Success Stories
A Kingston Region Success Story
Octane Biotech Inc.
Bringing Regenerative Medicine To Life
Regenerative medicine sounds like the stuff of science fiction – it’s hard to imagine growing new body parts to replace your own when they wear out. But we’re a lot closer than you might think, and companies like Kingston’s Octane Biotech Inc. 
are making it possible.
Like satellite dishes, cordless tools and much else besides, Octane’s technology has its roots in the space program. It was developed under the Canadian Space Agency to study bone loss in space, and flew on the shuttle, examining how cells change in orbit.
Octane's cell processing machine
That work is still going on, but the Octane team moved in a different direction. The company’s founders realized the automated bioreactors they had developed for space science could be used for another purpose here on earth – automating the production of replacement cells and tissues designed to repair injuries and fight diseases.
How does this all work? Today, if you need a knee replacement, surgeons use components made of metal and plastic. Unfortunately, those components wear out, and one day, you may need “replacement parts” – and a second procedure. But because over the years your own bone and cartilage grow around the artificial products, further operations become more difficult, with longer, more painful recoveries.
Now what if, instead, you could grow new implants from your own cells? Your body would integrate them more easily than metal and plastic. And with the implanted cells becoming part of a new living implant, you might realize the promise of regenerative medicine: recovering from an injury as if it never happened.
In fact, cell-based products for knees are available today. The problem is they’re extremely expensive, because all the work has to be done by hand in special contaminant-free facilities.
Octane aims to change that. The company has developed systems that institutions can use to automate the work of turning cells into tissue.
And as CEO Tim Smith explains, there are other benefits along with price. “Automating the process reduces the intensive manual labour and brings costs down,” he says. “At the same time, it also ensures consistent, high quality products. Plus, the cartridges protect against contamination and improve safety.”
Today, we may be just a few years away from regenerative medical procedures. Octane’s cell system is scheduled for clinical trials in two years.
Back in Kingston, Smith shows off a new purpose-built, 17,000-square-foot facility. “This place was built to house a staff of 200. Today, we’re at 20. We expect to be in production and hit that target within five years.”
Octane is working with partner companies in the US, UK, Switzerland and Belgium – but the company is committed to growing the business here in Ontario, where it got its start and received support through the Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE) and the Health Technology Exchange (HTX) . “We’ve been to many countries and Ontario is a great place to develop companies in this space,” says Smith. “The level of support is tremendous.”
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