NanoCanada Member: SONA NANOTECH
Based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Sona Nanotech Inc. is an innovative life science company that produces gold nanorods for diagnostic tests and medical applications. Its nanorods are unique because they are manufactured without a toxic chemical – CTAB – which means they can be used inside the human body for procedures such as targeted drug delivery and treatment for certain types of cancer.
Sona Nanotech has established a series of successful collaborative partnerships with businesses and universities across the world to bring new cutting edge products to market, particularly in the area of lateral flow diagnostics. These include rapid point of care tests for infectious diseases and foodborne pathogens.
Sona’s gold nanorods are disrupting the lateral flow market, offering an improvement on gold and other nanoparticle products already available and exhibiting characteristics including increased sensitivity, varied colour results, tunable aspect ratios, long-term stability, facile bioconjugation and improved shelf life.
In 2018 Sona had a remarkable year; it received $500,000 in funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) to help it commercialize its products and services, merged with Stockport Exploration, listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange, raising C$2M in a private placement, and moved its laboratory operations to the Innovacorp Centre in Dartmouth.
Sona’s achievements were recently recognised by Startup Canada when it was announced as the Innovation Award winner for the Atlantic Canada region. The company will now compete against the most innovative companies in Canada for the national Innovation Award, to be announced in October.
