The three-year-old Morrisville company is emboldened after raising $11.3 million in private financing this month to finish developing a pharmaceutical device it has been working on since 2004. Centice aims to hire sales and marketing workers to begin selling the device to hospitals and pharmacies by mid-2008.

Centice designs and manufactures highly specialized optical sensors, which company officials and investors say have potential applications in various medical devices and diagnostic systems.

Its first major product is a tabletop device designed to check the accuracy of dispensed tablet and capsule prescriptions at pharmacies and hospitals. The device's optic sensor verifies the contents of a prescription bottle and cross-checks it with bar-code information on the back. The device does not require federal regulatory approval, said Centice CEO Ray Swanson.

The sensors are based on computational sensor technology licensed from Duke University, whose engineers founded Centice in 2004.

Swanson said the table-top device will save time and reduce error in the drug verification process. "We took a raw platform out of Duke and made it into a real application in less than three years," he said.

Swanson expects Centice to double to about 60 employees within 10 months as it prepares to take its product to market. He had previously expected 60 workers by this year but plans have taken longer than expected.

Venture capital firm Aurora Funds in Durham participated in the latest round of funding.

"The technology appears to be doing extremely well, and the potential market is huge," said Scott Albert, a partner with Aurora.

Swanson said Centice's product may have additional uses in detecting counterfeit drugs and verifying liquid-based prescriptions.

"If we can move in that direction, we can build a very large business just in medical verification," he said.

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