Top Forty Under 40: Dentist goes digital with dentures and implants
Steve Cowburn and his fiance, Stacey MacAulay, haven’t gotten around to getting married yet. “We’ve been engaged for two years,” said Cowburn with a laugh. “That’s what happens when you’re launching a new business. Stacey is understanding.”
Cowburn’s company is Perfit Dental Solutions, the digital dentistry design and manufacturing facility he founded with his brother and denturist, George.
MacAulay used to work for Perfit too, but now works as a registered denturist at Kelowna Dental Clinic utilizing Perfits digital solutions.
“We met when my brother and I had our previous company (four dental clinics in Calgary),” said Cowburn. “So we’re in the same industry and know what it takes to launch a start-up.”
Perfit is at the leading edge of dentures and dental implants digital impressions, design and manufacturing with four patents.
“Digital photography and drafting has been around for 20 years for crowns and bridges,” said Cowburn.
“But Perfit’s niche is with dentures and arch implants (the implants that replace all teeth). We’re basically taking and industry that’s completely archaic and digitizing it.”
In the past, physical molds of people’s mouths were taken dentists and oral surgeons and sent to denturists or dental labs for dentures or implants to be made by hand in about two or three weeks.
Digitizing the process means impressions can still be taken by the dentist or oral surgeon physically with digital photography. The impression comes to Perfit. If it’s the old-school format, Perfit scans the impression to digitize it and sends it via email to their chief designer in Toronto to create a design almost immediately.
The design comes back by email to the Kelowna facility just off Sexsmith Road where the dentures or implants are made using milling technology and equipment that’s dramatically faster and more accurate than making them by hand.
The finished product is then sent by overnight courier to the denturist or oral surgeon who fits the patient with the dentures or implants.
Cowburn and his brother have been in business together since 2007 when they bought their first clinic with George as denturist and Cowburn in business development. They grew the business to four clinics by 2012 and realized there was a better way to do things digitially.
The developed four patents for digitalizing the design and manufacturing of dentures and impants.
The brothers sold the Calgary clinics in 2015 as the oil-dependent economy of Calgary was hurting.
“Since we then had this technology company we decided we could go anywhere,” said Cowburn. “We decided on Kelowna because it had Accelerate Okanagan, which helps start-up tech companies and it’s a good place to do beta testing and it has a great lifestyle.”
Now fully launched, Cowburn sees Perfit taking off and expects the company to grow from eight employees to 50 or 100 to meet the increasing demand for digitally designed and milled dentures and implants.
“We can serve all of Canada from Kelowna,” said Cowburn.
“But we see licensing the Perfit technology to large labs in the U.S. and internationally to serve other markets.”
Since Accelerate Okanagan helped Perfit in the beginning, Cowburn is now giving back by mentoring other start-up tech entrepreneurs with financing, business development and launch advice.
Perfit also provides dentures and implants to some patients who otherwise couldn’t afford them.
Cowburn has combined his passions for hiking, climbing, skiing and photography at AlpineOwls.com.
Editor’s note: Every week in this space with Top Forty Under 40 we profile a businessperson under the age of 40 who is finding success in their career and making a difference.
The series is presented by BDO Accountants and Consultants, Kelowna Chamber of Commerce and The Daily Courier. If you know of someone deserving, nominate them through the form at KelownaChamber.org.