Entrepreneur Finds Frozen Niche
When Kate Grayson moved to town in the summer of 2004, she didn’t have many people in her career circle with whom to network.
The area was flush with Realtors and mortgage brokers feeding on the frenzy of the housing boom.
Grayson, on the other hand, was the operator of a cryogenic repository.“When I say I have a cryogenic repository, people say, ‘Excuse me.’ ” she says. “It’s definitely a niche business and we stay under the radar.”
In a nutshell, Grayson’s business, Steelgate Inc., stores blood, urine and tissue samples for pharmaceutical companies that are conducting clinical trials.
Samples from clinical trial patients are shipped to Steelgate’s facility in coolers packed with dry ice.
“They’ll find patients that meet the criteria for the drug they’re looking to develop,” Grayson says. “They’ll pull samples, whether it be urine or blood, and they’ll do tests on that to determine how their drug is working. After analysis the samples are frozen, then shipped to Steelgate.”
Grayson got the idea for her company while working in New York as a consultant to pharmaceutical companies. A company Grayson was working with was frustrated it couldn’t find a simple storage facility — one that only stored samples and wasn’t involved in collecting and conducting tests on them.
Grayson took that as her cue.
Photo by Bradenton Herald.
Jaclyn on January 28th, 2009 12:05 pm
It is both amazing and weird to read about some of the different niche business’ that are available today, like this one for example. That is definitely one that i would have never thought of myself before reading this interview. but…it does make sense that there would be a need for this sort of niche. doctor’s and lab’s everywhere are always collecting samples of some sort from people, so obviously they will need some where to store them.
cassy on January 28th, 2009 6:43 pm
interesting site but weird,but its business and we really need this kind of storage facility for bloods and other needs for medical pureposes,
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