LI drug firm set to brush up on sales

MELVILLE - Lest one think that the ideas being developed at the region's hightech incubators are all fantastically erudite software and biotechnology products, one company has just graduated from Farmingdale with a product as commonplace as toothpaste.

But not just any toothpaste.

Frontier Pharmaceuticals, which recently relocated to Melville, has developed an antibacterial toothpaste, and using the same technology, an antibacterial mouthwash. The privately held, 11-employee company was founded in 1993 by President Howard Alliger to develop an economical way to use the compound chlorine dioxide in small-scale applications on the human body. "It's a very fast anti-microbial agent," said Valerie Alliger, the company's vice president, one with the rare combination of being deadly to a broad spectrum of bacteria, fungi and viruses, but non-toxic to humans.

The compound has been used for years to purify municipal water supplies, but has never been commercially viable in household health products due to its instability, she said.