Business View Magazine | December 2020

137 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2020 A&C . to move swiftly with vaccine development. Business View recently spoke with A&C President and CEO, Ken McCracken; Sales & Marketing Director, Gearoid O’Rourke; and VP of Business Development, Luc Miron about their revolutionary company and the vital services it is performing for the global good. The following is an edited version of our conversation. BVM: Can you describe the beginnings and evolution of A&C? Ken McCracken: “A&C was founded by two individuals who had been working for a major pharmaceutical company here in Montreal for several years. They were developing different products and services within the company that they felt could possibly serve the industry as a whole. Consequently they decided to venture out, put up their own shingle, and started selling into the industry from a garage. They began developing and manufacturing different lab chemicals and reagents and, as the business grew, a lot of those products became ingredients within different products. The company also evolved with its quality systems along the way to support that. When Luc and I acquired the business in 2003, it was a company with potential that the existing ownership had wanted to keep at a manageable size. “We saw the diamond in the rough and decided to focus our business on expanding the services we can offer our customer base in the pharmaceutical sector. Subsequent to that, we recognized a need based on demands by our customers to meet their requirements, not only here in Canada, but on an international scale. So we established a U.S. entity, as well as an entity in Ireland to service the needs of Europe. Since then, we’ve gained a considerable amount of traction within the overall pharmaceutical market with many of the major players. Being able to service their needs on a global basis has helped us position ourselves well within the marketplace.”