Check out the literature on Pinnacle Technology Inc.’s latest innovation, and you’ll learn that the 3102RH is a wireless, two-channel, two-terminal potentiostat designed to transmit data about glutamates into a 3100RX base station for analysis every four seconds.

But Dave Johnson prefers the simple explanation: The “rat hat” gives researchers the ability to conduct increasingly detailed tests on new and developing drugs, the kind of market that could be worth billions of dollars in the years ahead.

“It’s a niche market,” said Johnson, the company’s vice president for engineering and research, “and hopefully the niche will get bigger.”

Such hopes for Lawrence-based Pinnacle Technology were on the minds of 33 exhibitors during the first Lawrence Technology Showcase, a gathering of new and emerging technologies and inventions, Wednesday evening at the Lawrence Holidome.

The event — organized by the Lawrence Regional Technology Center, Kansas University’s Higuchi Biosciences Center and the Lawrence Technology Assn. — drew dozens of business leaders, government officials and potential investors to the hotel ballroom abuzz with cutting-edge ingenuity and entrepreneurial optimism.

“We know that there’s a lot of intellectual capital in Lawrence,” said David Dunfield, a Lawrence city commissioner who perused displays at the showcase. “It’s clear that the talent and the ideas we have are making their way into the private sector.”

KU reaps about $1.5 million a year from licensing and other spin-offs from research and innovations created on campus, said Jim Baxendale, KU’s director for technology transfer and intellectual property.

The sensors used by Pinnacle Technology — implants no wider then two human hairs — already are helping the company market its “rat hat” technology to pharmaceutical companies and other operations. So far, sales of the $200 transmitters have generated about $20,000 in revenue, but Johnson and other company officials are confident that more will be on the way.

No longer do test mice need to endure microdialysis, he said, “where you stick a tube in its head, suck goo out, suck it through a bunch of pipes, analyze it on the outside and perhaps put it back in. It’s certainly an invasive process.

“In this case, (with the rat hat), you put the sensor in, you put the wireless transmitter on top and you walk away. This doesn’t bother the rats at all.”

Pinnacle Technology is marketing its products through distributors in Japan and Taiwan, Johnson said, offering hope for increased sales as biotechnology continues to evolve into an even stronger market.