KCT: A MaRS Incubator Success
KCT + MaRS = SUCCESS
Kanata Chemical Technologies (KCT) has achieved a level of success sought after by many start-ups. How did they do it? Start with some ingenuity, add some hard work and catalyze the reaction with a commercialization partner like MaRS and you’ve got a winning equation.
Founded in 2004, KCT develops innovative processes in chemical synthesis offering a wide range of products to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, fine chemical, material, flavors and fragrance industries. They focus on catalysts with high activity and "chiral selectivity." A catalyst accelerates the rate of a chemical reaction without itself being transformed or consumed in the reaction. Chirality refers to the way compounds are related to each other in much the same way as a left and right hand are related – a right hand can easily shake another right hand very well, but a right hand shaking a left hand is a different story.
KCT designs their chiral catalysts at the molecular level and the result is a catalyst that is selective – to produce either right-or left-handed products.
Company founder and president Kamal Abdur-Rashid explains the importance: “Sugars, amino acids, proteins, enzymes, hormones…these are all chiral compounds. DNA and, in fact, all the building blocks of life, are chiral. For most compounds to be effective they have to interact with chiral compounds in nature.”
The advantage to the company and its customers is twofold. A better catalyst can improve the yield of the chemical reaction or, in other words, produce more end product with less input. In other cases, a better catalyst can vastly reduce or replace previously required chemicals, processes and their associated facilities and personnel, resulting in lower costs of the reaction. Either way, better catalysts mean savings for the customer.
GETTING STARTED
Armed with a PhD from the University of the West Indies, Kamal immigrated to Canada in 1997. His experience mirrors that of many new Canadians: his educational background and experience wasn’t highly valued by potential employers.
“I didn’t have the necessary Canadian experience and because of that I wasn’t able to find a job,” he says. Instead, in 1998 he started out at the University of Toronto as a volunteer working as a researcher in the department of chemistry. It was out of this volunteer work that the new technology emerged.
After making some important discoveries in the labs at U of T, Kamal decided to take the next step and attempt to commercialize what he had developed. KCT began its corporate life as a client at the Mississauga Technology Business Accelerator (MTBA). But their rapid growth quickly outpaced the services and the facilities the incubator offered.
ENTER MaRS
MaRS came along at just the right time for the young company. “What was particularly important is that it wasn’t just office space. The lab is really what is necessary for us to operate. We cannot operate without labs,” Kamal says.
MaRS offered KCT state-of-the-art labs and office space in the heart of the research centre of Toronto. But while suitable lab space is important, business expertise is required to grow. And MaRS had the mix of resources and environment to enable that growth.
Kamal says MaRS is more than just a great building in a great area. “The resources, the facilities, the training and everything else that MaRS is bringing to the table – we’re able to capitalize on that and get off on a very solid footing,” he says.
THE REACTION
That’s the MaRS catalyst effect at work. MaRS accelerates the commercialization process with the tools, networks, expertise and infrastructure needed to turn entrepreneurial innovations into commercial success.
Eventually, KCT’s business will grow beyond MaRS – due to its rapid expansion and need for more lab and office space, the company is already working with MaRS to secure additional labs outside of their current space. MaRS has helped the company gain much of the business knowledge and corporate experience it needs to move forward.
The MaRS goal is to graduate successful companies from the incubator, but that doesn’t mean the moment won’t be at least a little bittersweet. Kamal says he’ll be proud when the time comes to go it on his own.
“It will be in a sense, historic. This is what MaRS was created for,” he says.
KCT came to MaRS in need of a commercialization catalyst and MaRS stirred in its specialized mix of business expertise and high-tech facilities to speed the company on its way to commercial success.
MORE INFORMATION
To better understand chirality, check out the educational game from the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 on Chiralty >>MaRS PICKS
