How we support health and medical innovators
Conestoga’s BioHub partners with companies, startups, and organizations across the health, medical, pharmaceutical, and medtech sectors to move ideas to reality.
From early problem definition and proof-of-concept through to product design and validation testing, the BioHub team provides the technical expertise, facilities, and applied research support needed to turn concepts into real-world solutions.
BioHub researchers and technical experts work directly alongside partners by actively designing, testing, and validating solutions together.
Our areas of expertise include:
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Women’s health device development
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Pharmaceutical quality control method development
End-to-end support, all in one place
The BioHub works with partners at every stage of development, including:
- Early concepts and feasibility
- Proof-of-concept and prototyping
- Testing and pre-validation
- Validation and performance testing
- Commercialization readiness
Research applications
The BioHub's services support a variety of research applications, including:
Histology and pathology: disease biomarker discovery, analysis of tissue response, damage, and repair.
- These support early‑stage evaluation of new products, help assess their safety, and determine whether they are biologically viable for further development.
Blood analysis: analysis of blood cell count, clotting factors, and electrolytes, and validation of circulating biomarkers.
- These services help teams understand how treatments or medical technologies affect the body and generate the data needed to guide early discovery and support preclinical evaluation.
Immunology: investigation of immune cell populations and antibodies, and their responses to treatments or medical devices.
- These methods help teams evaluate how compounds, biologics, or devices engage with the immune system, providing insights that guide development and inform safety and efficacy decisions.
Pharmaceutical development: efficacy, safety, and mechanisms of action
- These services help accelerate the development and optimization of pharmaceuticals and novel therapeutics.
The services provided at the BioHub are for research purposes only as this is not a third-party certified lab or provide diagnostics.
Equipment and instrumentation
- HistoCore Arcadia C+H for tissue processing and embedding.
- HistoCore BIOCUT Microtomes for tissue sectioning.
- DxH 690T and XNL 430: For complete blood counts (CBC), providing comprehensive analysis of blood samples, including red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and reticulocytes.
- ACL Elite and ACL TOP 350CTS for measuring clotting factors in blood plasma
- GEM 5000 for real-time measurement of blood gases, pH, electrolytes, metabolites, and CO-oximetry.
Instrumentation highlights
AU480 Chemical Analyser
The AU480 is a wet chemistry analyser that carries out a range of diagnostic functions on urine and serum samples. It performs a large array of tests such as measuring proteins, electrolytes, therapeutic drugs and drugs of abuse.
ACL TOP 350CTS
The ACL measures clotting factors in blood plasma samples by detecting changes over time to determine patients with blood clotting diseases such as Hemophilia, von Willibrand's disease, and monitoring space anticoagulant use.
Echo Lumena
The Echo Lumena is a fully automated blood bank instrument used to determine blood type and presence of antibodies using small microwell strips. Assays include ABO and Rh (D) typing, IgG antibody detection, compatibility testing between donor and recipient, and red blood cell phenotyping.
The Access 2
The Access 2 performs immunoassays that measure hormones and antibodies in patient samples. This allows technologists to diagnose things such as autoimmune disorders, detect reproductive hormones, and cardiac markers.