s Director of Application Development, James Kacmar, Ph.D., who attended BIO 2009 along with Director of Sales Mike Eggers.

Despite the big bucks spent by industry conglomerates on enormous, sweeping tradeshow exhibit spaces, smaller firms like NCSRT received plenty of attention and foot traffic from the throng of over 14,000 pharmaceutical and biotechnology buyers, sellers, scientists and entrepreneurs.

NCSRT has been coming to BIO for three years to get in touch with C-level executives in a top-down approach to garnering support for purchasing the company’s state-of-the-art filtration systems and filter modules which are, according to Kacmar, far more cost-effective than competitors’ products.

“We do about six-to-eight shows a year to explain to a company president or CEO one-on-one how we’re able to increase the yield of the filtration steps substantially, and show howthat increase in yield can pay for the cost of NCSRT’s equipment many times over,” Kacmar said, adding that his company’s products can sometimes double the yield and provide an enormous R.O.I. for up-and-coming young companies as well as established corporations.

The 15-employee company, founded in 1986, has found a niche coming up with high-performance solutions for biotech companies involved in phase I-III drug development, then tailoring the solutions to each company’s individual needs. That said, NCSRT often provides systems and modules — based on the company’s 30+ patents — to some of the bigger players like Pfizer and Wyeth. The company usually sees a progression with customers, who will start with a lab-scale system, move into pilot phase, then a year or so later are ready to scale-up to a manufacturing-size skid.

Billed as the world’s largest annual event for the biotechnology industry, the four-day BIO 2009 tradeshow hosted 1,827 exhibitors in an estimated 176,000 net sq. ft. of exhibit hall space; featured a widely covered keynote address by Sir. Elton John about a cure for HIV/AIDS; offered close to 200 educational seminars; and gave 1,800 companies the opportunity to participate in 14,040 one-on-one partnering meetings with some of the 14,352 attendees from 48 states and 58 countries.

“The exposure in Atlanta was great, and gave us access to a world-wide customer base as well as our established customers in the active and growing biotech community in North Carolina,” Kacmar said.

For more information, visit the company website, www.ncsrt.com.