INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
old.Every summer and after school the teenager would travel nearly two hours by bus and train from the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Toronto
where he lived to the tissue engineering lab at the University of Toronto and develop three-dimensional, in-vitro models of tumors using
biomaterials.For three years, Lakhani worked in the lab, before going on to study nanotechnology engineering at the University of Waterloo a
It was there, in his first year, that Lakhani met another Richmond Hill resident, Keean Sarani, and launched Avro Life Science.Sarani, also
21, had his own history in life sciences
A former epidemiologist who worked as a research assistant at the aptly named Hospital for Sick Children, Sarani spent his high school years
working in community pharmacies before going on to graduate from the University of Waterloo with both an Honours Science degree and a
Within months of their first meeting the two decided to start working on the company that would become Avro.They formally launched the
pharmacies and treating patients and Lakhani in chemistry and material science, the two hit on the idea of drug delivery and patches.Avro
Life Science co-founders Keean Sarani and Shak LakhaniThe two initially toyed with a multivitamin patch for daily health, but through the
sniffles, watery eyes and sneezes of perennial allergy sufferers the two hit on the idea of an antihistamine patch to cure their own
ailments.The two won their first pitch competition three months after hitting on the initial idea in March 2016, and formally incorporated
their business in November 2016.Fast-forward two years and the two co-founders are just about ready to make the final preparations for the
first product with help from an initial seed round from investors led by Fifty Years, with participation from Susa Ventures, Garage Capital,
Heuristic Capital, Embark Ventures, Uphonest Capital and Buckley Endeavours
Individual angel investors also participated in the round
In all, Avro has about $2.2 million in the bank.According to Lakhani, the company has already developed a polymer that allows Avro to make
patches that can deliver hundreds of different drugs
They are micro-adhesives in the patch
contact with (and heat from) the skin causes the bubbles to break and deliver any drugs in an unadulterated form to the bloodstream, Lakhani
viability of its delivery system.Down the road, the company also has some pretty impressive pharmaceutical partners that it could tap
Avro is already working with Bayer as part of their accelerator program in Toronto, and that may lead to a deeper relationship down the
envision bringing a number of other patches to market for drugs addressing neurodegenerative diseases, cardiac health, analgesics and many
Initially, Avro can manufacture and sell patches carrying generics direct to consumer to address issues like compliance with children and
This means pharma can rescue drugs that just barely failed in Phase III
