"The road to Polygiene began in 2000 when the first generation of the material was launched as an antibacterial thermoset sold to customers that were mainly active in the sanitary products industry," says Christian von Uthmann, Managing Director of Perstorp Compounds. "Before long, however, our competitors started to copy us and suddenly antibacterial thermosets were no longer something special."
The idea underlying Polygiene was hatched by Luigi Mocchia, the Managing Director of Perstorp 
Compounds' plant in Italy. Subsequently, following cooperation with a professor of bacteriology, a material offering excellent sanitary properties was developed. "All we did was to add products that we manufactured ourselves plus silver nitrate - in the right amounts and the right composition," Luigi Mocchia explains, making the entire process sound extremely simple.
However, beating the competition required something more, which is why development of the second generation of Polygiene was launched in parallel with brand-building work. At approximately the same time, SARS started to gain a stranglehold on the Asian continent, which resulted in a much clearer image of the future product - the material was to have the ability to kill not only bacteria but also viruses.
"Naturally, this required a lot of research work and a multitude of tests, which proved to be a complex task. Fortunately, very few people have access to the SARS virus and we therefore entered into cooperation with China's Military Academy of Medical Science, which performed the tests on our behalf," Christian relates. "All of the tests were conducted using living viruses and bacteria and Polygiene demonstrated its ability to kill the SARS virus from an infected person in just a few hours. However, I must emphasize that Polygiene does not cure SARS, although it does break the chain of infection."
In addition, major investments have now been made in efforts to build the Polygiene brand and a great deal has happened since January, when work in this area started in earnest. A major product launch was conducted in Beijing in late March and a press conference was held in Shanghai shortly thereafter. The academic experts invited to the conference testified to the effectiveness of the material, which resulted in widespread coverage in Chinese newspapers, while news pages on the Internet were filled with articles about Polygiene.
"Our ultimate aim is that Polygiene will become a concept that our customers' customers will demand because of its excellent properties. For example, we hope that interior designers will be able to stipulate that toilet seats made of Polygiene have to be used when hotels are being fitted. This means that our customers, in this case, the manufacturers of toilet seats, will be approached from two sides - by their own customers and by us," says Christian.
Another way to distinguish us from the competitors is to find new application areas for Polygiene. People at Perstorp Compounds - where "safe to touch" are the current watchwords - are now thinking in completely new terms. This has resulted in the identification of an endless number of places where Polygiene could be used.
"We've now entered a period of very hard work, which is required in order to sell in the concept, and we have already signed contracts with Italian and German customers. At present, Polygiene is only produced Italy, but we are already prepared to meet growing demand here in Sweden too," says an optimistic Christian.
Both marketing och product development are adapted to the needs of different continents and the type of diseases that are most prevalent in a particular continent. In Europe, for example, hospitals are the most threatened sector, while SARS is the main threat in Asia, as is "Chicken Flu" - which represents the next phase of development for Polygiene. Who knows when the third generation product will reach the market?
