45 



dust or particulate emissions exceed expenditures for all gaseous 

 emissions combined. Sales of the LSR Core Separator units in the 

 U.S. and abroad have exceeded $2.5 million. Two license 

 agreements have been signed, and a joint venture company has been 

 established. To date, more than $4 million of funding has been 

 received for further development and commercialization of the 

 technology, a significant achievement for a five-year-old company 

 that started with two employees. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROGRAM 



To increase the return on the government's annual investment of 

 nearly one billion dollars in the SBIR program, we believe that a 

 small fraction (one percent) of the SBIR set aside should be used 

 to fund projects like the DOE Commercialization Assistance 

 Project and to provide administrative support for the program's 

 operation. 



The SBIR reauthorization legislation provides for discretionary 

 technical assistance that can be implemented by Federal agencies 

 to assist SBIR awardees in, for example, commercialization 

 efforts. Due to its complexity, no agency has implemented this 

 provision. We recommend a modification to the legislation so 

 that a small fraction of SBIR set aside funds can be used to 

 provide commercialization assistance to SBIR awardees. This 

 would allow projects like the DOE Commercialization Assistance 



