How did a farm boy from Prince Edward Island become a succesful businessman, mentor and community philanthropist? In 1970, Regis Duffy %38212; then dean of science at UPEI — started a small chemical reagent company to create summer jobs for his students. Diagnostic Chemicals and its offspring, BioVectra, soon grew into global competitors in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industry, employed hundreds of Islanders, and provided a model for entrepreneurship and economic development in Canada's smallest province. The key to his success? As Regis once said, "Innovate or die; the atlernative is not that appealing."

The Chemistry of Innovation tells the behind the scenes story of DCL: the growing pains and leaps of faith of a comunity-minded business. To Regis, his team was everything. They were the creators, the innovators, the researchers who spent hot summers in the lab, the sales reps who found markets and won the business. This people-centred approach allowed DCL to grow from a makeshift basement lab into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and planted the seed for a thrving biotech industry.

Mo Duffy Cobb has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been published in The Rumpus, Literary Mama, Red, Damselfly Press, and Understorey Magazine. She is the editor of Cargo Literary, an online magazine that publishes transformational travel experiences. She lives in Prince Edward Island with her husband and three small children.

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Lori Mayne is a writer, researcher, and editor, as well as a writing instructor at the University of Prince Edward Island. Her research and editing projects have included Owen Connolly: The Making of a Legacy 1820-2016.A former journalist, she won the Island Literary Award for creative non-fiction for a personal essay in 2012.

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