The technology behind our Enhanced Insect Repellent, STAYTEC®, wasn’t just created by a nameless team in a big company’s lab. It was designed for a very specific reason that was personal to the inventor.
Tycho Speaker is the man behind STAYTEC®. He loved the magic of combining different chemicals and seeing something happen as a result, and this led to him developing a real passion for physical chemistry – confirmed in his degrees from Temple University and then at the University of California. The skills learnt there led to his time working with Semiconductors in various manufacturing and process engineering capacities.
While on a family camping trip with his young daughters, mosquitos became a huge problem. Their only choice was to slather the family with high DEET percentage insect repellents, and Tycho became concerned with how much of the chemical was soaking into his children’s skin. Because of his scientific background, he understood that encapsulation of the DEET could mean it would stay on the skin, rather than soaking into the skin. It could also mean that it could slow down how fast it evaporated so that it would last longer.
When they got home, he improvised an experiment to create something. Using an old blender, and safe materials from the health food store and pharmacy, he came up with the right ratios of components for a first prototype that worked! After a bit more research, he gave himself a year to develop the formula and apply for the patent, leaving his job and starting his own company.
Then, one of his previous colleagues introduced him to Hogan Bassey. Hogan was an entrepreneur who had a vision and dream and they quickly realised that he would be able to pursue the repellent market in ways that Tycho couldn’t with his other activities. Hogan’s work with entomology experts and formal arm-in-cage testing helped to refine the formula and enabled the performance of STAYTEC® increase! It turned out to be a great connection, in all sorts of ways.
When used in LivFul’s Enhanced Insect Repellent and combined with their vision and programs, STAYTEC® has real meaning and impact. It helps bring safe, effective protection to everyone, regardless of their economic circumstances or situation.
‘There is just no reason that people in areas with endemic mosquito-borne disease should continue to suffer the health, economic, and political impact of these diseases.’, says Tycho.
STAYTEC® has the ability to enable people who currently battle endemic diseases like malaria and dengue, and host of others, to unleash their full potential and contribute to society and the world economy. Tycho is so grateful to have had some role in that, and that Hogan and he found each other to collaborate on STAYTEC®.
Find out more about how our STAYTEC® technology works here.
