The corporate casualties in Ottawa’s photonics sector continue to mount with the failure of yet another high-profile optical start-up. Innovance Networks will likely cease operations after laying off its entire staff this week. It joins a growing list of firms that have gone under or shut down local operations, including Ceyba Corp, Silicon Access Networks, Accelight Networks, Trillium Photonics Inc, Zenastra Photonics Inc, Optovation Inc and Lantern Communications.

The photonics firms — virtually all within the telecom networking space — received approximately $500 million in financing prior to the telecom meltdown. The slow recovery of the sector has made it extremely difficult for start-ups to translate their technologies into successful products. But anyone sounding the death knell of the photonics sector may be jumping the gun.

“There’s no doubt that the photonics side of the telecom sector has taken a hit in the past few years but there are signs of a recovery,” says Dr Gerald Lynch, president/CEO of Photonics Research Ontario. “The upside is there’s availability of people and technologies as the sector expands into the bio side — biophotonics.”

Lynch says that in addition to biophotonics, the automotive sector holds considerable promise for the industry. But he isn’t counting out the telecom sector out.

“There was more of a crisis last year than this year but we’re still seeing some fallout like Innovance,” he says. “Photonics is the technology of the future but these firms haven’t figured out how to move from R&D to products.”

Despite the rash of corporate failures hitting the sector, plans are progressing on the public infrastructure front to support future growth. The National Research Council’s Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre is currently under construction which will help start-ups conduct front-end prototyping and more established firms fine tune new product offerings.

“It’s not a question of whether there will be a recovery, but when,” says Lynch. “These companies got caught in a time squeeze.”

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