BioLytical Labs: Star-studded Start-up
The founders of BioLytical Labs were sitting on a revolutionary biotech product for rapid testing of HIV. So Robert Mackie and Matthew Clayton turned to their friends in high places for funding. The result? A star-studded start-up.
Where do you go for funding when you’re sitting on a biotech product that could help transform diagnostic procedures for one of the world’s most devastating viruses? When Richmond-based BioLytical Laboratories needed investors for its rapid HIV test, it looked to the usual suspects: Milton Wong, big-time health-sciences investor, and David Korbin, former director of Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre and former managing partner of Deloitte Touche. Strong backers, indeed, and both now sit on BioLytical’s board. But president and CEO Robert Mackie, 38, and COO Matthew Clayton, 36, also turned to their friends in high places – and the result is a burgeoning biotech so star-studded investors could be tempted to skip their homework. Being major sports fans (Clayton once played pro golf,) Mackie and Clayton have developed some tight relationships not only with shipping tycoon and former professional ski jumper Kyle Washington (also on BioLytical’s board) but some big names in the Canucks roster as well. Which is how a dozen NHL players, including Markus Naslund, ended up buying into a company whose sole purpose is to commercialize a rapid HIV test.
“It happened just through friends of mine,” explains Mackie over the phone from Whistler. The NHL players tend to “hand the investments to their consultants in Toronto.” When Naslund’s consultant gave the green light to his client to invest in the company, it was like a domino effect. Other NHLers quickly followed suit, including Mackie’s close friend Geoff Courtnall, a former Canuck now in the construction business. Then there are the rock stars: Mackie’s best pal and his children’s godfather is Chad Kroeger, frontman for the Vancouver-grown rock band Nickelback, who’s also a big hockey fan. “Going to functions with him you meet a lot of sports guys,” says Mackie. Kroeger and his bandmates have bought into the company, along with other music celebs he won’t name. “He’s brought us to a lot of names in the rock community.”
Name-dropping aside, if BioLytical is to fly as high as its promoters project, it has to compete in an increasingly competitive market that must operate within the restrictions of government approvals and in response to the latest medical advances.
BioLytical’s only product on the market, the Insti Kit, is not the only rapid HIV test available in Canada, and it’s among 50 or so that have been dev-eloped globally. MedMira, a Halifax-based company, gained FDA and Health Canada approval for its Reveal G2 test last year but, claims BioLytical, at 60 seconds, Insti is faster. (MedMira’s test takes three minutes. Whether investors and customers care to quibble over mere minutes and pick the Insti kit over its competitors remains to be seen.) BioLytical’s is also the only one approved by Health Canada for point-of-care testing – that is, testing performed by a health care professional in contact with a patient. (MedMira’s test is only approved for use in laboratories.)
And in June, BioLytical’s kit received CE Mark approval – a mandatory European certification that indicates conformity with health and safety requirements – making it available to the 28 countries in the European Community. The company is also currently seeking U.S. FDA approval. Other countries that have approved its use as a point-of-care device are Uganda, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. The company also has distribution agreements in Mexico, Taiwan, Ecuador, India, the U.K., Turkey, Vietnam and regions in Africa.
BioLytical’s Health Canada approval could not have come at a better time, preceding by just a few months the radical proclamations made by Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and president-elect of the International AIDS Society, at the XVI International AIDS Conference and in a paper published in The Lancet this past August.
The world-renowned Montaner proposed that highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), which is currently used to treat those carrying HIV, suppresses the virus to such small levels that it greatly impedes the ability of an infected person to transmit it. By expanding the use of HAART to include all those HIV-positive individuals who are not yet on treatment, he says, the spread of HIV and AIDS could, in ideal conditions, be effectively halted.
The trick – and this is where BioLytical’s Insti test comes in – is to actively seek out and find those individuals who may not yet know that they are infected. “Approximately half of the people that should get treatment currently are on treatment,” Montaner explains. “The reasons for that are multiple, but they all relate to access. There are a substantial number of people who are infected that don’t know [they are carrying the virus].”
The gap between infection and testing, he explains, relates to access and an aversion to the current system. “[An HIV] test requires that you ask for it, that you disclose why you’re asking for it, and requires that you go through pre- and post-test counselling. There is a level of sophistication that is required for you to even think about it to begin with... And then there are a couple of weeks that you have to wait for the results. It’s very stressful.”
Montaner is currently putting together a pilot program in B.C. to aggressively pursue HIV testing and treatment, and intends to use BioLytical’s Insti Kit. “Having a test that is instantaneous, you have an opportunity to counsel the person and say ‘I’ll give you the test and I’ll give you the result and you can go on with your life.’ Most people test negative anyway. So that’s actually an assurance for people.”
He even envisions a public awareness campaign to encourage people to get tested once or even twice a year. “We want everybody in B.C. to be tested. Not once, but several times, because the only way to get the hidden infections is to test people who don’t think that they’re infected.” BioLytical, says Montaner, will “certainly play a very important role in our strategy to both identify the cases [of HIV] and eventually treat those people that need to be treated.”
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