The field of biotechnology is constantly evolving. It encompasses everything that harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop technologies and products that will improve our lives and the health of our planet. This is Michelle Currie with the breaking biotechnology news of the week from Biotechnology Focus radio.

Today, I will be discussing how a Canadian drug firm was fined this week for overcharging the U.K. health system roughly £34 million pounds; how the University of Alberta’s researchers have built on the studies from the Edmonton Protocol’s in hopes of making a powerful revolution in diabetes treatment; the release of the first digital pill that will track when it has been ingested; and, how partnerships, like Hoffmann-La Roche Limited and the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Master of Biotech program are fruitful and beneficial – allowing this metropolitan stem hub to reap the awards of such collaborations.

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Britain’s National Health Services has slapped a £34 million (equivalent to $57.5 million dollars Canadian) to drug company Concordia International for allegedly overcharging the health provider by more than $169 million over a period of 10 years for the sale of a thyroid drug used by thousands of patients.

According to the United Kingdom’s Competition Markets Authority, this Ontario-based specialist in generic and legacy pharmaceutical products jacked up the price of its liothyronine drug from £4.46 ($7.54) in 2007 to £258.19 ($436.59) in July this year – that’s an increase of almost 6,000 per cent.

The price hike caused Britain’s National Health Services’ bill for the drug to shoot to £34 million ($54.5 million) in 2016 from what was formerly about £600,000 ($1 million) in 2015.

The Competition Markets Authority began its price investigations in October 2016 and issued a statement of objection to Concordia and the former owners of the company’s international segment in relation to the pricing of liothyronine in the U.K. from November 2007 to July 2017.

The drug company is refuting the allegations of overcharging.

However, there have been several instances in the past when Concordia had raised its drug prices. For instance, in May last year, the company raised the price in the U.K. of its eye drops for bacterial conjunctivitis by 5,700 per cent. Concordia was the sole distributor of the medication in the country.

The Concordia case is just one of a number of competition markets authority’s cases in the pharmaceutical sector, including a recent fine against Pfizer and Flynn Pharma of nearly £90 million in relation to excessive and unfair prices for anti-epilepsy treatment, phenytoin sodium capsules.

Concordia said it will review the Competition markets authority’s preliminary position and that it will continue to “work cooperatively as the CMA proceeds with its investigation.”

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In the late 1990s, transplant surgeon Dr. James Shapiro and fellow researchers at the University of Alberta developed a method of implantation of pancreatic islets for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.

The work was done by Shapiro and Drs. Jonathan Lakey, Edmond Ryan, Gregory Korbutt, Ellen Toth, Garth Warnock, Norman Kneteman, and Ray Rajotte who would later be known as the Edmonton

Protocol. The treatment garnered worldwide attention in the field of diabetes research because seven patients treated with the Edmonton Protocol remained insulin-independent after an average of 12 months.

Nearly twenty years later, UAlberta researchers are seeking to build upon the success of the protocol with two novel diabetes trials underway.

Dr. James Shapiro commented in a recent interview with the University of Alberta’s journalism site, Folio, that, “today, we’re moving to the next level, expanding on past discoveries and tackling their limitations in the journey toward a powerful revolution in diabetes treatment,”

One project involves implanting a device that is as thin as a credit card into a patient. The device will contain human insulin-producing stem cells that are shielded from the body’s immune system.

The other research project aims to reverse Type 1 diabetes in newly diagnosed patients. In Type 1, the body’s immune system attacks its beta cells which are responsible for producing insulin in the pancreas, said Peter Senior, an endocrinologist, and member of Shapiro’s research group.

He said they are trying a cocktail of drugs that are meant to reprogram the body’s immune system and save the beta cells. However, they have encountered some challenges along the way.

In the first project, scar tissue began developing around the implanted device, which blocked the secretion of insulin. This has promoted the researchers to redesign the model of the device to facilitate survival of more stem cells. For further information, please visit the university’s website.

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The US Food and Drug Administration approves the first-ever digital pill. The pill has its own ingestible digital tracking system embedded into Abilify MyCite to record that the medication was taken. The original product was approved for schizophrenia, acute treatment of manic and mixed episodes associated with bipolar disorder and for use as an add-on treatment for depression in adults back in 2002, but stems to the possibility that this concept could be more widely used in the future.

The system works by sending a message from the pill’s sensor to a wearable patch. The patch transmits the information to a mobile application so that patients can track the ingestion of the medication on their smartphone or IPad. Patients can also permit their caregivers and physician to access the information through a web-based portal.

The mental diseases this pill could stand to benefit are debilitating ones. Diseases that could cause considerable influxes in erratic behaviour that the tracking of medication might help avoid.

Abilify MyCite contains a boxed warning alerting healthcare professionals of the possible side-effects that should be heeded, especially with elderly dementia-related psychosis.

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Lastly this week, whether you know Mississauga as “Pill Hill” or “Pharma Alley”, you’ll know that there is some major work going on that has created one of the largest life sciences clusters in North America. Affectionately nicknamed by its residents, Mississauga is tirelessly growing and continuing to build this

recently acclaimed second-largest Canadian life sciences hub. The city has an abundance of researchers, scientists, technicians, students and skilled labourers that encompass this booming market.

However, it didn’t just happen overnight.

During an interview with Ronnie Miller, the president and CEO of Hoffmann-La Roche Limited, Roche Canada, he described Mississauga as having “a lot of first-class research centres”, referring to the many universities and health networks in the surrounding area that make these, plus the number of companies and graduates, quick access to entertainment, the airport, and a highly skilled labour force the perfect place to be.

At least one of these institutions has forged a successful partnership with several of the companies that reside in the Mississauga region. The University of Toronto launched their Masters of Biotechnology program at its Mississauga campus back in 2001 with 100 per cent co-op placement since inception and has been working closely with Roche Canada since their first cohort of students in 2002.

Many of the past students expressed how the experience they had at Roche was invaluable and that they felt like an employee, as opposed to a co-op student. Likewise, the staff at Roche Canada appreciate the student’s contributions and bring fresh eyes to the table.

Mississauga continues to be a growing metropolitan in the greater Toronto area with an ever-expanding sector in life sciences. It has the capacity to attract, train, and retain skilled workers for the biotech sector. Recapturing Ronnie Miller’s statement, “It is the perfect place to be.”

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Well that’s it for this week’s update from Biotechnology Focus. For more information on any of the articles please visit our website at biotechnologyfocus.ca. Next week we will be conducting an interview with Michael Stopay, from Pacer Air Freight, about how their family-run life science focused Canadian logistics company outsource and how that can benefit a substantial number of businesses across North America and abroad. From my desk to yours – this is Michelle Currie.