Q&A Jason Pincock, CEO, DynaLIFE Medical Labs

Dec 02, 2021

“What attracted me to Syantra was their vision of changing the path for breast cancer screening.”

As an industry partner in the Alberta Small Business Innovation and Research Initiative (ASBIRI),

Jason Pincock, CEO of DynaLIFE Medical Labs, has witnessed and supported Syantra’s development since the company’s early days. We spoke with Pincock during his recent visit to Syantra’s lab about ASBIRI, Alberta innovation and his thoughts on witnessing Syantra’s transition from research upstart to commercialized venture.

Q: What was the rationale for the ASBIRI project?

JP: What we had been seeing over and over again in Alberta is a story where amazing research either (didn’t commercialize) or, at best, got licensed out at the earliest opportunity. This ultimately doesn’t benefit the health or the wealth of Albertans.

Q: How did DynaLIFE get involved with this project? 

JP: ASBIRI began as a conversation with Alberta Innovates around how we could identify a few Alberta organizations with promise in the diagnostic space, and whether we could somehow help accelerate their progress so that they could develop in Alberta, stay in Alberta and ultimately benefit Albertans. That’s when we identified Syantra…

Q: What interested you about Syantra to begin with?

JP: What attracted me to Syantra was their vision of changing the path for breast cancer screening… Early on, I was thinking about things like the ability to scale diabetes screening, for example. Imagine if we could bring that same sort of screening scale to breast cancer in a way that’s a comfortable part of a routine check-up? 

Q: The goal of the ASBIRI was to help businesses like Syantra commercialize their early cancer detection technology. What are your thoughts as you tour Syantra’s lab and offices, knowing that they have realized the goals of the program?

JP: Right from the beginning, our focus with Syantra was to… design the real world into the very earliest steps of their development process. That way, they wouldn’t have to go back and redo the things they didn’t realize they had to do to get to the finish line. We designed the process with the finish line in mind from the start. Having the (right accreditations and processes) was a way to sort of fast track the development of the technology and its introduction to the market. Our idea was to take a 10-year journey and turn it into a five-year or a four-year journey. And here they are.

Q: I understand DynaLIFE will offer the Syantra DX | Breast Cancer test in Edmonton. Does that feel like a full circle moment?

JP: There’s two parts here: One is, how do we help Syantra on its continued journey? Part of that is (lab access in Edmonton), which we can help with. But the second part is getting the Syantra technology adopted… in the mainstream of our healthcare system. And for me, that's the next big challenge: Helping Syantra with access to some patients and logistics is the easy challenge, but the real big challenge, and the important challenge, is how do we make that technology available to all Albertans? 

Learn more about DynaLIFE Learn more about Syantra DX | Breast Cancer
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