Executive accelerates life sciences
Accel-Rx CEO named Startup Canada Entrepreneur of the Year
Accel-Rx CEO Natalie Dakers’ first job was as a marine biologist, but she has spent most of her career at the nexus of commercializing scientific discoveries. So she knows the challenges of turning cutting-edge research into viable enterprises.
She got her start at the University of B.C., and most recently as head of the commercial arm of the Centre for Drug Research and Development.
“In Canada, we do very well, in fact we punch above our weight, as far as scientific excellence goes,” she said, but not as well as we should in channelling those innovations into industry.
Her solution to help improve the situation, the creation of a life-science business incubator in partnership with five of those idea-generating research centres, won Dakers the Scotiabank/Startup Canada Entrepreneur of the Year award, the top honour among nine handed out by the organization.
The Sun caught up with Dakers to talk about the importance of the award and what she wants Accel-Rx to achieve. Q
What is Accel-Rx?
A It’s unique, the only one of its kind in Canada. It’s a health-sciences accelerator. What that means is that it is working with early-stage companies to help them get the needed resources, not just capital, but access to people, access to investors.
Q How did it come into being?
A I ended up having a number of conversations with a number of senior organizations all trying to achieve similar goals (and) were facing the same issues: (finding) capital, people, technology. So I thought, wouldn’t it be an interesting idea if we created an entity that provided these kinds of resources and support early company creation?
Q What is the state of entrepreneurialism in life sciences these days?
A The good news is that we already have a lot of those entrepreneurial scientists who get it from the start. So if you put them together with an interesting business person, the sky’s the limit. As far as Canada goes, we’re so reliant on those small- to medium-sized companies, that’s the essence of our economy.
Q What have you been able to facilitate so far in terms of new start-ups?
A We’re really just beginning in this process. We’ve made our first investment in a company called Encycle. We’re just completing our second investment, which we hope to close on Tuesday and we’re looking at six other companies at the moment.
Q What problems are you solving for researchers who have discoveries they think can be turned into businesses?
A I think an ability to focus on their companies, to get the right seed capital (and) with the mindset to be able to grow that company in Canada. We can tolerate higher risk, more failure (than venture capital firms) because of the way we’re set up. We’re filling that gap so small seed companies can grow into bigger companies and attract the bigger capital that’s necessary.
Q How do you measure your success?
A We’ll be seen as successful if we’ve supported a bunch of companies that then go on to raise more money and be able to stay and grow in Canada. We expect a high attrition rate because we’re at a very early stage. But because, again, we’re looking at a pipeline from an organization that’s already started to validate ideas, our attrition rate should be lower (than a venture capital firm).
Q What does the Startup Canada Entrepreneur of the Year award mean for you?
A The thing that’s really important about Startup Canada is they focus on the entrepreneurial side. They focus on the small companies. If you think about how we’re going to develop the economy, we need to be diversified, we need to think more about the intellectual capital of what is in our population and support that to be able to create interesting companies that can grow and be successful in Canada.