Synbiologica Ltd is a group of science students at the University of Lethbridge who plan to develop the Biologically Enhanced Assay in Real-time (BEAR) for the highly specific detection of hormones. The company is currently comprised of four science students with varying academic backgrounds.

BEAR is a small device attached to a test subject or patient that will be able to monitor changing hormone levels in the subject bloodstream, first as an immediate point-of-care test and eventually as a real time hormone detection device. BEAR will be used primarily in research and in future diagnostics. Once the BEAR prototype has proved to be effective in a laboratory setting, Synbiologica Ltd will pursue a patent on the device. Synbiologica Ltd plans to use the licence-out business model to sell the BEAR device to biotechnology companies who are already well established and who have the resources to manufacture BEAR on a larger scale. These companies also have employees who specialize in marketing and sales of products. Synbiologica Ltd currently does not have employees skilled in these fields.

BEAR will be manufactured and sold as a two-part system. It will contain a reusable apparatus that will contain a hormone-sensitive modular component. We are unable to elaborate on the exact design of this system in order to protect our proprietary information.

Synbiologica Ltd is targeting hormone researchers as the primary market. Researchers who use animal test subjects for hormone analysis will need to purchase an appropriate number of BEAR apparatus’ to accommodate the number of test animals in the experiment. In a typical experiment, at least 5-10 test animals and an equal number of control animals will be used and enough BEAR devices will need to be purchased in order to test many subjects within a shorter period of time. BEAR is also a more efficient means of individual testing. If a test on an individual must be performed and a sample from the subject cannot be stored due to the risk of hormone degradation, Researchers would currently have to use an entire monoclonal antibody kit to test it. These kits are designed to perform tests for many subjects at once and it would be wasteful to use a kit for only a few tests.

When BEAR reaches the diagnostician market, it can be assumed that each hospital that buys the device will need more than one to keep up with the demand for tests in multiple departments.

Synbiologica Ltd wishes to provide researchers with a new, faster, accurate method of hormone detection that will ultimately speed up the process and lower the costs of research. This will lead to new discoveries in many research labs, including the labs with which Synbiologica Ltd is associated. Money made by the company will be put towards further research and allow Synbiologica Ltd to continue development of biotechnological devices and technologies. Research done by Synbiologica Ltd and the labs with whom the company works will be the means of attracting the target market of hormone researchers.

Currently, the team members of Synbiologica Ltd work out of research laborator space provided by the University of Lethbridge as well as incubator space provided by Tecconnect.