Thanks to Source Nutraceutical Inc., at least some of the thousands of Manitobans with dry skin may now have the chance to turn the affliction into cold hard cash.
SNI, the province’s only independent clinical research organization, offers a broad ranges of services for companies looking to test pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products. It just completed (in record time) a climate-controlled space to conduct consumer safety trials for cosmetics.
The 20-person operation built the facility to satisfy a multi-national cosmetics company with all sorts of consumer brands on the market that wanted to test products on people with dry skin.
So, of course, it thought of winter time in Winnipeg.
Bernie Desgagnés, CEO and founder of SNI, said the 1,000-square-foot climate control room was built in two months to be able to accommodate its first trial this past winter, with 20 participants whose skin had already been exposed to the province’s famous cold, dry winter weather.
But it’s not all fun and games for the participants in the product testing trials.
In the austere, unadorned climate control space, about 50 chairs are spaced far enough apart folks can’t conveniently chat with each other. Large signs remind people to turn cellphones off, refrain from reading, talking, listening to music, eating, drinking — basically to avoid enjoying themselves in any way.
However, for that they are paid anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to $1,000, depending on how many times the trial requires them to be tested.
There are other facilities in North America that could handle the work, but they weren’t all located with a good selection of the right kind of dry skin. And Desgagnés has a track record of being ready to act to take advantage of opportunities.
After working in the regulatory and government affairs side of the pharmaceutical business, he started SNI 20 years ago when the pharmaceutical consulting company he worked for moved to Toronto.
Instead of moving, he started his own business as a regulatory service provider to help international nutraceutical companies navigate new Canadian regulations that were just coming into effect at the time.
He’s layered on additional services over the years, so it’s now a turnkey operation willing to do what it takes to service its clients.
“The regulatory regime is different (between pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetics),” he said. “They are all governed under Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S., but the principal behind them all are basically the same: to prove that they’re safe and to support the claims of efficacy.”
Just as it got into consumer safety trials to service a particular customer, it started its clinical trial operation in 2020 working with a Manitoba pharmaceutical company Scimar Ltd., building a customized facility to handle clinical trials for the novel diabetes diagnostics it is developing.
Desgagnés had been eyeing the clinical trial business since Hill Top Research Corp., the only local independent clinical trial organization at the time, closed its Winnipeg operation more than five years ago.
Scimar was all set to start a trial at a clinical trial facility associated with a Winnipeg hospital just as the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
“We ended up moving over to work with the SNI team and they became this amazing partner for us,” said Mick Lautt, CEO of Scimar. “It was quite a significant achievement on our collective parts to make sure it continues on during COVID when everyone else was shuttering facilities. They stepped up and have been an amazing partner ever since.”
SNI now has the infrastructure to officer regulatory consulting, compliant labelling design (including translation services into French) and clinical trials.
From a 5,000-sq.-ft. facility tucked behind a Fort Garry industrial park, as well as a 1,000-sq.-ft. clinical trial space on Munroe Avenue, the company can provide the kind of services Canadian or international companies may need in order to get regulatory clearance for drugs, natural food products, medical devices and cosmetics into markets around the world.
Krista Coventry, SNI seniors director of clinical affairs and regulatory strategy, said the company takes every measure to ensure compliance, including referring every trial it does to a third-party ethics board.
She told a recent potential new client SNI’s best selling feature is its commitment to quality.
“We provide a level of service, making sure everything is done to international standards so that participants have a good experience and research is done as best it can be done in a timely manner,” she said.
Desgagnés said the climate-controlled space is just the first phase. It will soon be installing sinks for shampoo testing and plans are already in place to build a blood and chemical testing lab bringing another major element of SNI’s business in-house.
Source: Winnipeg Free Press