On this weeks show, Accelerating precision medicine for cancer patients, Avivagen partners with NRC to tackle antibiotic resistance in humans, and Knight buys in on an Israeli biotech,

We have all this and more on this week’s Biotechnology Focus Radio Show Podcast.

Welcome to another episode of Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence, here to give you a rundown of this week’s top stories on the Canadian biotech scene,

Story
Montreal’s Knight Therapeutics-a specialty pharma company reports it is taking a small stake in an Israeli-based company, Protalix BioTherapeutics, through the acquisition of 6,200,000 common shares of the company at an average price of US$0.57 per share. With the purchase, Knight now owns approximately five per cent of the outstanding common shares of Protalix. The shares were purchased by Abir Therapeutics Ltd., Knight’s wholly-owned Israeli headquartered subsidiary, which owns 28.3 per cent of Medison Pharma (Medison), Israel’s third largest pharmaceutical company ranked by revenues. It is anticipated that Medison will provide selected services to Abir in order to launch innovative pharmaceuticals in Israel.  Protalix, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company is focused on the development and commercialization of recombinant therapeutic proteins expressed through its proprietary plant cell-based expression system, ProCellEx®. Protalix’s first product manufactured by ProCellEx, taliglucerase alfa, was approved for marketing by the U.S. FDA.

Story
In VICTORIA, BC, Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. reports it has selected Worldwide Clinical Trials as its Clinical Research Organization (CRO) for the company’s AURORA Phase 3 study of volcosporin for the treatment of active lupus nephritis (LN). Voclosporin, an investigational drug, is calcineurin inhibitor and immunosuppressant. According to the company, by inhibiting calcineurin, voclosporin blocks IL-2 expression and T-cell mediated immune responses. It is made by a modification of a single amino acid of the cyclosporine molecule which has shown a more predictable pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic relationship, an increase in potency, an altered metabolic profile, and potential for flat dosing.  Lupus Nephritis (LN) in an inflammation of the kidney caused by Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and represents a serious progression of SLE. SLE is a chronic, complex and often disabling disorder and affects more than 500,000 people in the United States (mostly women). With the selection of Worldwide, Aurinia will now proceed with conducting a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind global 52-week trial in approximately 320 patients. The primary endpoint as in the Phase 2b AURA trial is renal response (complete remission), at 24 weeks. In addition to the assessment of renal response, a key marker of clinical benefit in this population is the duration of proteinuria improvement. Therefore, secondary endpoints will include the duration of renal response at 52 weeks (48 weeks in AURA), an efficacy measure which delineates durability of renal response (remission), an important parameter in evaluating long-term outcomes for the treatment of LN.

Story
On the business front, Mississauga’s Aralez Pharmaceuticals announced last week that it is opening new offices in Dublin, Ireland. The company, which focuses on cardiovascular, pain and other specialty areas, says it plans to add more highly skilled jobs in Dublin by the end of 2017, and use these offices as a launching pad for expansion into the broader European Union market. The Dublin offices are Aralez's first permanent business premises outside of North America.

Story

New findings published in Nature are highlighting the potential of a new messenger RNA vaccine to protect against Zika virus. Acuitas Therapeutics Inc., a private biotechnology company based in Vancouver published the data demonstrating that single low dose immunization with a messenger RNA delivered in an Acuitas LNP carrier has the potential to protect against infection by Zika virus. The company is developing a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology for the messenger RNA (mRNA).  In the Nature paper, Acuitas Therapeutics scientists and academic researchers including Dr. Drew Weissman, a professor of Infectious Diseases in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania showed that single low-dose immunization with mRNA-LNP encoding the pre-membrane and envelope (prM-E) glycoproteins of a Zika virus strain responsible for the 2013 outbreak elicited potent, durable and protective neutralizing antibody responses in animals. The company in collaboration with Dr. Weissman say they hope to further advance this exciting new therapeutic modality.

Story
In Ottawa, ON, Avivagen Inc., a life sciences company commercializing products intended to replace the antibiotics added to livestock feeds, with the help of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has launched a new project to establish proof-of-concept for a first human health application of its OxC-beta™ Technology. The technology is derived from Avivagen discoveries about carotenoids, compounds that give certain fruits and vegetables their bright colors and is a non-antibiotic means of maintaining optimal health and growth. OxC-beta™ Livestock is a proprietary product shown to be effective and economic in replacing the antibiotics commonly added to livestock feeds.  Specifically, the project will evaluate the efficacy of OxC-beta™ Technology (“OxC-beta”) in an established research model of an infectious disease of humans. Work will be conducted by NRC experts at its facilities based upon a jointly developed protocol and is expected to be completed in 2017. Dr. James (Jamie) Nickerson, Avivagen’s director of product validation, commented on the project and its objectives, saying the company is pleased to be working with NRC. He adds that OxC-beta has demonstrated safety and effectiveness across more than a dozen livestock trials and those results suggest it could also prove to be important to human health and well-being. Neither the NRC or Avivagen have disclosed the specific disease target at this time, in the hopes of ensuring the patentability of this potential new application for OxC-beta™ technology. What is known is that the disease target is one of the top 18 urgent, serious or concerning drug-resistance threats listed by the United States Centers for Disease Control (the “CDC”).

Story
Vancouver’s Aequus Pharmaceuticals has landed $100,000 in funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program to support the ongoing Proof of Concept clinical study of its lead product candidate, AQS1301, a once-weekly transdermal aripiprazole patch. Aripiprazole is an atypical antipsychotic and the active ingredient in Abilify®, a leading medication in the US used for the treatment of a number of psychiatric disorders including bipolar I disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and irritability associated with autistic disorder. Aripiprazole is currently available in once-daily oral tablets and a once-monthly injectable form, however, medication adherence continues to be a significant challenge for patients. In terms of the clinical study, Aequus anticipates results of this repeat dose, 28-day study in the first quarter of 2017. The results will be used to inform the final design of the patch to be advanced into the regulatory phase of its clinical trials. Aequus expects to confirm its regulatory development plan in a pre-Investigational New Drug (pre-IND) meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the second half of 2017.

Story

In Toronto, Trillium Therapeutics Inc, a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company developing innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer, has initiated dosing in its second Phase 1 clinical trial with TTI-621 in patients with relapsed or refractory percutaneously-accessible solid tumors and mycosis fungoides. Trillium is developing TTI-621 as a novel checkpoint inhibitor of the innate immune system, and the drug is currently being evaluated in an ongoing 10-cohort Phase 1b study in patients with relapsed or refractory hematologic malignancies. The two-part clinical trial is designed as a multi-center, open-label Phase 1a/1b trial, with TTI-621 being evaluated as a single-agent in patients. The escalation phase will include single or multiple doses of TTI-621 delivered by intratumoral injections, which will be followed by an expansion phase during which one or more selected dose levels of TTI-621 will be tested.

Story

Wrapping things up this week, in a national first,t he Terry Fox Research Institute and two leading cancer centres in Canada -- the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto and the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver – are partnering on an innovative pilot project to accelerate precision medicine for their cancer patients. The initiative comes at a time when other developed countries are investing heavily in strategies to improve survival from cancer through precision medicine and increased collaboration. The pilot will provide much-needed evidence on how best to roll out a broader vision for data sharing and collaborative translational and clinical research to enable precision medicine for cancer patients.  The pilot is the first phase for developing and implementing a national program that will link high-performing comprehensive cancer research centres, hospitals and universities and their clinical and laboratory programs across Canada through the Terry Fox Designated Canadian Comprehensive Cancer Centres Network. Through the pilot project, each organization will provide complementary analyses of specimens (e.g. tumour biopsies and blood samples), identify and determine ways to harmonize their research processes, set up an IT infrastructure for data sharing, and develop resources required to conduct multi-centre precision medicine clinical trials.  The initial focus will be on colorectal, ovarian, and prostate cancers, with the goal of improving the health outcomes of patients through treatment by precision medicine. Each organization is contributing $4 million over the next two years for a $12-million total investment that will see multidisciplinary teams focus on four specific research thrusts that are institutional priorities: genomics, immunotherapy, molecular imaging and data sharing.

That concludes another episode of the Biotechnology Focus Podcast. If you like our show, let us know via a twitter, you can We’re also always looking for your feedback, story ideas and suggestions so we’d love to hear from you.  You can also listen to past episodes online via our podcast portal at www.biotechnologyfocus.ca .

For all of us here at Biotechnology Focus, thanks for listening.

Coming up on this week’s show: Pfizer partners with a Canadian biotech on a new therapeutic antibody discovery project, Quark Ventures keeps rolling out the dollars and Bloom Burton & Co. to host its first award gala. We have all this and more on this week’s Biotechnology Focus Podcast.

Welcome to another episode of Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence, here to give you a rundown of this week’s top stories on the Canadian biotech scene.

Story 1 Our first story this week takes us to TORONTO, ON- where Canadian healthcare investment banking firm Bloom Burton & Co., has announced that it will host its inaugural Award Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, ON on September 14, 2017. As part of this special event, the firm also plans to recognize Canada’s Healthcare Industry biggest star with its newly minted ‘Bloom Burton Award.’ According to the firm, it plans to bestow this award annually to an individual scientist, inventor, executive, entrepreneur, industry leader, or policy maker who has made the greatest impact in Canada’s innovative healthcare industry. Bloom Burton & Co president Brian Bloom commented that it’s time to celebrate those who advance medical science, attract and provide risk capital, launch new products and companies on the world stage or announce significant monetization events, with The Bloom Burton Award celebrating today’s finest. Nominees will all healthcare subsectors including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic/imaging, research instrumentation, consumer health, healthcare services or healthcare IT sectors. The judges include respected international leaders in healthcare investment, entrepreneurship and journalism. Among them are Karen Bernstein, Co-Founder and Chairman, BioCentury Inc.; Terrence Connolly, Executive Director, Global Alliances and Business Development, Celgene Corporation; Carl Gordon, Partner and Co-Head of Global Private Equity, OrbiMed Advisors; Andrew Hack, Chief Financial Officer, Editas Medicine; Oleg Nodelman, Founder and Managing Director, EcoR1 Capital; Melinda Richter, Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS; and Avik Roy, Opinion Editor, Forbes; President, The Foundation for Research and Equal Opportunity. narrowed list of three finalists will be announced at the Bloom Burton & Co. Healthcare Investor Conference, taking place May 1-2, 2017. For more information, visit www.bloomburton.com.

Story 2 Vancouver-based ProNAi Therapeutics has changed its corporate name to Sierra Oncology. According to company president and CEO Dr. Nick Glover, the name change is about better reflecting the company’s oncology focus, specifically its pipeline of therapies that target the DNA Damage Response (DDR) network. The company believes there is a significant opportunity for therapeutics that target the DDR network to have broad potential in the treatment of cancer. Additionally, the company has successfully in licensed sponsorship of two ongoing Phase 1 clinical trials evaluating its Checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) inhibitor, SRA737, from the Cancer Research UK Centre for Drug Development, where it was discovered and initially developed. In accordance with the license agreement for SRA737, a $2.0 million fee is due to CRT Pioneer Fund LP for the achievement of this milestone. According to Glover, SRA737 targets Chk1, a key cell cycle checkpoint and central regulator of the DDR network. The company is concurrently also conducting preclinical research evaluating SRA737 in combination

with other DDR agents including PARP inhibitors and Sierra Oncology’s proprietary Cdc7 inhibitor, SRA141, as well as with immuno-oncology therapeutics. Finally, as of January 10th, company shares started trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol ‘SRRA.

Story 3 In Venture capital news, Canadian VC-firm Quark Venture Inc. along with its partner, Chinese investment bank GF Securities say they are investing US$25 million in Microbion Corp. through the firm’ss $656-million Global Health Sciences Venture Fund. Microbion, co-located in Vancouver, BC and Bozeman, MT, is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the treatment of antibiotic-resistant infections. Its lead compound, MBN-101, is the first in a new class of products to treat infections by attacking both bacteria and related microbial biofilms. Among other advancements, the investment will go towards enabling Microbion in the initiation and completion of a Phase 1B/2A study in diabetic foot ulcer infections, the study will evaluate both safety and efficacy endpoints including eradication of infections and of biofilms. In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted MBN-101 Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) and Fast Track designations for adjunctive treatment of moderate and severe diabetic foot ulcer infections. According to Karim Lalji, chairman and CEO of Microbion Pharma Corp, and former Simon Fraser University graduate, that in addition to proceeding with the Phase 1B/2A study, the investment will also allow the company to continue a Phase 2a trial in orthopaedic infections as well as to advance its development of an inhaled formulation of MBN-101 to treat cystic fibrosis related infections.

Story 4 Looking at our top R&D news story, Canadian and Australian prostate cancer researchers say they have discovered a key piece in the genetic puzzle of why men born with a BRCA2 mutation may develop aggressive localized cancers that resist treatment and become lethal for up to 50 per cent of patients within five years. Their findings, published online in Nature Communications, show that BRCA2-associated tumours are already pre-set to be aggressive, even before treatment. This is because the genes normally involved in regulating cell growth and division are abnormal in the BRCA2-associated cancers right from the get-go and therefore are resistant to therapy right up front, says co-principal investigator Dr. Robert Bristow, clinician-scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network. He talks about the research in the following audio provided by UHN: Insert audio from video…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXlntpaWtaI

In the published study, Dr. Bristow and co-principal investigators Dr. Paul Boutros at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and prof. Gail Risbridger at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, compared 15 patients with BRCA2-inherited prostate cancer with 500 prostate cancer patients from the general population with non-inherited (sporadic) prostate cancer. In the related study of 500 tumours from Canadian men with non-inherited prostate cancer also published in Nature, Drs. Bristow and Boutros analyses led to the discovery of a new genetic fingerprint that identifies when curable disease may turn aggressive. Although BRCA2-inherited disease affects less than two per cent of men with prostate cancer, Dr. Bristow says the research sets the stage to rethink ways to use other drugs differently to personalize treatment for more men. The next steps are to explore the use of novel therapies to offset the BRCA2-associated aggressiveness

earlier on in the treatment of these men and improve survival in an otherwise lethal tumour, and he says this might include different types of chemotherapy or the use of molecular-targeted drugs that specifically target the changes associated with BRCA2 mutation. Funding for this reasearch was provided by the Movember Foundation through Prostate Cancer Canada, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, CPC-GENE, and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

Story 5 Our final story this week sees drug giant Pfizer entering into a multi-year collaboration with Vancouver-based AbCellera Biologics, Inc. As part of the collaboration, the two sides hope to generate lead antibody candidates using AbCellera’s mAb discovery platform, specifically AbCellera plans to apply its proprietary monoclonal antibody (mAb) screening platform to attempt to discover function-modulating antibodies against undisclosed membrane protein targets.

Carl Hansen, founding CEO of AbCellera commented that his company is increasingly being recognized as a leader in high-performance antibody discovery, and this deal validates this fact. He explains that what makes his company’s platform unique is that it is able to screen natural immune repertoires with unparalleled depth unlocking the most challenging discovery programs. Moroever he says this partnership not only reinforces his company’s business strategy but also brings an added benefit through the ability to work closely with the innovative team at Pfizer. Under the terms of the agreement, AbCellera will receive an upfront payment and research support, and will be eligible to receive up to approximately $90 million in contingent milestone payments, as well as tiered mid-to-low single digit royalty payments based on Pfizer’s development and commercialization of antibodies that may be generated under this collaboration. Further terms of the agreement are not disclosed.

With that we’ve come to the end of another program. A big thanks to our technical director and production manager Laskey Hart and to the rest of the Biotechnology Focus research team. Be sure to check back next week to see all the latest news happening on the Canadian biotech scene. And if you like our show, you can also listen to past episodes online via our podcast portal at www.biotechnologyfocus.ca .We’re also always looking for your feedback, story ideas and suggestions so we’d love to hear from you. Simply reach out to us on twitter: @BiotechFocus or by email [email protected].

For all of us here at Biotechnology Focus, thank you for listening.

Versant Ventures closes its newest fund, a new stem cell company is born in the MaRs Discovery District and Auven Therapeutics official pulls the plug on the KIACTA™ AA amyloidosis program. We have all this and more for you this week on Biotechnology Focus Podcast.

Industry insiders weigh in on the impact of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the 2017 World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology set to return to Montreal, and a simple blood test that better diagnoses concussions.

On this week’s show…A Canadian made Ebola vaccine enters the next phase of clinical trials, a major Canadian generics company goes into restructuring mode, a young VC fund based in Vancouver makes it known it wants to be a major player on the life sciences investment scene and two Canadian biotech company’s hit endpoints in their clinical trials, good news for one company and bad news for the other. We have this and more on this week’s show!

Welcome to another episode of Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence, hear to bring you a rundown of this week’s top stories on the Canadian biotech scene.

Story 1

The Ebola outbreak of the last three years has winded down, but that hasn’t stopped researchers in their quest to develop new vaccines to treat it. In fact, a promising Ebola vaccine originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada is set to begin the next phase of clinical trials later this fall. As part of this next phase, the vaccine, VSV-EBOV, will be tested on volunteers seropositive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The goal of this new trial is to test evidence on the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness at building a protective immune response among HIV-positive people. According to Dr. Cécile Tremblay, who led the development of the protocol for this study, the reason for this approach is that it is particularly important to study the effectiveness of the vaccine in vulnerable populations, such as those living with HIV, because often these populations because of their compromised immune systems are most at-risk during outbreaks. The new study will build on existing results that demonstrate the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. This includes promising results from Phase 1 trials in Canada conducted in 2014, a Phase 2 trial on front-line health workers, and a Phase 3 ring-vaccination trial in Guinea during the Ebola outbreak. Initial results from the ring-vaccination trial in Guinea were originally published in The Lancet in July 2015, with final results expected later in fall 2016. The new study is to be managed by the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN), with trial sites in Ottawa, Montreal, Senegal and Burkina Faso. Principal investigator Dr. Tremblay (Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montreal) and coordinating principal investigator Dr. Joanne Langley (Dalhousie University) will co-lead the Canada-Africa collaborative research team. The first Canadian vaccinations are anticipated for November 2016, with trials beginning in Africa next year.

Story 2
Citing pressures related to pricing, regulatory and market instability, generic drugmaker Pharmascience Inc. says it is cutting 90 positions at its Montreal head office in a restructuring move.  Dr. David Goodman, CEO of the company said it was a very difficult decision to make forced on by external factors such as pricing and regulatory pressures that have recently led to increased market instability; mainly in Quebec, the rest of Canada and globally.tFounded in 1983, ,the company currently ranks as one of the largest pharmaceutical employer’s in Quebec with over 1,500 employees. It makes more than 2,000 generic, over-the-counter and other prescriptions drugs, including 45 million prescriptions that are filled annually in Canada. In the interim, the company hopes these changes will allow it to retain a competitive edge and remain an industry leader. This is the first major layoff in the company’s history.

Story 3
In clinical trial news, OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals has very recently released new but disappointing data from its Phase 3 ENSPIRIT trial of custirsen for advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). According to the company, the trial did not meet its primary endpoint of demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in overall survival for patients treated with custirsen in combination with docetaxel compared to docetaxel alone.  The median overall survival for the custirsen arm was 9.0 months versus 7.9 months for the control arm with a hazard ratio of 0.915 (one-sided p=0.178).  Safety results were consistent with those observed in previous trials of custirsen in combination with chemotherapy. The trial enrolled 664 patients at approximately 50 sites globally. According to Scott Cormack, president and CEO of OncoGenex, following negative results of previous custirsen trials, an early final analysis of the ENSPIRIT trial was conducted in an effort to conserve capital and extend the company’s cash runway. He adds that the company expects data on its other candidate, apatorsen, which is currently being evaluated in the Phase 2 Borealis-2 study for the treatment of bladder cancer, by the end of the month. OncoGenex is continuing to work with MTS Health Partners who has been advising the company in the exploration of strategic alternatives since mid-August.

Story 4
Our next story highlights how Artificial intelligence could prove to be a useful drug discovery tool, as the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) and the Movement Disorders Clinic (MDC) at Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN) have embarked on Canada’s first ever Parkinson’s disease research project, in a unique twist using the recently launched IBM Watson for Drug Discovery. IBM Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing capability and has been lauded as a tool that will lead to a new era in computing. The system, delivered through the cloud, analyzes high volumes of data, understands complex questions posed in natural language, and proposes evidence-based answers. Further, Watson continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. Drawing from its body of nearly 31 million sources of relevant literature, IBM’s cloud-based cognitive enterprise solution analyzes scientific knowledge and data using machine learning and natural language processing. MDC researchers, along with members of the Informatics and Analytics team at OBI, say they will use Watson to accelerate the drug discovery process and determine which drugs could potentially be re-purposed in the fight against Parkinson’s disease. Currently, bringing a drug to market takes nearly 10 years and approximately $2.6 billion. Beyond that, 88 percent of new drugs fail in Phase 1 because of a lack of efficacy and safety. As Lauren O’Donnell, vice president, IBM Watson Health Life Sciences puts it, drug researchers today are challenged by the sheer volume and pace of emerging data. Watson for Drug Discovery can change that, by empowering researchers with cognitive tools that will help to speed drug discovery, and increase the likelihood of bringing effective therapies more rapidly to patients. Dr. Lorraine Kalia, a movement disorders neurologist and neuroscientist at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre at UHN, agrees that cognitive technology like IBM Watson has the potential to make discoveries that can directly impact the health of Canadians. She says that the platform will give her team the ability to look at connections that researchers might not have found without dedicating weeks or months of time include identifying compounds for the disease.

Story 5

You might remember that in an earlier episode we told you about a rare disease that turns human tissue to bone, and an innovative company based in Quebec called Clementia Pharmaceuticals that is working to find a cure. Well just this month, Clementia has released top-line results from its Phase 2 clinical trial investigating palovarotene, a retinoic acid receptor gamma agonist (RAR?), for the treatment of this debilitating disease fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive or (FOP). FOP is an extremely rare but serious disease in which an accumulation of heterotopic ossification (HO, extraskeletal bone) in muscle and soft tissue progressively restricts movement by locking joints leading to loss of function, physical disability, and risk of early death. Several positive trends were detected in the 40-subject placebo-controlled trial, including palovarotene-related reductions in the proportion of subjects who developed new HO, reductions in volume of new HO, reductions in patient-reported pain associated with flare-ups, and reductions in the time to resolution of FOP-related flare-ups though none reached statistical significance. Additionally, Palovarotene was well-tolerated, with all subjects completing the 12-week trial and enrolling into the open-label extension trial. The full results of the trial are expected to be published next year. In the meantime, Clementia says it will continue to gather important additional data in the Phase 2 extension trial and in the ongoing observational Natural History Study. Data from these studies will inform the design of a Phase 3 registration trial, which is expected to start in 2017.

Story 6
Fresh off its most recent hiring of Karimah Es Sabar as its new CEO, Quark Venture, a Vancouver-based venture capital firm has launched a new US$500-million ($656 million) biotechnology fund with China’s GF Securities. The fund called the Global Health Sciences Venture Fund will invest globally in a diversified portfolio of biotechnology and health sciences companies. It is already being called by some the largest of its kind in Canada. Impressively,   investments have already started with the first close of US$100 million. Moreover , Quark Venture also recently announced a US$30 million investment in Vancouver-based MSI (Methylation Sciences Inc.), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, that is advancing a therapy for adjunctive treatment of Major Depressive Disorder. Es Sabar says she hopes to use the fund to help support world biotechnology and health sciences companies that are driving game changing innovations in drug development, medical devices, health IT and emerging convergent technologies. She adds that the decision to make Vancouver the headquarters for Quark Venture and the Global Health Sciences Venture Fund, validates Canadian innovation, while recognizing the strength of both province’s and nation’s life science industry, as well as the quality of its technologies.

With that we’ve come to the end of another program.  A big thanks to our technical director and production manager Laskey Hart and to the rest of the Biotechnology Focus research team. Be sure to check back next week to see all the latest news happening on the Canadian biotech scene. And if you like our show, you can also listen to past episodes online via our podcast portal at www.biotechnologyfocus.ca .We’re also always looking for your feedback, story ideas and suggestions so we’d love to hear from you. Simply reach out to us on twitter: @BiotechFocus  or by email [email protected]. 

For all of us here at Biotechnology Focus, thank you for listening.

Two new biotech companies launched, TO Health! launches a new online health hub, and Government flexes its financial muscle backing science initiatives across the nation. We have this and more on this week’s show!

Welcome to Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence.

Story 1

We kick things of this week in Toronto, where TO Health!, an industry led cluster organization has launched a new online networking site, the Toronto Health Hub (engage.tohealth.ca). 

According to the organization, the new Hub will showcase news and events in the burgeoning Human Health & Sciences (HHS) cluster in Toronto, as well as provide a centralized place for government, business and academia to engage around critical topics pertaining to the region. 

The new platform coincides with organization’s mandate to make Toronto a Top 5 global health science cluster within the next 10 years. Toronto Health Hub is powered by the content sharing publishing platform Pressly, which was developed by a Toronto based start-up Pressly Inc..  The platform has helped companies like Deloitte and The Economist to foster more meaningful conversations and content sharing amongst a broad community of stakeholders and innovators.

The Toronto region’s Human Health Science cluster is home to the largest geographic concentration of health sciences assets in Canada, with more than 38,000 jobs and includes private and public sector organizations and ventures including biopharma, medical and digital health companies, universities, hospitals, research institutes, innovation organizations, service providers and government agencies.  All parties are invited and encouraged to engage on this new community building site. For more information about the Toronto Health Hub and to join the community, visit http://engage.tohealth.ca.

Story 2

Heading to the prairies, The University of Saskatchewan recently marked the official launch of its unique Plant Phenotyping and Imaging Research Centre (P2IRC) with an international symposium and demonstration of new drone technology to be used in novel crop development approaches. The creation of the P2IRC stems from a $37.2-million award over seven years from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) for the research program “Designing Crops for Global Food Security”—one of only five CFREF grants awarded across Canada last year in the inaugural competition. The new centre will not only enhance the U of S biosciences cluster—but also capitalize on one of the largest clusters of food-related researchers in the world.” The P2IRC is led by Maurice Moloney, executive-director of the university’s Global

Institute for Food Security (GIFS), who has been building a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from across the U of S campus and from other Canadian universities and centres. He hopes to create by the year 2022 a unique global resource for plant breeders seeking to develop new crop varieties at unprecedented speed and scale at the centre. At the same time, hopes are the centre will sustain Canada’s positon global powerhouse in agricultural research and lead to commercial spin-offs involving field and aerial sensors, satellite imaging, robotics, and big data analytics. Moloney noted the P2IRC is unique in that it combines plant genomics with crop phenotyping (the identification of useful traits), high-performance computing, and digital imaging technology, as well as undertakes research to address societal and developing world impacts. Research projects in four theme areas have already undergone rigorous international peer review involving an eight-member International Scientific Advisory Committee that included experts from Australia, Germany, France, and the U.K., several of whom participated in the symposium signaling the launch of the centre. The new centre also involves partnerships with four Canadian universities, three international institutes, and more than 15 private and public organizations, including the National Research Council and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Story 3

In funding news, The National Research Council’s-Industry Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) has awarded Vancouver Aspect Biosystems Ltd. $450,000 in grant funding to help the company further advance the development of its Lab-on- a-Printer™ platform technology and associated 3D bioprinted tissue applications. According to Tamer Mohamed, president and CEO of Aspect, the Canadian government-sponsored program has been very supportive of the company’s ongoing research and development efforts and the new funding will assist Aspect Biosystem in strategically deploying its unique platform to world-class research labs. Founded in 2013 as a collaboration between two research groups based in the departments of Engineering and Medicine at UBC, Aspect Biosystems’ platform enables advances in fundamental biological research, drug development through novel pre-clinical models, and regenerative medicine through the use of its 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering technology. The project funding arrives as the company prepares to launch its Early Platform Access Program and expand its partnerships.

Story 4

A few months ago we mentioned on this show that AmorChem, an early-stage life sciences fund managed by Montréal-based venture capital firm GeneChem, was planning on launching a new company. Well, this past week the fund made good on its promise spinning out Mperia Therapeutics, focused on the development a novel immunotherapy approach based on CD36 cell receptor drug-ligands. As part of the company launch, AmorChem has transferred all rights to a CD36 technology to Mperia, and backed the company with a Series A investment of $1M. The capital will allow Mperia to pursue the early-stage development of lead candidates for the treatment of dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The technology itself is the result of almost 20 years of research conducted by Dr. Huy Ong and his collaborators at the Université de Montréal, where the CD36 scavenger receptor has been shown to play a key role in the clearance of oxidized lipids, and more recently, in chronic inflammation. Promising CD36 drug-ligands have been tested in several dry AMD animal models and demonstrated significant efficacy to preserve and restore cell layers at both the retinal and subretinal levels. Dry AMD represents almost 90 per cent of all AMD cases, with five million patients affected by the disease in North America and Europe. It remains an unmet medical need with no approved treatments or cure for this disease indication. With the spinning off of this technology into Mperia and a first seed financing, AmorChem believes the company is poised to raise more capital and bring the first CD36 drug-ligand to the clinic in a near future. Additionally, ipon creation of Mperia Therapeutics, AmorChem appointed Dr. Maxime Ranger as the company’s new president and CEO, and Dr. Huy Ong as its chief scientific officer. A serial entrepreneur, Dr. Ranger has been entrepreneur-in- residence at Univalor for several months, in addition to ensuring the supervision of Dr Ong’s CD36 research project. In such context, Dr Ranger will thus lead Mperia in steps towards clinical proof-of- concept of its first product and its next fundraising. Likewise As CSO of the company, Dr Ong adds significant scientific value as a prominent investigator in the field of CD36 receptor biology.

Story 5

Across the country, in British Columbia, to mark World Sepsis Day on September 13, the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) also has launched a new spin-off company, called Sepset Biosciences Inc. The choice to do it on World Sepsis day was no accident, as the new company is developing a novel rapid diagnostic test that will aid healthcare professionals in providing earlier and more targeted treatment of sepsis – a global healthcare problem that is more common than heart attack and claims more lives than any cancer. Sepset’s technology, which is based on extensive  work led by renowned University of British Columbia (UBC) researcher Dr. Robert Hancock, hopes to meet this dire clinical need as current methods to diagnose sepsis take more than 24 hours after a patient enters the emergency ward – by which time, the patient may already be well on their way towards tissue damage, organ failure, and death. For every three-hour delay in diagnosis, the rate of mortality and morbidity grows by almost 25 per cent. Dr. Hancock, a professor of Microbiology and Immunology and the director of the Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research at UBC, explains, the new company hopes to change the way scientists and health care professionals look at sepsis. Sepset’s blood-based test works by detecting, at the time a patient enters the hospital, a unique biomarker signature based on the body’s immune response rather than the presence of a pathogen. Dr. Hancock adds that the results of initial clinical studies show it to be a very promising approach and he and his team are now in the process of advancing to larger multi-centre, multi-country trials.

Story 6

In a major funding commitment, Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s Science Minister announced that the federal government will invest $900 million towards research efforts at 13 postsecondary institutions across Canada through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. Among the biggest recipients are the Université de Montréal, McGill University, Polytechnique Montréal, and HEC Montréal who together received $213 million to be split between three projects related to research in artificial intelligence, brain health, and medical technologies. According to a release, Polytechnique Montréal will use its hospital’s infrastructure to shape future medical technologies for complex diseases, while McGill’s Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives project will establish a central hub to work on projects to improve brain health in Canada. Two of the other more larger grant recipients included Dalhousie University, which is getting $93 million for its Safe and Sustainable Development of the Ocean Frontier to develop Canada’s oceans, and the University of Waterloo which is receiving $72 million for Transform Quantum Technologies, an initiative for advancing its work in developing quantum technologies. Additionally, the University of Saskatchewen is receiving $77.84 million for World Water Futures: Solutions to Water Threats in an Era of Global Change, while the University of Guelph is receiving approximately $76.6 million for Food from Thought: Agricultural Systems for a Healthy Planet. Rounding out the list is the University of Alberta, getting $75 million for the Future Energy Systems Research Institute, the University of Calgary getting $75 million for the Global Research Initiative in Sustainable Low Carbon Unconventional Resources, Western University getting $66 million for BrainsCAN: Brain health for life, $63.744 million to Queen’s University for the Canadian Particle Astrophysics Research Centre, $49.2 million going to Laurentian Universtiy for Metal Earth and York University receiving $33.3 million for Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA). An interesting side note, the Canada First Research Excellence Fund was actually established by the Harper Conservatives in the 2014 budget to help support research on big ideas and big themes. The funding is allocated on a competitive basis with researchers applying to an arms-length selection board.

Story 7

Our final story of the week is also a funding announcement. Backed by the Federal Government, Genome Canada says it is investing $4 million in 16 new bioinformatics and computational biology (B/CB) research projects to be conducted at academic institutions across Canada. The investments are being made through Genome Canada’s 2015 Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Competition, a partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Development, Karina Gould  made the funding announcement on behalf of Science Minister Kristy Duncan at McMaster University. At the press conference, Gould highlighted the work of McMaster University’s Dr. Andrew McArthur, who is a co-leader on two B/CB projects looking to develop new software and database tools that will empower public health agencies and the agri-food sector to more rapidly respond to threats posed by infectious disease outbreaks such as, food-borne illnesses or the growing crisis of microbes resistant to antimicrobials. Additionally Marc LePage, president and CEO of Genome Canada highlighted the importance of the 16 projects and harnessing the power of genomics and the big data it provides researchers across multiple sectors. He cited Bioinformatics and computation biology as a priority area for Genome Canada given the growing need for enhanced tools and methodologies to make sense of the huge and growing influx of data stemming from genomics research. Some of the other projects in this funding round will enhance diagnosis and treatment for patients, improve crops of importance to Canada and strengthen environmental monitoring. Each project will receive approximately $250,000.  A full backgrounder of the 16 projects is available at www.genomecanada.ca/sites/genomecanada/files/2015_bcb-backgrounder- en.pdf.

With that we’ve come to the end of this week’s program. We hope you enjoyed it. A big thanks to our production manager Laskey Hart and the rest of the Biotechnology Focus team. You can find past episodes online at www.biotechnologyfocus.ca and we’re always looking for your feedback, story ideas and suggestions so we’d love to hear from you. Simply reach out to us on twitter: @BiotechFocus or by email [email protected].

For all of us here at Biotechnology Focus, thank you for listening.