A new Canadian partnership announced last month intends to develop and market brain fitness products and services to extend memory and cognitive abilities. Baycrest, recognized as one of the world’s leading cognitive science centres, has joined with innovation centre, MaRS to form a for-profit company called Cogniciti to compete in the growing brain fitness market.

Baycrest president and CEO, Dr. William Reichman made the announcement at the Ontario Innovation Summit: The Business of Aging, an international conference underway held at MaRS in Toronto. "Innovation partnerships between science and technology are essential if we want to improve the brain health of aging Ontarians and others around the world," said Dr. Reichman. Creating a commercialized science enterprise was a natural step in the evolution of the Baycrest Centre for Brain Fitness, launched in April 2008 with the support of a $10-million investment from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, matching an additional $10 million from private donors, he said.

Baycrest and MaRS see an opportunity to capture the pole position for brain fitness products, a market with potential to grow to between $1 billion to $5 billion by 2015, according to U.S. market research firm SharpBrains (May ’09).

Products expected to be developed include: cognitive assessment software that allows clinicians to measure, in a simple and rapid manner, memory and processing in people who have had a stroke, may have Alzheimer’s or other memory challenges; brain fitness programs to help healthy aging adults (ages 45-75) maintain their cognitive functions, plus an additional product suite for caregivers to provide cognitive rehabilitation to people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia who live in long-term care facilities and retirement homes.

Prior to the formal launch, Baycrest and MaRS have been working together for three years to assemble research assets and develop the commercialization plan for Cogniciti. Test-marketing will soon begin for its first product, Memory@Work™, a corporate training program using memory strategies to improve personal performance in the workplace. Brain exercise games for mobile devices and the web will be test marketed in the next two years.