Chilean technology breaks into the cleaning products market

In just over three years, the disinfectant Dacetix went from the lab to the market, thanks to an alliance with the company Excell Chile brokered by Know Hub Chile, a corporation that works with universities and research centers to bring their scientific results to market.

Dacetix disinfects both food and surfaces, is safe for human consumption and requires no rinsing.

Know Hub Chile, a corporation that seeks to turn science from universities and research centers into products and services, brokered the “Scale-Up and Commercialization Agreement” between the technology-based startup BM iTek and the cleaning products company Excell Chile.

In 2019, BM iTek, the startup that created the Dacetix technology, was one of the finalists of the first cohort of Know Hub Ignition, a program that supports the creation and acceleration of technology-based startups by identifying and training high-potential teams, helping them build a value proposition, and validating and scaling their product or service.

“Although in this case it took us only a couple of months to put this agreement between Dacetix and Excell Chile together, behind it lies very intense work that requires a highly specialized, multidisciplinary, committed and well-connected team across every link of the business value chain,” says Javier Ramírez, Executive Director of Know Hub Chile, an institution supported by Corfo.

Every year, 10% of the world’s population falls ill from eating contaminated food; perhaps the best-known cases are caused by Salmonella and Listeria bacteria. With that problem in mind, young microbiologist Luis Aguilar (31) developed the Dacetix technology, an industrial and household disinfectant for food and surfaces that solved a series of challenges based essentially on a single premise: Dacetix is a blend of compounds “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Achieving that formulation brought nothing but benefits. For example, the product is non-toxic, so it can be applied directly to food and is even safe for human consumption. It also requires no rinsing, which saves time in production processes. Finally, it is environmentally friendly, no small matter in a traditionally chemical-based industry such as cleaning.

All these features caught the attention of Excell Chile, which decided to scale up and commercialize Dacetix. “We are very pleased with this partnership with Know Hub Chile and BM iTek, which will allow us to offer the market new products that are innovative, efficient, effective and harmless to the environment: in short, products for today and for the future,” explains chemist Marcial Fernández, Product Manager at Excell Chile.

“This agreement, which will bring a technology developed in Chile to market, is the result of a series of visionary public policies focused on technology transfer. In this case, the whole process from lab to market took just over three years, which shows that applied research and the support of specific public programs are exceptional catalysts,” adds Fernando Hentzschel, Technology Capabilities Manager at Corfo.

The concrete idea for Dacetix emerged in late 2016, when Aguilar won a Fondef University Research Valorization (VIU) grant from the National Research and Development Agency, ANID (formerly Conicyt), applying with the results of his master’s thesis in microbiology at the Universidad de Concepción (UdeC), co-owner of the Dacetix technology. Thanks to this grant, Aguilar improved the Dacetix formulation so that it acts on a wider range of pathogens. A Corfo Flexible Seed Subsidy (SSAF) followed and, in parallel, participation in Know Hub Ignition.

“Most research is done at universities, so the field isn’t that broad. Technology-based entrepreneurship is a showcase, an opportunity for people with scientific skills beyond teaching and publishing papers,” says Aguilar, CEO of BM iTek, a startup whose team also includes Dr. Nathaly Ruiz-Tagle, a molecular biologist in charge of science; Marjorie Obreque, in operations; and Lucas Rebolledo, in sales.