Saint John-based Enovex hopes to form a partnership with a larger industrial gas company by late March 2013 to help commercialize its flagship compound that aids the production of oxygen for medical and industrial markets.

The company, whose investors include East Valley Venture’s Gerry Pond and GrowthWorks Atlantic, began as a cleantech company developing a material that would capture carbon emitted by coal-fired electricity generation. However, it pivoted late last year so that it is now commercializing a compound that helps to make the production of commercial oxygen more efficient.

What that means is that the material could be used for a smaller, lighter and more convenient breathing apparatus for people who need to have an oxygen supply with them at all times. Roughly 10 percent of most populations are stricken by breathing disorders, and this demographic continues to grow steadily. By 2020, it is estimated that it will be the third leading cause of death, said Enovex CEO Scott Walton in an interview.

The company is now evaluating how the product will be manufactured in large volumes and who they will work with to achieve this, said Walton.

“We’re scaling up [the development of] the core material so we can commercially test the product,” he said.

Enovex first drew attention last year when it was a finalist in New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s Breakthru competition, which assesses companies at the conceptual stage. It then attracted funding from a group of investors surrounding Pond and in March 2012 received a $1.1 million venture capital investment from GrowthWorks Atlantic. Walton is now working on a second funding round with a target of $2 million, which he hopes to close in the next six months.

Describing the company’s pivot, Walton said people were excited about the material that captured carbon, but there was not a large immediate market for it because of the absence of regulations enforcing carbon capture in coal-fired electricity generation. So, the team began to work on an absorbent compound that separated nitrogen and oxygen, releasing the latter.

Shortly afterward, the company struck an R&D partnership with the Indian Institute of Science. Vaidhya Ramanathan, a senior Enovex scientist, began to work with a team of PhDs at the institute on commercializing the compound, a white powdery substance that resembles flour.

Walton said the company has settled into a pattern of work in which the Indian team works on the development of the compound during its working hours each day, then hands off to the Saint John team,  which is working with the device that can use the compound.

The decision to find the right partner will go hand-in-hand with several related decisions. The partner will likely decide what market the medical device is launched in first, and work out how to gain regulatory approval for it.

Enovex will have to decide where it will manufacture the absorbent compound used in the device. Walton will have to examine such factors as the country’s laws, business conditions, export policies and the like.