Monday, April 15, 1991
Page8 - Section C
Written by: Paul Rolly, Business Editor

PAINFUL TOE INSPIRES HIGH-TECH REMEDY

A little ingenuity, an entrepreneurial spirit and a sore toe led to a fledgling company's creation of a product that takes a material developed for spacecraft and missiles and applies it to toenails.

NailEase, a product developed and marketed in Utah with the help of a grant from Utah Technology Finance Corp., is a graphite band its marketers and researchers say is an effective way to eliminate ingrown toenails.

That is the same graphite Hercules has been using for years in its manufacturing of rocket motors and boosters.

And it was a composite engineer, Richard Wood, who sat down one day and thought, "man, this might be good for toenails, too."

Because of the elasticity of graphite, and its natural tendency to straighten itself, Mr. Wood experimented with the idea that it could straighten toenails that have a tendency to curve into the skin and cause their owners much pain.

From cutting out little strips of the graphite material and coming up with bonding materials that would be medically safe and effective in keeping the strip on the toenail, Mr. Wood developed the product NailEase, and began a company around the product, called Arfourth.

It was a good idea, and a nice hobby, but it didn't exactly turn the medical marketing community on its ear. Then came the next component common in your average success story.

After the basic requirement of an idea and the just-as-basic requirement of putting the idea to a practical use comes product development and marketing.

So Mr. Wood sold the licensing rights to Haelan Medical Corp., which describes itself as "a newly established venture organized to develop, manufacture and market medical products for the health-care industry."

It's flagship product, of course, is NailEase, and it impressed people with venture capital enough to land a $24,000 grant from Utah Technology Finance Corp., a state-subsidized corporation that funds promising new companies to help them get off the ground.

UTFC is funded by the state to form a basic financial-support mechanism, and it supplements its workable income by taking a share of the profits of the companies it helps, once they develop to the profit-making point.

"We're still a young company and we are developing, but we are now at the point where we really think we can take off," said Burt Burrell, chairman of the board of Haelan Medical.

Mr. Burrell, besides his new job as developer, marketer and promoter of the graphite toenail band, is managing director of CareerWise, a management consulting firm, and a professor of business research, marketing and finance at the University of Phoenix.

As promoter of a "toenail straightener," Mr. Burrell has taken on this new endeavor with typical entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

"It's like a tiny but surprisingly long-lasting spring," he said "It works almost immediately to relieve the pressure that causes pain in the inflamed tissue around the toenail.

"Within 12 hours, any remaining pain and discomfort should be eliminated."

While toenail application of a graphite band may seem to pale in significance when compared to the material's use in rocket motors, Mr. Burrell said studies indicate that 20 percent of the population suffers from ingrown toenails.

NailEase is being marketed currently to physicians and clinics. Mr. Burrell said a more widespread marketing campaign using a sales force to contact the major retailers will come some time in the future.

"There is no standard therapy for ingrown toenails, although there are many surgical techniques and devices available," said Mr. Burrell. "But the past treatment techniques have either been very expensive or ineffective."

For a material used to help keep a missile intact when it is shot into space, who knows?

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