How Intrepid Labs found the perfect home for its HQ

The biotech startup needed a flexible workspace that could grow with the company as it scales.

Breakthrough drug discoveries may capture headlines. But it’s what happens afterward that turns them into something tangible. “I always think of the drug as the passenger and the formulation as the plane,” says Christine Allen, CEO and co-founder of Intrepid Labs, a biotech startup and leader in pharmaceutical formulation science.

Formulation involves designing the physical and chemical form of a medicine so it is stable, safe and effective, and can also be manufactured, stored and delivered appropriately. Unfortunately, it’s also a time-consuming and expensive pursuit with high failure rates during the developmental process. Allen and her co-founders, Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Pauric Bannigan and Riley Hickman, saw an opportunity to expedite timelines, reduce costs and bring medicines to market faster by using AI. The lab they built at the University of Toronto was the launch pad for their startup, which debuted in August 2023.

Much like the pace of its proprietary technology, the company’s growth has been swift. Intrepid Labs has doubled its workforce every few months, going from two employees to nearly 20 in just two and a half years. Soon after they joined the MaRS Incubator in December 2024, the team needed to find a larger space.

Finding the right place to grow

Intrepid needed a well-equipped, functional lab with ventilation and fume hoods as well as flexible office space that would grow with the business — ideally in Toronto, with cafes and public transportation nearby. “If you’re recruiting and looking to retain good people, the walking score matters,” says Allen.

Security was also a priority. “We have AI-driven robotic workflows that are designed to run 24/7, so we have staff working late and on weekends,” she says. “As a woman in science who often works after hours, security is very important.”

“It’s challenging to find affordable, specialized lab spaces in Toronto,” says Ryan Brown, who is the leasing manager at MaRS. It’s particularly difficult, he adds, to secure space in the downtown core. For Intrepid, proximity to UofT and the University Health Network hospital would mean easy access to clinicians, core facilities and expensive equipment like a cryo-electron microscope.

Allen had started looking outside the city in places like Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga. But what she found couldn’t compete with MaRS, from its central location to its built-in opportunities for collaboration with other entrepreneurs and academic researchers. She reached out to the MaRS Hubs team for help.

Building a flexible space

Finding a spot that would accommodate Intrepid’s custom-built equipment, and allow the team to move benches in and out was almost like a game of chess, says Allen. Brown worked closely with Intrepid to learn its growth projections and figure out what would work best.

He helped them secure lab space on the second floor of the MaRS Incubator, and an airy office on the first floor, taking Intrepid from 500 to 4,000 square feet. Brown also arranged for the glass windows that lined one wall of the new lab to be frosted for greater privacy, and the team moved in last October. “They have moved mountains for us,” says Allen.

Ensuring operations would run smoothly once they were in their new space was the easy part, with MaRS already providing security and day-to-day troubleshooting to manage everything from AV problems to issues around solvent and waste disposal.

Creating a good first impression

Intrepid employees love being part of the energy of the building and so do their guests. When pharmaceutical clients come to visit, “bringing them to this very inspiring space gets our meetings off to a great start,” says Allen. “You can see they’re in awe.”

What’s next

Intrepid is currently working with nine pharmaceutical companies to optimize formulations for their drug candidates, while also advancing their own proprietary delivery technologies. The company is also working with U.K.-based Quotient Sciences, a global contract research and development manufacturing organization (CRDMO), on clinical programs using Intrepid’s proprietary algorithm.

Having Intrepid’s headquarters at MaRS is a full circle moment for Allen, after watching it being built across the street from the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy where she’s been a professor for nearly 25 years. “As somebody who has always been entrepreneurial and pursued very applied research, the vision for MaRS has always resonated with me. It’s created what I consider to be the heart of the innovation ecosystem in Toronto.”

Intrepid Labs

• Founded: 2023
• Program: MaRS Incubator
• Services: Real estate

MaRS programming is funded in part by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario and by the Province of Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.