SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blackrock Microsystems today announced the grand opening of its new 60,000-square-foot headquarters. The new facility, located in the heart of the University of Utah’s Research Park, was created to accelerate Blackrock’s world-class innovation in creating advanced technology tools and systems, which has driven consistent 20 percent year-over-year revenue growth in the company’s core business.
“Our new headquarters facility represents the absolute state of the art in its utilization of space, energy efficiency and technological capabilities,” said Florian Solzbacher, chairman and president of Blackrock Microsystems. “We could not be happier with this building and location, which will accommodate our core business growth for the next 15-plus years, while providing excellent strategic partnership and economic development opportunities through our incubation space.”
The new facility features a built-in, leading-edge clean room facility to service the fabrication needs of the company’s clean-tech implantable systems. The clean room will also facilitate the product development and manufacturing needs of the residents of Blackrock’s incubator space, which will comprise approximately half of the facility’s physical space. Blackrock will explore opportunities for collaborative value creation with the companies in its incubator and other potential strategic partners.
Another significant element of the company’s core vision is spinouts. One recent example is Blackrock NeuroMed, spun out in 2011. Blackrock NeuroMed provides customers throughout the world with high-end EEG and cell-recording systems based on the parent company’s core data acquisition capabilities.
“The completion of this most advanced new facility is a tremendous addition to the University of Utah community,” said David W. Pershing, president of the University of Utah. “Blackrock Microsystems is at the strategic nexus of what is best about both the University and industry—world-class applications that drive key advancements in both research and patient care.”
Since its founding in 2008, Blackrock Microsystems has become a key provider of tools and systems—from micro-electrodes to intelligent microsystems and complex enabling algorithms—that expand frontiers of research and development, commercialization and patient care. Recently, for example, the company’s technology provided the neural interface that enabled the creation of the first artificial arm with sensory feedback through the DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program, RP 2009. The story, featured on 60 Minutes, resulted from a partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the University of Pittsburgh. Another groundbreaking success featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times was the presentation of a long-term implanted patient, using Blackrock technology, at Brown University and Massachusetts General Hospital. The company’s FDA- and CE-approved devices and tools in the electrophysiology arena are also being used to drive the next generation of such key areas as auditory prosthesis, bladder control, pain, epilepsy, pharma research, and treatments for arrhythmia and heart failure.
“We are honored and grateful to be at the epicenter of some of the most exciting things happening in medical R&D and patient care,” said Solzbacher. “This is technology that for a change will help not only better patient outcomes, but reduce health care costs. Our extraordinary new facility will help to realize this vision, and to make the world a better place for people around the world.”
About Blackrock Microsystems
Founded in Salt Lake City in 2008, Blackrock Microsystems LLC, is a privately held company that provides enabling tools for the neuroscience, neural engineering and neuroprosthetics research and clinical communities worldwide. For more information, visit www.blackrockmicro.com.
