Trionix scales back sales effortto focus on R&D program

Lim frustrated by commercial side of business

Chun Lim, founder and president of Trionix, of Twinsburg, OH,has scaled back his firm's operations to escape commercial aspectsof the business that he finds distasteful.

Lim declined to be interviewed at the Society of Nuclear Medicinemeeting in Denver, but in the course of conversation disclosedthat he laid off his sales force in 1995 and is relying insteadon established relationships to generate enough sales to financeresearch and development. The Trionix Triad XLT 20 Body SPECTcamera was featured in a bare-bones exhibit at the show.

"Promotion disturbs the calm and makes it hard to thinkintelligently," he said.

Thinking intelligently is of paramount concern to Lim, whoorganizes his life in five-year increments. An evaluation of Trionixafter its tenth anniversary last year led Lim to decide to freehimself from the anxiety of running a large business.

"I never wanted all that anyway," he said. "Whenyou employ salespeople, you lose some control because they makepromises that are hard to keep."

Lim said his problems began five years ago when he expandedthe company's scope in reaction to the growing popularity of triple-headSPECT cameras. Since then, triple-head sales have been stagnantwhile the dual-head market has exploded. Despite being on thewrong end of an industry shift, privately held Trionix has remainedprofitable.

"I've always kept my eye on cash flow, so we never hada problem with profits," he said.

As part of Trionix's low-key market approach, Lim depends onestablished customers for sufficient revenues to run his laboratory.He is, however, willing to take on new assignments when he iscertain Trionix can fulfill customer requirements. Works-in-progresswill not be displayed at future trade shows.

At this year's SNM show, Trionix featured the 4.5 Release Update.It includes automatic cine images available at the point of acquisition,patient motion correction, curved plotting utility, improved gatedblood pool software, and gated SPECT for Tc-99m-sestamibi imaging.