The Search For The Next Great Canadian Innovation Competition

Sponsors

• Canadian Business
• Nytric
• Bereskin & Parr
• NBP

Substance Extraction System

 

Ameer and Ahmed Taha, Toronto Ameer and Ahmed Taha are brothers, so it’s no surprise they finish each other’s sentences when talking about their company, Certo Labs Inc. But there is still some disagreement about the origin of the name.

 

“I believe it’s Spanish for mission accomplished,” says Ameer, 26.

 

“More Latin than Spanish,” corrects Ahmed. They banter back and forth for a minute without reaching a resolution. “Maybe we should check that, in case it comes up,” concludes Ahmed, 22, scribbling in his notebook.

 

Rest assured, they likely will look it up. The two Toronto residents and winners of this year’s Great Canadian Invention Competition are committed to every aspect of their product, an automated device that breaks down a substance and isolates a certain component. Such extraction systems are used in just about every lab. For instance, the food-testing industry uses them to measure nutritional content in order to create accurate product labels.

 

The brothers say their product, the Certo-Ex, cuts down on time and cost, and eliminates cross-contamination between samples, a problem with existing methods. Their process is also entirely automated: a technician inserts a sample, selects the component to extract using the company’s proprietary software, and the machine does the rest. Typically, extraction is a long and complex process completed by grad students who are overworked and underpaid, Ameer says. He should know.

 

Back in 2005, Ameer was completing his master’s degree in nutrition at the University of Toronto, frequently staying up past 3 a.m. conducting nutrient analyses of rat brain samples for his thesis. Naturally, his thoughts turned to coming up with a better way. He got together with a few friends in the engineering department, and the team had a prototype extraction system within a year. But despite making some improvements in the process, it wasn’t saving very much time.

 

Ahmed, then a pharmacology student at U of T, began to get interested. He had already entered a few of his own ideas into various business plan competitions, and saw huge potential for his brother’s product. They formed Certo Labs in 2006 and pocketed $50,000 the same year by winning their first competition, TiEQuest, an annual contest in Toronto designed to connect entrepreneurs with potential investors. Each has sunk about $12,500 into their invention.

 

In total, the brothers have raised $75,000 in cash through various competitions, along with an investment from the Ontario Centres of Excellence and the MaRS Discovery District, and they’ve actively courted collaborators. University of Waterloo kinesiology professor Ken Stark helped perfect the science behind their design, and Toronto-based industrial design firm Kangaroo Design purchased a stake in Certo and is helping build a second prototype.

 

Despite all the progress Ameer and Ahmed have made, they will rely on the expertise of engineering services firm Nytric to finalize some aspects of the prototype and commercialize it. The brothers want to have a market-ready product in 16 months at a price between $20,000 and $30,000. That’s more than two to three times the cost of standard extraction devices, but the Tahas say Certo-Ex will eventually pay for itself.

 

They’re certainly making a few bold claims. They say their product can extract a sample in just 30 minutes, where other systems can take up to five hours. The Certo-Ex will also cut costs by 90% and, since it’s automated, free lab technicians to do other work. Competitors are less advanced, they say, but still a threat. “Just because we’re so much better than them doesn’t mean they can’t compete with us, because they are still much bigger,” Ahmed says.

 

Their enthusiasm and dedication is partly what impressed the Nytric judges, along with the sophistication of the product and the demand for an automated system. “I don’t think they’re going to face significant challenges getting it to market,” says Anthony Gussin, Nytric’s director of business development. “If the savings are as high as they say they are in terms of manpower and time, then they’ve got a winner on their hands.”