An old high school might seem like an odd location for an up-and-coming biotech company.
But maybe it's fitting for F Cubed.
After all, South Bend is an unusual place to start a biotech company.
"If you were doing what we're doing in Palo Alto, nobody would think it was unusual," F Cubed President and CEO Les Ivie said, referring to the entrepreneurial mecca around Stanford University in California.
"Everybody would say, 'You started a company? Well, so did my neighbor, my brother-in-law, my uncle and 10 other people I know,'" he said. "You say it here and people are like, 'Wow. Why? Are you crazy?'"
Ivie started F Cubed in 2008 with technology developed by Hsueh-Chia Chang, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Notre Dame. The company's product essentially is a laboratory in a box that can rapidly detect target DNA and other molecules in any setting. Its uses include testing water for bacteria, diagnosing illnesses in remote locations and ensuring food is safe for a grocery store.
F Cubed has raised more than $6 million from 35 investors and has 17 full-time employees who work in the former St. Joseph's High School. Ivie said the company has 150 prospective customers, including four hospitals, and a forecasted demand for 300,000 biochips annually.
The school is a temporary location, by the way. F Cubed plans to move to a new building next year at Ignition Park near downtown South Bend.
F Cubed is just getting started, in many respects, but the company already is seen as a peek at the future of the South Bend area's economy — or at least what many hope will be the future of the area's economy.
