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Dalynn Biologicals |
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June 10, 2019 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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With a Clean Room with Aseptic Pouring Technology, Dalynn Biologicals is supplying Culture Media and Microbiological Supplies to the Healthcare Industry, Clinical, Industrial, Environmental, Veterinary, and Institutional Labs |
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President
Dalynn Biologicals
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – June 10, 2019
CEOCFO: Mr. O’Connell, what is the focus of Dalynn Biologicals today? Mr. O’Connell: We are a manufacturing company that specializes in microbiology products for the healthcare industry, but we also have products for anything to do with microbiology in the industrial, environmental, veterinary, or agricultural industries as well. Our primary product is culture media, and we can custom manufacture any medium for anyone needing culture media in any given industry.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an idea of some of the different products, when people use them, why they need them and why they want to get them from you? Mr. O’Connell: We offer over 2000 different products which we manufacture here in various containers, from petri dishes, to tubes, to vials, and bottles. The formulations are specific to the type of organism that you are looking for from Acinetobacter to Yersinia and everything in between! We have a clean room with aseptic pouring technology, and we have a history of over thirty years of doing it, so we have been in this a long time and it is kind of an art form, so we have perfected the nuances of it. We have a large client base and generally ship fresh media by ground within a 48-hour radius; however, we have also shipped our products air to the international market. We also manufacture freeze-dried product for clients who like to make their own culture media in house.
CEOCFO: You say it is an art form; what have you learned and what do you understand that less experienced people do not? Mr. O’Connell: Using and maintaining aseptic technique, that ensures the medium is poured and remains sterile from the start through to packaging, is the tough part. Ramping-up, going from making one liter to making over 150 liters of culture media, can also be very challenging, and making sure that your media is consistent and of high quality, and just the technology involved with that.
CEOCFO: Why is it so hard to have a sterile environment? What might you do to improve sterility?
Mr.
O’Connell:
Obviously organisms are everywhere in our environment, so we have built a
clean room for our manufacturing, where the product is sterilized, cooled,
labeled and packaged in this room so that this multi-step process is all
done in a sterile environment. The people that sell you the pouring machines
will say this can be put in a room in a country that has 90 degree weather
and an open window for ventilation. We have gone beyond that to make a
quality product, consistently! CEOCFO: Are there industries where you see more growth than others, such as the cannabis industry? Mr. O’Connell: Absolutely, with the cannabis industry being legalized in Canada we see huge opportunity for growth in this industry! We had a client from Agriculture Canada, that left there to work with a licensed cannabis producer. They were manufacturing their own tissue culture media at their facility, however meeting us gave them the opportunity to contract this manufacturing to us. So they came to us and said “If you guys make culture media, you can make tissue culture media,” so we did our research into this field and started developing a product line for the licensed producers that use the mediums for micropropagation and cloning of their cannabis strains. This cloning process helps to ensure that the genomics of their strains are maintained.
CEOCFO: Are there particular challenges for doing that? Mr. O’Connell: It is quite the learning curve actually. It is a simple process but the technique and ability to do it, is quite involved. To take a clipping from a mother plant into a sterile medium that we manufacture, that has all the nutrients, minerals, growth hormones and water, and an environment that is sterile, aseptic and easy to grow in, is one step. To take it from this environment once it has rooted and planting it in soil is a whole other animal! The acclimatization aspect to nurture the plant from a sterile environment to another alien environment is definitely the tough part. It takes ten to fourteen days to acclimatize the plant, and that is the learning curve we are going through right now.
CEOCFO: How do you gain attention from the industry, particularly at a conference? Mr. O’Connell: We just let people know that we have been manufacturing aseptically for thirty years. This history bodes well with people as it shows them we have persevered. We have been doing this a long time so it certainly gives us a better foothold in the door. In just attending these shows, we did Niagara last year and maybe fifteen people knew what we did, but when we attended the Toronto show this year, maybe 150 people knew what we did, so it is the way of the future for sure, for cannabis. Especially in the medical field where it is proven that tissue culture maintains the genomics of the plant time after time to ensure consistent quality!
CEOCFO: Do you need to expand your facilities, or how do you ramp-up if this becomes a big part of what you are doing? Mr. O’Connell: No there is not a lot of ramping-up to do since we have a lot of equipment and technology here, it is just a matter of sourcing the materials, which we have done from overseas and have in-stock. We have the sterilizers and the systems here to ramp-up, so that is not a big issue at all.
CEOCFO: Does the equipment change much, are their new versions or is it pretty tried and true for what you are doing? Mr. O’Connell: I would say it is pretty tried and true. There is definitely new technology and electronic systems for the equipment but autoclaves & reactors are still used to sterilize the media, which are basically big pressure cookers. It is the same old technology with better designs.
CEOCFO: Are there any regulatory issues or guidelines you fall under if you are working with cannabis, or is it just not a part of the arena that has to follow protocol? Mr. O’Connell: We do not have to follow the cannabis regulation act because our product is a sterile growth medium that we supply to growers, but of course they have to follow the regulatory guidelines as a licensed producer. There are no harmful components in the mediums and most of these mediums were developed for the tobacco industry; we just have to ensure that our product performs, and we have full control of that.
CEOCFO: Do most people come to you knowing what they want or do you need to help your customers figure out what they should be doing? Mr. O’Connell: Most of them know what they want, they just need a source, so once they find us, they might want to customize their formulation, by adding enrichments, antibiotics or inhibitors, and we can do that. Generally, our customers know what they want.
CEOCFO: Your site mentions reliable technical support. Would you tell us how that comes in to play? Mr. O’Connell: We have a microbiologist on staff that has a history in the food industry and the clinical industry now, so he is our expert in the field. The technical people we have behind him are very well-versed in what we do and what we can offer as well.
CEOCFO: What surprised you has Dalynn has grown and evolved? Mr. O’Connell: Just how long we have been in business. I originally saw the new technology that was coming out and I thought we had a twenty-year lifespan, it has been over thirty years and I do not see it changing. Petri dishes and culture media is old technology, but it is economical, easy to use, and it is what the healthcare institutions are gearing towards. They are automating their equipment, but they are still using culture media as the backbone for diagnosis. The product we make is classical, but it is not going anywhere in the near future!
CEOCFO: What is ahead for Dalynn and what might be different a year from now? Mr. O’Connell: We have new equipment on order to ramp-up production even more, as the knowledge of microbiology is only increasing. According to the New York Times: According to a new estimate, there are about one trillion species of microbes on Earth, and 99.999 percent of them have yet to be discovered. There will always be a demand for new products for the healthcare industry. Regarding the cannabis industry, it is only in its infancy. Scientists are only scratching the surface with the 483 known compounds in cannabis. Tissue culture media is the way of the future, as you can have a mother plant in a vessel the size of a baby food jar, instead of a 10’ x 10’ room, and can clone from it perpetually, keeping the genomics of a valued stain indefinitely! This is a burgeoning industry that we will never again see in our lifetime…and I am so looking forward to being involved in it!
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“Regarding the cannabis industry, it is only in its infancy. Scientists are only scratching the surface with the 483 known compounds in cannabis. Tissue culture media is the way of the future, as you can have a mother plant in a vessel the size of a baby food jar, instead of a 10’ x 10’ room, and can clone from it perpetually, keeping the genomics of a valued stain indefinitely! This is a burgeoning industry that we will never again see in our lifetime…and I am so looking forward to being involved in it!”- David O'Connell
Dalynn Biologicals
Contact: David O’Connell 403-536-7430
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David O'Connell