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Success Stories - Success Stories - Startup Ionalytics wins seed funds
February 28, 2006 — Ottawa, Ontario
Posted Saturday, November 10, 2001
By Brian Salisbury, Ottawa Business Journal
After four years of being groomed inside the National Research Council's laboratories, Ionalytics Corp. has been officially spun out with the help of $2 million in seed funding from Genesys Capital Partners.
The biotech startup is led by Roger Guevremont, a former senior researcher at the NRC's Institute for National Measurements Standards. The money will be spent on taking the company's chemical analysis systems hardware from the proof-of-concept stage to commercialization. That should take between 12 and 18 months, says Guevremont.
Despite being only two weeks old, Ionalytics has already received preliminary interest from Montreal-based Caprion Pharmaceuticals Inc. and international pharma-kingpin Pfizer Inc.
As part of its agreement with the NRC, Ionalytics will license the technology from the research institution in exchange for an equity stake in the company.
Other NRC ties include Arthur Carty, who sits on the company's board of directors. Ionalytics will also housed at the NRC's incubation facility at the corner of Montreal and Blair Roads.
Ionalytics' decision to maintain a close relationship with the NRC is a necessity, says Guevremont.
"We're continuing a rather close partnership there. There has to be that partnership to maintain our leading-edge position with this technology.î
Damian Lamb, co-founder of the Toronto-based Genesys Capital, says the deal fit in with his firm's investment strategy.
"We were looking for a company in that technical area, and Ionalytics has a great team and great technology. You'll be hearing more from us in Ottawa.î
The specific technology Ionalytics uses is called FAIMS (high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry). It was first developed in Russia during the early 1980s, but in 1997 did Guevremont and his team discover its true utility.
While at the NRC, the FAIMS research team pinpointed potential uses of the technology in collaboration with MDS-SCIEX. The hardware product developed by Ionalytics improves the performance of mass spectrometers, including use in the following fields of biotechnology: proteomics and drug discovery; security protocols such as the detection of chemical and biological agents.
