Pharmacy technology & drug compounding · Reformulated medications
KemNet
A software platform, built in Edmonton, that routes Alberta prescribers and pharmacies to compounding labs for reformulated medications, from children’s pain relief during a national shortage to hormone creams for menopause and gender transition. Founded in 2022 and part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch, with no funding round or SEC filing found on the public record.
The order that skips the manufacturer
A prescriber logs into KemNet and orders a drug in a form that isn’t on the shelf: acetaminophen syrup dosed for a toddler, a hormone cream instead of an injection, a pill reformulated so it doesn’t need to be swallowed whole. A participating pharmacy confirms the details with the customer, then engages a compounding laboratory, which formulates the product and ships it back to the pharmacy for pickup or delivery, all within 24 hours according to the company. Customers without a prescriber can submit their own request, and a pharmacist follows up to assess it.
That is the mechanism KemNet built to respond to a shortage of children’s Tylenol and Advil in August 2022, later pointed at hormone therapy, hair loss, pain and weight loss drugs.
Compounding, not manufacturing
In Canada, compounding, formulating a drug from ingredients to meet a patient’s needs, is regulated provincially and sits apart from federal manufacturing rules, per Health Canada’s policy on manufacturing and compounding drug products. Compounded prescriptions generally are not assigned a federal Drug Identification Number the way a marketed drug is. That is the lane KemNet’s network sits in: its labs formulate to prescription rather than manufacture a branded product with a DIN.
Health Canada has said drugs are in shortage 10 to 15 per cent of the time, and nearly half of marketed drugs in Canada have faced a shortage, per Taproot Edmonton. “I had this insight that compounding is a viable, scalable solution to drug shortages,” Ọláòṣebìkan told Postmedia in August 2022. Jody Shkrobot, a University of Alberta clinical assistant professor, told the same outlet compounders can source ingredients from different suppliers, which “may give them a little bit more flexibility.”
A pharmacist’s founding story
Ọláòṣebìkan is a licensed clinical pharmacist with more than 13 years of experience and a history of owning pharmacies, a graduate of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Pharmacy now listed among its clinical academic colleagues. She has said the idea for a drug access platform came after travelling through African countries in summer 2018 to study drug equity and shortages. “So if I’m a pharmacist and I’m ordering drugs for my country today, I will not get those drugs for another half a year. Six months.” she said in an interview published by the Social Enterprise Fund, an Edmonton nonprofit funder. “I had come up with this idea that we needed small footprint, preferably modularized, scalable agile medication manufacturing. But I’m a pharmacist, I’m not an engineer.”
The company sits inside a wider venture the founder calls Kemet Group, and its history is told with different starting dates. Taproot Edmonton, reporting in June 2021, wrote that “Kemet was founded in 2016.” The Social Enterprise Fund and Edmonton Unlimited both describe Kemet Advanced Manufacturing, the modular manufacturing arm working out of a pilot lab at the Edmonton Research Park, as founded in 2021, with Ọláòṣebìkan telling the Social Enterprise Fund she “self-funded, built and launched” the lab on July 1, 2021, while recovering from surgery. KemNet, the ordering platform, has a cleaner paper trail: Y Combinator, BetaKit and KemNet’s own LinkedIn page all date it to 2022, and Edmonton Journal reported that Ọláòṣebìkan “started the company in February 2022 to respond to drug shortages.” She also founded the Ribbon Rouge Foundation in 2006, a Black community health equity nonprofit in Alberta, per Taproot Edmonton.
From a shortage tool to a global pitch
KemNet’s first public test came fast. In August 2022, amid a national shortage of children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen, the company launched an online tool at shortages.kemnet.ca connecting prescribers to compounding labs for kid-dosed syrup, gummy and chewable versions of the drugs. By March 2023, Edmonton Journal reported that roughly 3,000 families had used the tool in its first five months, and the company was widening the platform to cover shorted drugs for gender health, listing hormone creams estriol and estradiol, haloperidol, propranolol and nystatin suppositories as newly requestable products. Separately, a 2024 Edmonton Unlimited profile quoted Ọláòṣebìkan estimating her lab had made 4,200 bottles of acetaminophen, ibuprofen, dimenhydrinate and amoxicillin distributed to Alberta pharmacies. The two company-reported figures measure different things and neither has independent confirmation.
The company kept pushing outward. It was one of five Canadian startups at YC’s Summer 2022 Demo Day, per BetaKit. In 2023 it ran a research project with transgender and queer communities supported by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, per Edmonton Unlimited, and went through the Edmonton Regional Innovation Network’s coaching program. In December 2023 it put ads on two Times Square billboards, described as a first step toward a US launch planned for 2025 and a roadmap into Botswana, Mauritius, Lesotho, Kenya, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. A September 2026 GetLatka estimate puts 2025 revenue at about $880,000 with roughly 8 employees, and states no funding has been reported.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Founding date | KemNet is dated February 2022 by Edmonton Journal, Y Combinator, BetaKit and LinkedIn. The wider Kemet venture is dated 2016 by Taproot Edmonton (2021) and 2021 by the Social Enterprise Fund and Edmonton Unlimited. The sources disagree. | Differs across sources |
| Y Combinator participation | Listed on Y Combinator’s own company page and named among five Canadian companies at YC’s Summer 2022 Demo Day by BetaKit. | Public record |
| University of Alberta affiliation | “M Olaoseblkan, BScPharm” appears on the Faculty of Pharmacy’s Clinical Academic Colleagues listing. | Public record |
| Children’s medication shortage response, 2022 | Company says about 3,000 families were served in the tool’s first five months (2023) and, separately, that about 4,200 bottles of four drugs were made (2024). Neither figure is independently verified. | Company-stated |
| Health Canada establishment licence | In 2021 the founder told Taproot Edmonton she was pursuing drug establishment licences for the Kemet facility, a process she said could take up to a year. No later report confirming a licence was found. | Not found |
| 2025 revenue estimate | GetLatka estimates $880,000 in 2025 revenue and about 8 employees, calling the figure an estimate, not a company-confirmed number. | Third-party estimate |
| Funding or investment record | No SEC Form D under KemNet, Kemet Group or a related entity was found, and no press report names a funding round or dollar amount raised. | Not found |
| Grant and accelerator support | The founder told Taproot Edmonton in 2021 that the manufacturing arm had worked with NRC IRAP, the Edmonton Regional Innovation Network and the University of Calgary. A 2023 research project was supported by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, per Edmonton Unlimited. | Independent reporting of a claim |
Read plainly: the platform, its Y Combinator batch and the founder’s University of Alberta credential are on solid public footing. The founding story is told with three different starting years depending on which arm of Kemet is described, and the numbers behind the 2022 shortage response come only from the company, in two forms that do not obviously reconcile. Nothing on the public record shows a completed establishment licence, a funding round or an SEC filing.
What to watch
- Whether KemNet or Kemet Group ever files a Form D or announces a priced funding round.
- Confirmation of a Health Canada establishment licence for the Edmonton Research Park facility.
- Results from the Canadian Women’s Foundation supported research with transgender and queer communities.
- Whether the stated 2025 US launch and the 2023 African roadmap move forward.
In their words
“We are aspiring to be a company that deploys drug manufacturing at scale across the continent.”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, founder and CEO, Edmonton Journal, March 2023 · Independent
“I had this insight that compounding is a viable, scalable solution to drug shortages,”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, Edmonton Journal, August 2022 · Independent
“So if I’m a pharmacist and I’m ordering drugs for my country today, I will not get those drugs for another half a year. Six months.”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, Social Enterprise Fund client interview · Interview
“I had come up with this idea that we needed small footprint, preferably modularized, scalable agile medication manufacturing. But I’m a pharmacist, I’m not an engineer.”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, Social Enterprise Fund client interview · Interview
“The billboard is an incredible opportunity to just educate and create awareness about the importance of the work we do, and how all these underserved populations could be served by this other way,”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, Edmonton Journal, December 2023 · Company release
“Most people don’t realize that when a drug is not available or there’s a drug shortage, a private company can help,”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, Edmonton Journal, December 2023 · Company release
“There's just a quality to Edmonton that allows out-of-the-box thinking to take root and then to have people resource and come around you and support you that way.”
Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, via a CBC interview, quoted by Edmonton Unlimited · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- IndependentEdmonton pharmaceutical startup boosts services for drug shortages, eyes expansion
- IndependentEdmonton tech startup helps flip the script on shortage of kids’ pain medication
- IndependentEdmonton pharmaceutical company featured on NYC Times Square billboard
- IndependentMeet the five Canadian startups participating in Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 Demo Day
- IndependentKemet to build ‘modular’ manufacturing facilities to resolve global drug shortages
- InterviewKemet Advanced Manufacturing, client profile
- IndependentKemet Group, innovation story profile
- InterviewMeet Morenike Eniola Olaosebikan, CEO/Founder Kemet Group
- IndependentKemNet Revenue 2025: $880K Est. ARR
- Public recordClinical Academic Colleagues listing, Faculty of Pharmacy
- Public recordPolicy on Manufacturing and Compounding Drug Products in Canada, POL-0051
- CompanyKemNet company page and launch post
- CompanyKemNet company page
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
