Kanata Chemical Technologies: Growing up with MaRS
Kanata Chemical Technologies moved into the MaRS Incubator in 2005—since then, an ever-growing team of chemists, research scientists and business managers have worked to build a technology-based chemical company with products that are, as of October 2009, available all over the world.
These days, KCT is one of the largest companies in the MaRS Incubator, a state-of-the-art facility with laboratory and office space for technology start-up companies. Over the past two years, KCT has almost doubled its footprint. “Two years ago, we had seven people working here. Now we have 10. We’ve added two labs to our space here. And we’ve acquired new equipment,” says Dino Amoroso, KCT’s manager of business development. KCT has done what many start-ups hope to: established itself, grown and built an international reputation for excellence.
KCT focuses on chemically oriented technologies, mainly in the area of catalysis (a catalyst is a substance that changes the rate of a chemical reaction, but is not consumed by the reaction itself). KCT develops innovative processes in catalysis and chemical synthesis, developing and producing products for the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, fine chemical, material, flavour and fragrance industries.
“We look for particular processes that exist in industry and we try to improve them,” says Amoroso. For example, KCT recently developed a cheaper and more efficient way to make a particular fragrance material: to make 100 tons of this material used to require 20 tons of one chemical. KCT developed a process to replace those 20 tons with 100 g of catalyst. “The processes we’ve developed eliminate the need for more costly, less effective materials,” says Amoroso.
KCT founder and president Kamal Abdur-Rashid immigrated to Canada in 1997. He was armed with a PhD from the University of the West Indies, but like many new Canadians, found that potential employers didn’t value his educational background and work experience. He began volunteering as a researcher in the Department of Chemistry at U of T in 1998 and, while working there, made some important discoveries and decided to commercialize what he had invented. KCT was born.
KCT started out at Mississauga Technology Business Accelerator (MTBA), but quickly outgrew the services and facilities at the incubator, which closed shortly after KCT departed.
MaRS and the MaRS Incubator were a lifesaver for KCT. “The most challenging thing, when we started out, was finding lab space,” says Abdur-Rashid. “If MaRS hadn’t come along right when it did, I don’t know where we’d be now.”
KCT has made almost all of its progress in the MaRS Incubator labs—with MaRS’ help, KCT has grown into an internationally known chemical synthesis company. Thanks to a comprehensive distribution agreement with Strem Chemicals, KCT’s entire catalogue of chemicals is now available around the world. KCT has also negotiated distribution agreements with other major global distributors, such as Sigma-Aldrich.
“We’ve worked hard to convince the industry that the materials we produce are valuable—we’ve developed products and processes, and many patents and publications have come out of our lab. The recognition that our work has received goes a long way,” says Amoroso.
In the world of start-ups, new challenges are always on the horizon—finding a new lab space will be a big one for KCT. And there will, no doubt, be others. “There are always challenges,” says Amoroso. “But you get through them. You get through every hurdle, every challenge, and move on to the next one. As time passes, more hurdles appear. But we’ve gotten through them all, one after another. We’ll get through the next ones.”
