Canadian centres of academic-industry collaboration in the commercialization of health research
The pharmaceutical industry has been increasingly shifting towards more collaborative and externalized R&D. Canada has been playing an important role, given our world-leading science organizations including the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the National Research Council and Genome Canada. These organizations are partnering directly with firms to lead innovation and drive discovery. The government of Canada also put in place programs to ensure Canada can lead in this shift, including the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization of Research (CECRs), Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCEs) and other innovation initiatives such as the Structural Genomics Consortium. The objective of these programs is to encourage more partnerships between academia and industry in order to commercialize Canadian discoveries and put Canada on the global map for innovation. These efforts align and often pre-date new innovation models more recently being pursued by global pharmaceutical companies.
As a result, leading multi-national pharmaceutical companies have responded to these commercialization opportunities within Canadian health research. There are more than fifteen centres where over thirteen pharmaceutical companies have invested a combination of seed money and expertise. These centres are working under different models (i.e. investors, incubators, service providers, open innovation) where companies are participating in financing collaborative research activities, contracting out research, licensing in and out of research output, and providing in-kind support, to providing expertise and consultation, and helping to review projects. In return, firms gain from a range of benefits such as exclusive access to the intellectual property, early access to technology platforms, and contract services.
These Canadian health research and commercialization centres include:
- MaRS Innovation (Commercialization of research)
- NEOMED (Drug discovery and development)
- Center for drug research and development–CDRD (Drug research and development)
- Pan-provincial vaccine enterprise–PREVENT (Human and animal vaccine)
- Center for probe research and development–CPDC (Imaging technologies)
- Institute for research in immunology and cancer–IRICoR (Immunology and cancer)
- Partnership of personalized medicine for cancer–PMPC (Personalized medicine for cancer)
- Prostate Centre's Translational Research Initiative for Accelerated Discovery and Development–PC-TRIADD (Prostate and related cancers)
- Center for commercialization of regenerative medicine–CCRM (Regenerative medicine)
- Center for surgical invention and innovation–CSII (Robotic surgical tools)
- Structural Genomics Consortium–SGC
- Quebec consortium for drug discovery–CQDM (Technology platforms)
The following global pharmaceutical companies have partnered in one or more of these initiatives:
- Abbvie
- AstraZeneca
- Bayer
- Boehringer Ingelheim
- Bristol-Myers Squibb
- GE Healthcare
- GlaxoSmithKline
- Johnson&Johnson/Janssen
- Merck
- Novartis
- Pfizer
- Purdue
- Sanofi
- Takeda
- Teva
Examples of successes arising from these partnerships include:
- A radiopharmaceutical to deliver targeted radiotherapy to metastatic prostate cancer (CPDC and Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals)
- Development of a treatment for early-onset morbid obesity (IRICoR and Pfizer)
- Genomic biomarkers for the treatment of cardiovascular disease (CepMED and Roche)
- Collaborative research to identify and validate molecular targets (PC-TRIADD and Novartis)
- Development a new class of antivirals (NEOMED, contract partners and Centre universitaire de Sherbrooke)
- A partnership in tuberculosis and malaria drug discovery (SCG, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, other academic and industry partners)
- Development of a vaccine designed to prevent Group A streptococcal (GAS) infections (Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise Inc. and Vaxent)
- Discovery of a safe and reliable medical isotope production method in response to eliminate the threat of a worldwide shortage (CPDC and TRIUMF)
- CSII, in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), adapted the Image-Guided Autonomous Robot developed by the CSA for use aboard the International Space Station to develop a new method for detecting breast cancer.
For more information about these centres:
- Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada–Programs Overview
- NEOMED
- Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC)
- Personalized Medicine Partnership for Cancer (PMPC)
Health research institutions and research networks
Canada's extensive network of academic health institutions and research centres includes 17 medical schools, approximately 40 groupings of academic healthcare organizations and about 13,600 researchers, as well as strategically focused research networks. Canada's research excellence is recognized in many therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular, metabolic disorders, neuroscience, oncology, and infectious diseases and vaccines. Canada is a leader in the development of key technology platforms including stem cells and regenerative medicine, genomics and antibody technologies.
Health research networks
Federal research networks
The federal government's Networks of Centres of Excellence Secretariat fosters world-class national research networks focused on key strategic areas of research interest. Three types of networks supporting health-related research and commercialization have been established under the Secretariat, namely, the original Networks of Centres of Excellence, the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research, as well as Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence.
- Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCEs)
The original NCEs are large-scale, academically-led virtual research networks involving partners from academia, industry, government and non-profit organizations. There are six biomedical-related NCEs: - Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs)
Aim to create world-class centres to advance research and facilitate commercialization of technologies. There are eleven biomedical-related CECRs:- Accel-Rx
- Centre for Commercialization of Cancer Immunotherapy—C3i
- Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine
- Centre for Drug Research and Development
- Centre for Imaging Technology Commercialization
- Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization
- Centre of Surgical Invention & Innovation
- Centre for the Commercialization of Antibodies and Biologics
- MaRS Innovation
- Natural Products Canada
- NEOMED
- PREVENT (Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise)
- Prostate Centre's Translational Research Initiative for Accelerated Discovery and Development
- Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCE)
Large-scale, collaborative research networks led by the private sector, focussed on specific research needs of industry. There is one biomedical-related BL-NCE:
International research networks
Canadian research institutions and researchers participate in international research networks, including the following:
- International Cancer Genome Consortium (Headquartered in Toronto)
- International Centre for Infectious Diseases (Headquartered in Winnipeg)
- SGC (Structural Genomics Consortium) (Canadian headquarters located in Toronto)
- Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet (Research conducted in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia)