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Ontario biotech in jeopardy

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Championing the Business of BioteChnology in Canada May/June 2011

California’s digital medicine

Dear Mr. HarperAn open letter to the new government

Doing business with pharmaBig pharma courts small biotech

Nick Glover on leading a Canadian biotech in an international market

BeiNG Canadian

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May/June 2011 Bio Business 3

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Canadian biotech business opps in Japan

Bio Business BusinessContents

Championing the Business of BioteChnology in Canada

5 Editorial

6 NEWS

24 BuSiNESS SErvicES

Although they’re going through a tough time as we speak, as the industry shifts, I believe small biotechs will be the most important entity in early research and development.

—Dr. Bernard Prigent, Vice-President and Medical Director at Pfizer Canada. Read more on page 20.”“

9 dear Mr. Harper: Encourage biotech development In an open letter to the new majority Conservative government in Ottawa, Peter Brenders outlines what Canada’s biotech industry needs: capital, investments in people, and a better operating environment.

12 regional Profile: californiaCalifornia—land of sand and surf. California—land of silicon and biotech. The key players in the origins of California’s life science industry push into digital healthcare.

14 canada: Strong and free Canada is home to some of the most exciting biotech science in the world. Bio Business reviews some of the leading biotech firms from coast to coast to coast.

10 dealing with big pharmaEileen McMahon and Cheryl Reicin outline the key legal and business issues to consider when doing a deal with big pharma.

20 a Biotech/pharma romanceWith big pharma moving away from discovery work, Canada’s biotech companies flirt with multi-nationals in hopes of forging long-term relationships.

23 Fail faster and succeedTo spur scientific innovation in the biotech industry, J. Erin Pisko and Warren Learmonth suggest that biotechs develop a way to fail faster.

26 Forget the finish line—aim for mid-stage developmentDr. Aiping Young, President and CEO of Lorus Therapeutics, says there is greater value for biotechs if they take more drugs to mid-stage development, rather than shooting for commercialization of one drug.

20

Cover and Contents photo: Ian Willms

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In this issue of Bio Business, Dr. Aiping Young, President and CEO of Lorus Therapeutics, advocates for a different way of conducting bio business. Instead of pushing a

single therapy to market, she says biotechs should bring a number of therapies to a mid-stage phase and sell them to larger companies to complete the development.

This strategy fits with a perspective of those who say that Canada should play to its strengths and focus on invention, not commercialization.

Such a strategy relies on scientific invention. We’re gambling on experimentation, on creativity. If Canada’s biotech industry pursues such a course, all stakeholders—including government—must rededicate themselves to scientific invention, a perspective that requires an allegiance to fact, experimentation, and intellectual risk-taking. Industry has shown its allegiance. They’re just waiting on the Federal Government to declare its alle-giance.

In the 2011 election, the governing Conservatives said little about what they’d do for Canada’s science communities. (In fairness, the opposition parties were equally mute.) The Conservatives made a promise to “take action the findings of the Research and Development Review Panel.” This panel, commissioned in October 2010, will offer advice on how to fund science and innovation.

If the government follows the advice of the dozens of submissions sent to the Panel by the scientific community, Canadians can expect a reinvigorated funding scheme and a revived culture of invention. Indeed, many of the submissions present hard evidence for increasing investment in domestic research and development.

But that hard evidence may not matter. As the Conservatives demonstrated repeat-edly during the minority years, ideology determines fact. Remember how the Conservatives reeled at the alarming increase in unreported crime? Remember how Harper formed a panel on reproductive technology that did not include scientific experts from the recom-mended short list, but instead included social conservatives who had taken public stands against stem cell research? Remember how Nature lambasted the Conservatives for their “manifest disregard” for the scientific field?

Will a majority government inspire a respect for rationality among Conservatives? Unlikely. Canada’s biotech industry and scientists must lobby harder to get the funding and infrastructure that industry and academia need to spur invention. Lobbying harder means calling out—loudly and in plain language—every instance when the government scoffs at scientific fact. It means embarrassing the troglodytes in public, often. It means castigating the Conservatives whenever the theo-cons push policy into non-reality. It means educating politicians and the public about how the world works in reality.

If history is a guide, these will be four long years for Canada’s scientific community. An allegiance to scientific invention means standing up for facts, and that means putting on brass knuckles. Because you know Harper’s wearing his.

Championing the Business of Biotechnology in Canada

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Canadian biotech business opps in Japan

Bio Business Business

Robert PriceManaging Editor

Knuckle down and lobby harder for science

6 Bio Business May/June 2011

Canadian scientists emphasize benefits of renewable antibody technology

With a team of international sci-entists, Drs. Tony Pawson and Karen Colwill at Mount Sinai

Hospital and Drs. Dev Sidhu and Aled Edwards at the University of Toronto have drawn attention to the benefits of hybridoma, a technology used to form hybrid cell lines, and recombinant display technologies in biomedical research.

Both technologies have the ability to generate hundreds of renewable antibod-ies that are suitable for use in biological trials.

According to Colwill, renewable anti-bodies benefit research because they can be produced quickly and are able to recog-nize and target specific proteins.

Pawson said that the study “shows we can rapidly make reagents that are highly specific to a large number of proteins, which will facilitate a more precise exami-nation of the proteins and pathways involved in various complex illnesses.”

Comings and goings

Patheon announced the appoint-ment of Michael E. Lytton as Patheon’s Executive Vice President,

Corporate Development and Strategy and General Counsel. Dawn Graham, former President of Merck Canada and Dr. Clarissa Desjardins, CEO of the Center of Excellence in Personalized Medicine (CEPMED) joined the Board of Directors of Rx&D’s Health Research Foundation. The Ontario Securities Commission, Canada’s securities regulator, barred Biovail founder Eugene Melnyk from serving as an officer or director at a publicly traded firm for five years after formally reprimanding Melnyk for making misleading statements in a 2003 press release.

Animal vaccine manufacturing centre opens

OICR invests in anti-cancer technologies

Venture capital investment in Canada’s life sciences improved in 2010, but funding has yet to

recover to where it was in 2008.Canadian businesses received a

combined investment of $1.14 billion from venture capital sources in 2010, according to a recent report from the Government of Canada. Of this $1.14 billion investment, life sciences received $299 million in 2010, an increase of 38 per cent over 2009.

Even though financing was up in 2010 compared to 2009, financing is still down—down by $100 million—from where it was in 2008.

When investors did invest, they tended to put their money in later stage developments, a pattern that hasn’t changed in years. In total 61 per cent of investment in all sectors ($699 million) went to late stage deals, compared to $135 million that investors put into start-up companies.

Seed investments in 2010 dropped by $95 million since 2009.

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc., a research-based, technology-driven biophar-maceutical company, opened the

Animal Health and Food Safety Vaccine Manufacturing Centre at its corporate headquarters in Belleville, Ontario. The facility represents the largest livestock vac-cine manufacturing facility in Canada, with capacity to supply Canadian animal vaccine requirements and to meet interna-tional regulatory standards.

This expansion provides Bioniche with the capability to produce a wide spectrum of vaccines, with fermentation capabilities of up to 5,000 litres and all downstream processing and supporting utilities. The project was made possible through $25 million in repayable public financing.

venture capital in life sciences up in 2010

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will invest in three Ontario compa-nies that hope to bring cancer-fighting technology to the market. The institute announced their investment in TORCell Therapeutics Inc. and DLVR

Therapeutics Inc.—both created by OICR and the University Health Network—and Harmonic Medical, Inc.

TORCell’s technology uses the patient’s own cancer-killing T-cells, known as Double Negative T-cells, to treat acute myeloid leukemia. The DNT cells were successful in killing leukemia cells in animal testing.

DLVR Therapeutics Inc will further develop a nanocarrier delivery technology that may enable the delivery of toxic chemotherapeutics to cancer cells more safely.

Harmonic Medical is working on a tumour treatment system that uses ultra-sound to target and destroy cancer within the body while sparing healthy tissue.

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research did not announce how much funding it provided to the companies.


Pharmascience, the largest pharmaceutical firm in Quebec, opened new laboratories and facilities in Montreal. The expansion was supported with nearly $40 million in fund-

ing from the governments of Canada, Quebec, and the City of Montreal. The expansion will create an additional 180 highly skilled jobs by 2012.

Theratechnologies announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved EGRIFTA, a therapy for the reduction of excess abdominal fat in HIV-infected patients with lipodys-trophy, a disorder that affects now the body stores fat.

Cell Biosciences, Inc., a private California life sciences com-pany focused on protein analysis, acquired Ottawa’s Brightwell Technologies, a market leader in micro-flow imaging, an analyti-cal technique used to detect particles and aggregates in protein-based therapeutics, for approximately $9 million (USD) in cash.

Oncolytics Biotech Inc. entered into a commercial supply agreement with SAFC, a Division of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, for the commercial manufacture of REOLYSIn, Oncolytics’ pro-prietary reovirus.

Pivotal Therapeutics Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical compa-ny with a focus on the treatment of cardiovascular disease, com-menced trading on the Canadian national Stock Exchange under the symbol PVO.

Arch Biopartners Inc., announced that it has created a new material, which they have termed “bioorganic stainless steel.” This new material was generated by a previously unreported type of chemical interaction between novel synthetic peptides and stain-less steel. Bioorganic stainless steel is a product that is 40 per cent harder and has a 50 per cent lower corrosion rate compared with regular stainless steel.

At the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Toronto in May, GreenField Ethanol, Canada’s largest producer of ethanol, launched G2 BioChem, a partnership to commercialize its process technology. GreenField Ethanol’s partners include private companies, including novozymes and Andritz, and public programs, including Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the Center for Research and Development in the Bio-economy.

News

This message brought to you by:

www.canadapharma.org

Investing in Canada’s future healthWhen it comes to investing in the discovery of new medicines and vaccines in Canada, the research-based pharmaceutical sector leads the way. Last year alone, our companies invested over a billion dollars in research and development.

Source: PMPRB Annual Report 2009, page 36.

Developments

After a whirlwind election campaign the results are in. The new majority Conservative Government offers our indus-try the opportunity to outline a long-term strategy for the

growth and sustainability of world-class biotech innovation in Canada. This is the time to share knowledge and to engage on key public policy developments with elected officials to set both short- and long-term goals aimed at strengthening Canadian capacity and competitiveness for biotechnology researchers and developers.

With more than 7 per cent of our national GDP generated every year as a result of biotechnology development and use, all regions of Canada are realizing the benefits of this growth.

CapitalWe need the federal government to focus on the tools they would use to stimulate new private investments into research and development companies. Our leaders need to support poli-cies to stimulate investment for biotech such as flow-through shares and angel investment tax credits. Through these means our companies become self-sufficient and strong. With the find-ings from the Research and Development Review, the govern-ment will have an opportunity to ensure the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program retains its benefits to all elements of our industry while remaining globally competi-tive with other jurisdictions as they develop their public policy support for developing their respective bio-economies. The Canadian government must protect and enhance successful funding programs to allow for greater levels of commercializa-tion and market adoption successes.

By Peter Brenders

Open letter to the newly electedNow the agenda setting truly begins.

People We are encouraging the government to establish scholarship pro-grams and international internships to expand basic and applied life sciences research and education at Canada’s post-secondary educational institutions. We need to implement solid policy frameworks to recruit, repatriate and retrain the world’s best research product development, managerial and leadership talent to Canada as an immigration priority.

Operating Environment A majority government can secure new legislative authorities to assist with the market acceptance for new technologies; improve regulatory practices to better encompass new technologies as fea-tured in the health, agricultural and industrial applications of biotech; and secure commitments to funding models to improve commercialization capacity. From the protection of intellectual property to the opportunity to attract increased investment, the government will seek to ensure their long-term goal of securing a healthy and competitive 21st century economy. Biotechnology is a feeder technology to global products. Canadians are modest but proud of the contributions infant companies are having here at home and abroad. We need our federal government to continue encouraging our industry to shine success on the world stage. BB

Peter Brenders is President and CEO of BIOTECanada.

information and communications technologies

other components of canada’s Economy

oil & Gas

automotive

aerospace

Biotech

canada’s bio-economy sector generates seven per cent of canada’s GdP.

Commentary


Biotech: an important part of canada’s GdPBiotechnology and life sciences make a significant contribution —a full seven per cent—to Canada’s gross domestic product.

Health, medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing generates $55.7 billion, the largest portion of this seven per cent. Agricultural and food bio-processing, including crop production, produces another $22.6 billion of the revenue generated by Canada’s life sciences. Organic chemical manufacturing, including basic chemical manufacturing, contributes $8.2 billion to the GDP.


By Eileen McMahon and Cheryl Reicin

Doing a deal with pharma The biotech company’s rule book

From the perspective of the biotech company, there are sev-eral legal and business issues to consider when doing a deal with big pharma. This overview offers some key issues.

Licence, assignment or other structure?Is the deal a licence or an assignment of assets of the biotech company? Indeed, the deal can be structured as a collaboration, a joint venture, a partnership or an option/right of first refusal agreement. Depending on how the deal is structured, there are tax, control, ownership and insolvency issues to consider.

Scope of dealDoes the deal cover all products—including all improvements—for all therapeutic and diagnostic classes, and all indications in all countries of the world? Does it cover all rights licensed or acquired in relation to those products? Does it include the right to assign the rights under the deal and the right to grant sub-licences? Or is the deal narrower in scope—for example, a subset of the forego-ing? The scope of the deal is typically set forth at the outset of the agreement (or letter of intent) and relies heavily on defined terms within the agreement (or letter of intent).

Rights The biotech company will want to ensure that all its rights under the agreement are clearly set out in the agreement. Compensation is typically the most significant right, and can include compensa-tion payable on closing, reimbursement of pre-closing expenses, milestone payments, minimum compensation amounts, royalties, compensation relating to side agreements, compensation for key employees, equity, and cash and non-cash consideration. Other rights can include step-in rights, rights to terminate if perfor-mance standards are not met by the pharma company, and par-ticipation rights relating to research, development and commer-cialization. If the biotech company wants to become a sales com-pany in its own right, it may wish to retain rights to commercial-ize, market and sell the product in certain territories. If those rights are retained, it is helpful for the biotech company to have the right to cross-reference or rely upon regulatory applications of the pharma company for the retained territory.

ObligationsObligations can range from transfer of know-how, support for research and development of the product, obligations relating to improvements to the product, management of intellectual prop-erty prosecution and support in litigation and other disputes relat-

ing to the product or relating to intellectual property affecting the product. The biotech company should consider whether the obli-gations it is assuming are realistic or overly onerous and who pays for the biotech company’s fulfillment of those obligations.

Representations and warrantiesThe pharma company will be seeking representations and warran-ties from the biotech company, which the latter would want to carefully review on scope and content. The Уreps and warrantiesУ can range from absolute statements (e.g., УBiotech Company rep-resents and warrants that the intellectual property is owned by it, and is valid and enforceable and that the manufacture, use and sale of the Product does not infringe any intellectual property right of any third party.У) to statements that are qualified (e.g., УBiotech Company represents and warrants, based solely upon a review of its then current internal records, that patent applications have been filed in the countries listed in Schedule X in the name of Biotech Company.У)

TerminationAlthough no one wants to think about a breakup at the outset of a relationship, the biotech company would want to ensure that its rights and obligations upon termination are clear. When is termi-nation available to the biotech company and how does the biotech company terminate? What rights does the biotech company have on termination (e.g., to the intellectual property, to regulatory applications and approvals, to improvement products, to key employees, to customer lists, to RFPs and customer contracts)? What obligations does the biotech company have on termination (e.g., product liability or other claims that arise after termination but that relate to the period before termination, obligations relat-ing to fees or expenses incurred before termination but that ben-efit assets of the biotech company after termination, obligations relating to intellectual property rights)?

Pharma PerspectiveThe pharma company will have other key issues that it will want to address. One key issue will be its right to the assets (or its rights underlying the applicable agreement) if the biotech company becomes insolvent. BB

Eileen McMahon ([email protected]) is the co-chair of Torys’ Intellectual Property and Food and Drug Regulatory Practices. Cheryl Reicin ([email protected]) chairs Torys’ Technology and Life Science Practice in both the United States and Canada.

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In 1976, Robert A. Swanson, a venture capitalist, and Dr. Herbert W. Boyer, a pioneer-

ing biochemist and professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, sat down for a meeting. Boyer, along with geneticist Stanley Cohen, recently founded a scientific field called recombinant DnA technology and Swanson want-ed to discuss commercialization.

The ten-minute meeting continued for three hours and resulted in the birth of Genentech, widely acknowledged as the first biotechnology company. Genentech merged with Roche in a 2009 deal totaling almost $47 billion.

California is the “mother church of the biotechnology indus-try,” says Steven Burrill, chief executive officer of Burrill and Co., a San Francisco life sciences venture capital firm. California, the birthplace of biotechnol-ogy, supports a biotech industry more than 1,500 companies, dwarfing even the highly regarded Boston area.

Today, California’s biotech industry is starting down a new path. In the past, the industry flourished with the discovery and development of new molecules. The future, California’s biotech leaders say, will bring a transformation in the delivery of health bio-tech products through the convergence of Silicon Valley technology and California bio-technology.

“We’re just starting to see the links between information technology, therapeutic and diag-nostics and devices,” says Gail Maderis, CEO of BayBio, northern California’s Life Science Association. “Digital medicine, as it’s called, is going to be huge in the future and while it’s too early to declare a leader in this field, I think we’re well positioned with the abundance of high tech companies here along with our biotech firms to take that lead.”

Future techThe U.S. government’s census bureau estimates that by July 2011, the global population will be 70 million individuals shy of 7 billion. Of the 6,928,198,253 world inhabitants, more than five billion have cell phones.

“In the near future, most of the world will access health care and health care information and diagnosis through wireless tech-nology,” says Burrill. “This transformation isn’t a fantasy old Steve dreamt up after too much time on airplanes. We

have the microfluidic chips, we have the telecommunications, the GPS capabilities, the informatics. We don’t have to discover new technology to let us do this. We need to bring the technology we have to a new delivery mechanism.”

According to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, BayBio and the California Healthcare Institute, half of all Americans will possess smart phones by the end of 2011, putting the possibility of widely-accessible, smart phone-based health care delivery in the immediate future.

“If you look just five or seven years out from now, we’ll be in this world,” says Burrill.

Countries lacking landline infrastructure for telephones adopted cellular technology rapidly. Taiwan, Chile, Bulgaria, Brazil, Russia and at least 32 other countries have more active cell phones than residents. As cell phone and smart phone banking takes off in countries across the globe and developing countries in particular, the mobile phone as a diagnostic device is not far behind.

“The U.S. has about 12 or 13 per cent of the world’s health care burden, but it has 40 or more per cent of the world’s health care workers,” says Burrill. “So an enormous amount of the world is under-resourced.”

California receives more national Institutes of Health funding than any other jurisdiction. In 2009, the state accumulated more

By Jason Hagerman

California: Healthy and wealthyThe birthplace of biotechnology directs billions to digital health

As cell phone and smart phone banking takes off in countries across the globe and developing countries

in particular, the mobile phone as a diagnostic device is not far behind.

lorrey i. lokey Stem cell research Building, the largest stem cell centre in california.


Regional Profile

California: Healthy and wealthy than $3 billion from the nIH, about $1 billion more than its clos-est competitor, Massachusetts. Couple this with tech sector expertise from Silicon Valley and California is well equipped to embrace digital medicine.

In June 2010, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, with three manufacturing plants in California, released FactorTrack, a mobile application to track hemophilia infusions. Health related “apps” for Apple’s iPhone are available at the push of a touch-screen. The Apple AppStore hosts more than 6,000 health related apps. And beyond apps, devices are beginning to emerge.

In April, Burrill sat down with a California company develop-ing an electrocardiograph device that attaches to a smart phone.

Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, says smart phone applications can be developed to monitor any physiologic metric. Measurements taken remotely, he explains, make it possible to interact with healthcare provid-ers conveniently.

And California’s emerging digital medicine industry goes beyond smart phones.

Corventis Inc., based in San Jose, markets two products that look like adhesive bandages and provide continuous monitoring of key metrics. The devices last for a week and transfer data to a physician in real time.

ResMed Corp. offers a line of products to diagnose and treat sleep disorders. ResTraxx, one of the company’s lead products, provides doctors with online monitoring of patients with sleep disorders. Information gathered from a patient sleeping in a familiar bed, physicians believe, is more accurate than information obtained at sleep clinics.

Proteus Biomedical is developing an ingestible sensor small enough to be embedded in pills. The sensor is activated by stom-ach acid and emits a radio signal to a receiver worn on a patient’s skin. The system documents that medication is taken and records vital signs.

California houses at least one venture capital group, HealthTech Capital, dedicated solely to investing in digital medicine, a $2.5 trillion market in 2009, the firm says.

Eliminating health care wastePersonalized medicine will grow in tandem with digital medicine in California.

“We have a larger collection than anywhere in the world of personalized medicine companies, companies developing diag-nostics and looking at treatment regimens based on molecular profiling,” says Maderis.

At a scientific meeting in May, GlaxoSmithKline’s Vice President of Genetics Allen Roses admitted that most prescrip-tion medicines do not work on the people using them.

“The vast majority of drugs, more than 90 per cent, only work in 30 to 50 per cent of the people,” Roses says.

Technology supporting personalized medicine can save patients and health care providers billions.

“We’re moving to a world of genomic physicians—no more trial and error,” says Burrill.

In the near future, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Duane J. Roth, vice chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, stem cell research will explode in California. Five stem cell research centres opened in 2010, includ-ing the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures.

Beyond healthBiofuels is growing in California. Companies like Genencor and Amyris are spearheading the field.

In 2010, Genencor’s enzyme technology enabled the produc-tion of the equivalent of 475 million barrels of oil.

In 2010, Amyris penned a deal with Shell to supply a renew-able diesel product. The new product is different than biodiesel or ethanol. Amyris diesel is a hydrocarbon, the same component

found in today’s petroleum fuels. It can blend with petro-leum diesel at higher levels than biofuels without impact-ing performance.

“With carbon-based fuels going up in price, a window has opened and there is growing recognition that we need these fuels,” says Maderis, adding that, “previously, the bar was very high for these fuels to enter the market, new technol-ogy is always more expensive. The rising cost of petroleum-based fuel has raised the bar on the old technology and alterna-tive sources are a feasible option.” BB

1. California is home to 2,244 biomedical companies, employs an estimated 268,000 people, and pays an estimated $19.4 billion in wages and salaries.

4. The top three areas of concentration in California’s product pipeline are oncolog-ics, immune system and inflammation, and the central nervous system.

5. The California State University System has more than 47,000 undergraduate and graduate students in life science degree programs.

2. California’s biotechs received more than $3.2 billion in grants from the National Institutes of Health, 38 per cent more than the next highest recipient, Massachusetts.

3. Venture capital invest-ment totalled $8.9 billion across 960 California biotechs in 2009, a steep decline from 2008.

facts about California biotech5

Source: California Biomedical Industry, 2011, BayBio.

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Canada can’t match the volume of venture capital and govern-ment funding allotted to science in the U.S. But that doesn’t stop scientists and entrepreneurs across the country from

making significant contributions to the global biotechnology sector. Here, we reveal the most notable Canadian scientists, biotechs, and technologies from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

By Jason Hagerman


science

across canada

YM Bioscience’s executive team (l to r): dr. Ernest Wong, vice President, Business development; dr. denis G. Bosc, Senior director; James Smith, vice President, corporate communications; dr. Mark Kowalski, chief Medical officer and vice President, regulatory affairs; Wendy chapman, vice President, clinical operations; len vernon, vice President, Finance and administration; dr. Nick Glover, Ph.d., President and chief Executive officer (sitting).

Our lab has been developing a marine natural products bank, a collection of material of value from

the marine environment,” says Dr. Russell Kerr, Professor of Chemistry at UPEI and Canada Research Chair in Marine natural Products.

The bank contains microbes, bacteria and fungi, a sustainable source of bioactive natural products.

“The parent sponge might not be a sustainable source, but we can ferment

more of the bacteria or fungus taken from that original source,” says Kerr. “We don’t need to farm that sponge again.”

In March 2011, nautilus and UK chemical giant Croda were awarded an Atlantic Innovation Fund Grant. The part-nership, with matching funds from Croda, will work to identify and quickly commer-cialize products from sources like marine mud.

“We’ve known for decades that terres-trial soil is a great source of antibiotics,”

says Kerr. Microbes living in the natural environ-

ment generate effective antibiotics to ward off neighbouring bacteria and fungi.

“The marine environment is even more complex than terrestrial soil,” says Kerr. “Marine microbes have to come up with hugely complex defence mechanisms. They must produce antibiotics and antifungals.”


For decades, families in newfoundland have recog-nized that “our men don’t last long.” Men in many families were dying seemingly out of nowhere. In

fact, the genetic code passed through these families car-ried defective genes, genes that caused sudden cardiac death due to lethal arrhythmia.

In 2008, Dr. Terry-Lynn Young, Associate Professor of Genetics at Memorial University, discovered the gene responsible for arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardio-myopathy, or ARVC.

“Fifty per cent of the men, with an average age of 43, were dying seemingly out of nowhere.”

Today, Young has the ability to predict who among the family lines associated with the disorder are at risk for ARVC and provide treatment in the event of heart failure. Those at risk are implanted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD.

The ICD fits under the skin on the chest and attaches to the heart via electrical ledes. The device senses the onset of a potentially lethal arrgythmia and shocks the heart back into a normal rhythm.

NewfoundlandDr. Terry-Lynn Young

Prince Edward Island Dr. Russell Kerr

“

Spotlight Canada

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Fish farming, like much of Canada’s agriculture sector, relies largely on monoculture practices. In mono-

culture, a single crop envelops an entire agricultural plot. Beef farmers raise hordes of cattle, wheat farmers grow acres of wheat, salmon farmers nurture schools of fish.

“If I am only a wheat farmer or corn farmer and it gets too dry or too wet or I get a disease, my whole crop is gone and I could be in trouble,” says Dr. Thierry Chopin, University of new Brunswick physiologist and biochemist.

Diversification, Chopin says, reduces the risk inherent in raising crops and creates a more sustainable agricultural system.

Salmon aquaculture produces significant waste in the form of nitrogen, phosphorous and organic particulate. Small biofilter cartridges capture the waste and fill garbage con-tainers on farm sites.

“In order to become sustainable we have to start looking at waste in a different light,” says Chopin.

Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture simulates a natural ecosystem to create a sustainable fish farm with greater economic value than its monoculture predecessor. new research at Chopin’s lab indicates seaweed can also be used to create a loop-style ecosys-tem. The aquaculture industry increasingly looks to land-plant protein to feed fish.

“Seaweed does not competing with the corn and soy markets, it doesn’t cause deforestation, the ocean doesn’t need irrigation and I don’t need fertilizer because the fish do the fertilizing,” says Chopin.

Chopin’s team is modifying a seaweed-based feed formulation that could provide the nutrition required to raise aquaculture. If successful, fish waste will feed seaweed, and seaweed will feed fish.


Jason Berman received the Cancer Care nova Scotia Peggy Davison ClinicianScientist Award, securing grant funding of $100,000 per year for three years to

build cancer knowledge. Berman studies white blood cell development, mast cell biology, leukemia and solid tumours using the zebrafish model.

Berman plans to develop accelerated screening methods for patient-specific cancer therapies using zebrafish, which share genetic information in the area of 80-90 per cent with humans.

“Down the road, we hope to use the fish model in real time,” says Berman. “We will take a tumour tissue sample from a patient undergoing treatment and inject those cells taken from a biopsy into the fish. We will then treat the fish containing the patient’s tumour with drugs. We will see the response to different therapies and use that response to help gauge whether we should go forward with a treatment or not. That would be technically challenging and costly to do in a traditional mouse system. In a fish, however, it’s cost effective and easier to do and may give us insight into tumour drug sensitivity.”

Berman is the MSC Clinician Scientist in Pediatric Oncology. His work continues at the IWK Health Centre and Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia Dr. Jason Berman

Due largely to the efforts of Dr. Howard Bergman, Vice-President of Scientific Affairs

at the Fonds de la recherché en sante du Quebec, the Quebec government announced a provincial personalized health care initiative with a five-year investment of $20 million.

Personalized health care repre-sents a diversion from the established practice of medicine. Trial and error therapies are replaced with targeted treatments based on knowledge of patients and their genetic profiles as well as environmental factors, behav-iours and medical histories.

The initiative was shaped by con-sultations involving more than global 140 leaders in the health and related sectors.

“This strategy is one of the initia-tives planned by the FRSQ and all sectors of the agency’s research com-munity, from fundamental work to service management and translation-al, clinical and social research, are therefore invited to take part. The support announced as part of the provincial budget renews health research funding mechanisms beyond institutional and sectoral boundaries,” says Bergman.

Quebec Dr. Howard Bergman

New Brunswick Dr. Thierry Chopin

science

across canada

Spotlight Canada


Canadian biotech companies need to look beyond Canada’s borders if they want to thrive in an increas-ingly global industry, according to Dr. nick Glover,

President and CEO of Ontario-based YM Biosciences.“I’m proud of our Canadian heritage and I don’t see why

we can’t be a globally active and recognized Canadian company,” says Glover. “We have operating subsidiaries in Australia, we have a U.S. subsidiary, we have a scientist working in London, we have a joint venture in Cuba and we have partnerships in Japan and Southeast Asia. We’re playing the global development game and I don’t see why we can’t fly the Canadian flag while we do that.”

In 2010, YM acquired Cytopia Limited, an Australian biotech with the rights to two cancer targets called JAKs, CYT387 and CYT997.

“JAK is a new target on the block,” says James Smith, Vice-President of Corporate Communications. “It’s a signal from the outside to the inside of most cells. If you can pick up information on immune signals and affect the signal sent

around the cell, you can affect cancer.”

Following YM’s acquisition of Cytopia, investor interest, primar-ily from institutional investors in the U.S., skyrocketed.

Currently, YM boasts a market cap value of around $300 million and was named Life Sciences Ontario’s Emerging Company of the Year in 2011.

“We feel this is recognition of us emerging as a global company,” says Glover. “We’ve been resilient and survived through successes and letdowns. We’ve also been pragmatic about raising capital and we see that when you’re operating in a global industry like biotech, you can reach out to the global community without leaving your foundation behind.”

Ontario YM Bioscience

dr. Nick Glover

When the nRU reactor at Chalk River shut down, Canada experienced a drawn out shortage of isotopes. In 2010, the Canadian Government announced a $35

million plan to explore alternative methods of isotope production. The Canadian Light Source, located at the University of Saskatchewan, led the charge with a proposal to develop an iso-tope production program using an electron linear accelerator.

The Canadian Light Source is one of the largest science proj-ects in Canada. With a price tag of $174 million and five years of construction, it made Canada one of only 15 countries using synchrotron science to investigate matter.

The process uses photoneutron reaction to create isotopes. A linear accelerator propely electrons to nearly the speed of light and collides them with a metal filter, producing x-rays. The x-rays irradiate a target made of molybdenum-100, with each of the the X-rays removing a single neutron from atoms in the metal, mak-ing molybdenum-99. The molybdenum target containing both toe –100 and –99 is dissolved in a liquid and shipped to hospitals, and the molybdenum-99 decays to technetium-99m, the isotope useful in medical imaging. Once the molybdenum –99 is removed, the molybdenum-100 is recovered and recycled into additional targets.

The process produces no nuclear waste and limits the amount of isotope lost to decay during transport.

Peripheral Arterial Disease is a disease in which arteries throughout the body are clogged by plaque, calcium or cholesterol. It occurs frequently in aging populations and

in tandem with coronary artery disease. Most of the damage hap-pens before a patient is diagnosed.

In March, Dr. Grant Pierce, executive director of research at St. Boniface General Hospital, concluded a two-year, $2 million study into new therapies for Peripheral Arterial Disease patients.

The study followed 250 patients suffering from Peripheral Arterial Disease as they consumed three tablespoons of ground flax daily. Based on animal data, Pierce believes flaxseed can alle-viate pain associated with the disease and avert abnormal heart function that could lead to stroke or heart attacks.

By September, about six months after human trials concluded, Pierce hopes to have tangible data showing the effect of flax on human patients.

If successful, the test bodes well for Canada’s flaxseed growers. About 80 per cent of the world’s flaxseed supply comes from Western Canada.

Pierce returned to Canada from a successful post-doc career at the University of California, Los Angeles with an agenda.

“You want to contribute to your home,” says Pierce.Pierce’s study holds the potential to contribute to human

health and economic prosperity in Canada.

Saskatchewan Canadian Light Source

Manitoba Dr. Grant Pierce

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Starting as early as 2013, Calgary-based Oncolytics Biotech Inc. wants to treat cancer with a virus.

Reolysin is the company’s formulation of the human reovirus. The virus is believed to inhabit the respiratory and bowel systems in humans and is found naturally in sewage and water supplies. By age 12, half of all children show evidence of exposure

Using genetic markers from rare patients

with natural insensitivity to pain, Dr. Michael Hayden, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics at the Child & Family Research Institute, developed a therapy to induce insensitiv-ity to pain without the addictive side effects of morphine.

“We recognized early that if we can understand why these patients feel no pain, we may have a new pain treatment for the rest of the population,” says Hayden. “These patients were shown to have a loss of function in a particular gene. So if we caused loss of function in humans with a drug, we could treat pain. Right now we have phase-two clinical data that is very promising.”

Hayden believes the drug develop-ment process is flawed, evidenced by substantial drug failures as late as stage-three.

“There’s not sufficient validation of the target to prove that moderation of a target by a certain drug will solve the problem,” he says.

Hayden employs genetic and genomic technologies to validate patient targets before moving a therapy into trials. BB

Alberta Oncolytics and Dr. Matt Coffee

British Columbia Dr. Michael Hayden

science

across canada

and almost all people show signs of exposure by adulthood.During research at the University of Calgary, Dr. Matt Coffee,

Chief Scientific Officer at Oncolytics, discovered the virus repro-duces particularly well in various cancer cell lines.

Reolysin replicates well in tumour cells bearing an activated Ras pathway, a mutation that may play a role in more than two

thirds of all human cancers. The drug is in human clinical trials

alone, as well as in conjunction with che-motherapy and radiation. The company hopes to start clinical trials in as many as 11 countries in the coming months.

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According to Rx&D, the pharmaceutical industry organiza-tion, pharma companies sink an average of $1.3 billion into a product before it reaches the market. The tradi-

tional pharma model involves everything from research and development to commercialization, resulting in massive overhead costs. The traditional model, industry experts say, is out of date. Big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline are looking to small biotech companies to modernize drug development. Biotech and pharma are forging a new relationship and the line between the two industries is falling out of focus.

Need for a new modelPharmaceutical drugs have a lifespan of about 20 years. In Canada, early and pre-clinical research last five years, followed by five to six years of clinical development with trials involving thou-sands of patients. Regulatory review lasts anywhere from one to three years and formulary reviews follow for an additional one to three years. According to Rx&D, once a drug reaches the market, the developer can expect sales lasting five to seven years.

“For every drug that reaches the market, there are ten thousand molecules discov-ered that don’t make it,” says Russell Williams, President of Rx&D. “And only 30 per cent of drugs that reach the market will recover their research and develop-ment costs.”

These numbers are striking when you consider that, according to Williams, sci-ence has worked its magic on 60 to 70 per cent of known illnesses, and the ailments that remain are the most complex. Drug development in the future will be even more rid-dled with failure.

“Think of these two things,” says Williams. “We’re at a point where we’ve cured most of the easy diseases. We’re also at a point where the ripples of the economic downturn mean less money is available and it will remain so for a long time. These factors mean drug development requires a new model, a new strategy.”

The new model, according to businesses both big and small in the drug development field, is partnership.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report Pharma 2020:

Challenging Business Models, “even the largest pharmaceutical companies will have to collaborate with other organizations to develop effective new medicines more economically.”

What am I to you?“To us, small biotech companies are very important,” says Dr. Bernard Prigent, Vice-President and Medical Director at Pfizer Canada Inc. “Wherever you have clusters of life science, you have the presence of big pharma. The large population of small bio-techs in Canada forms a critical element within the innovation community.”

Prigent believes small biotechs will become increasingly important as pharma developers retract from early stage research and development.

“Although they’re going through a tough time as we speak, as the industry shifts, I believe small biotechs will be the most important entity in early research and development,” says Prigent.

In February, Pfizer announced plans to lower research and development expendi-tures from $9.5 billion in 2010 to $6.5 bil-lion in 2012 as it seeks partners in later stage product development.

“Big pharma to us is a partner in the later stages of development,” says Dr. Marc

Mansour, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Immunovaccine. “Big pharma is moving away from early stage development and focusing on later stage, where their expertise and muscle plays a big role.”

Immunovaccine and Pfizer Animal Health recently developed a partnership based on Immunovaccine’s vaccine delivery plat-form.

“We don’t have an interest in developing veterinary vaccines ourselves, but we’re happy to provide access to our technology to improve another company’s veterinary vaccine delivery. So we licensed it to them at an early stage and they took it from there,”

Pharma

ConvergenceMixing genes between biotech and pharma means a stronger breed of industry in the future

By Jason Hagerman

Biotech

“We are points on a continuum. We are

biotech, we are biopharma. We are

big and we are little.”


Biopharma landscape

says Mansour.Merck KGaA has a pipeline of products from phase-one to

phase-three. Early in 2010, Merck decided to focus on the second and third phase products, shelving early development. Immunovaccine struck a deal with Merck in which the Canadian biotech took over development of a group of early stage programs. Developing these products means the money Merck poured into early research wasn’t wasted.

Community outreachThe Quebec Consortium for Drug Discovery exemplifies the future of the converging industries.

The consortium is a partnership between Merck, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, the Business-led networks of Centres of Excellence, the Quebec Ministere du Developpement economique, de l’Innovation et de l’Exportation and the Fonds de la recherche en sante du Quebec.

“In this organization, you have an end, a need being expressed by big pharma in terms of gaps around discovery tools,” says Prigent. “And as we reach out to the Quebec community, we’re getting submissions and proposals that combine startup capability with academic research. This validates the role that small biotech plays in innovation.”

In April, CQDM announced funding for four projects to assist

research in the “biopharmaceutical industry.”The term “biopharmaceutical industry” is indicative of the

way many view the biotech and pharma industries.“The division between biotech and pharmaceuticals is some-

what arbitrary,” says Williams. “We are points on a continuum. We are biotech, we are biopharma. We are big and we are little, we take all shapes and forms and we work together because we must. The whole process of drug development is so expensive and time consuming that we’ve got to find new ways to do things and this is it. We’re dance partners, members of the same choir. However you want to describe it, we’re the same thing.”

Rx&D and BIOTECanada traditionally employ committees to address issues specific to pharma and biotech separately. Recently, the two industry organizations started collaborating.

“We decided to work together on biologic vaccines,” says Williams. “We both had vaccine committees, and in the spirit of today’s research we want to work together, to coexist. necessity and complexity of research is bringing us together.”

Recognizing the need for innovative business models for innovative science companies, Goldman Sachs funded a phar-maceutical research pool. Pharma companies can place experi-mental medicines, those in early phases, into the pool where external experts, small firms or independent scientists can work alongside scientists from big pharma. BB

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BioTalent Canada’s BioSkills Recognition Program addresses skillsshortages by identifying people who are ready to join Canada’sbio-economy workforce. We need industry experts like you tohelp us recognize individuals’ skills and experience in the contextof real-world biotechnology sector requirements.

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Who’s BioReady? Have your say.

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The Canadian biotechnology industry is evolving. As access to capital among biotechnology companies decreases, com-panies are forced to become more focused and more effi-

cient. With a limited pool of capital investment dollars available, there is increased competition with companies outside the bio-technology sector, including forestry, mining and high tech. Investors are looking for a faster path to their return on invest-ment and the Canadian biotechnology industry is feeling the pinch of a reduced tolerance for risk.

As the result of this paradigm shift, the initial indication suggests the emergence of more streamlined companies having smaller executive and management teams. Companies are con-tracting work out to various research organizations to decrease risk and diversify their product portfolios. There appears to be a push towards failing faster. Cutting products/projects earlier in the development cycle, even as early as the preclinical stage, helps to minimize the risk and the related collateral damage to a company.

The fail faster approach allows companies to shift their focus faster to other products within their pipeline. For investors in the biotechnology industry, this translates into better quality invest-ments with more attractive risk profiles. Fewer players may result in higher quality companies; fewer investments may result in a great number of successes.

Definition of success?A panel of Vancouver-based C-level executives recently discussed the meaning of “success” in the Canadian biotechnology industry. The overriding message: success cannot and should not be defined by the ability of a company to bring a product to market or by the formation of a $30-billion company. Canadian compa-nies are not celebrating the right successes.

Success can be taking an idea, carrying it forward and selling that technology to a third party that is better equipped to advance that technology into a commercial product that will benefit Canadians. Success can be a company’s ability to adapt to rapidly shifting market conditions. There is a need within the Canadian biotechnology community to celebrate our merg-ers, acquisitions, technology advances and the creation of intel-lectual capital.

Financing

By J. Erin Pisko and Warren Learmonth

Failing faster on the road to successMoving more quickly through trials drives innovation

The role of Government?Can the Canadian government adequately support Canada’s bio-technology industry? When reviewing the source of investment dollars among Canada’s biotechnology companies, the portion of investment arising from government funding is but a small piece of the larger investment picture. However, this doesn’t mean the government can’t play a key role building successful Canadian biotechnology companies. Government supports such as IRAP and SR&ED need to evolve alongside the changing landscape of the Canadian biotechnology industry. As companies switch to smaller teams and virtual models, support programs that fund “bodies” need to reconsider if their funding criteria are still effec-tive.

Structuring a successful company?When first setting up your company, consider that it is always easiest to establish comprehensive rules at the beginning when “everyone is friends.” It is important to layout the ground rules among the company founders and determine, for example, how company assets will be valued, the role of each founder, how future financings will be handled and approval thresholds required before significant future steps may be taken by the company. Failure to address the basics when setting up your company can lead to downstream problems.

Founders need to understand the impact of future financings and the resulting dilution. There is only one “pie” to divide up amongst the investors—as the size of the piece given to outside investors gets larger, the size of the piece left for the Founders gets correspondingly smaller. Investors must understand the trade off between the potential to build more value through additional research and development versus increased risk of continuing to run the business longer. Investors will all perform their own due diligence; a well organized and structured company presents a more attractive investment. BB

Erin Pisko is a patent agent and partner in the Vancouver office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Erin can be reached at 604.632.3541 or [email protected]. Warren Learmonth is a partner in the Vancouver office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Warren can be reached at 604.640.4166 or [email protected].

BioTalent Canada’s BioSkills Recognition Program addresses skillsshortages by identifying people who are ready to join Canada’sbio-economy workforce. We need industry experts like you tohelp us recognize individuals’ skills and experience in the contextof real-world biotechnology sector requirements.

Give your seal of approval: join our Competency Committeeand help shape the future of the bio-economy.

Who’s BioReady? Have your say.

Funded by the Government of Canada's Sector Council ProgramBioTalentCanadaisaregisteredtrademarkofBioTalentCanada.

We all have a role to play in strengthening Canada’s biotechnology sector. Share your insights.

Join our Competency Committee now by emailing [email protected] or learnmore aboutthe BioSkills Recognition Program on our website at www.biotalent.ca.

What’s in it for you?

• Learn to recognize the skills that meetyour organization’s HR needs

• Get early access to the best andbrightest talent

• Create your own personal BioTalent CanadaePortfolio—for free

• Leave your mark on the bio-economy

Final Skills Rec ad:Layout 1 1/14/10 12:49 PM Page 1


The life sciences industry is all about frugality. In the best of times, money is in short supply. In the worst of times—the last few years—biotech companies fold regularly. Canada is

home to hundreds of firms and independent contractors who deal in business management services. Contracting current-needs business services to outside firms helps biotech companies cut significant investments in business infrastructure and know-how, saving more money to advance the science.

“For small entrepreneurs in the service sector, such as me, the economic downturn has been strangely beneficial,” says Joanne Harack, an independent management consultant. “Businesses still need to have work done that would normally be done by internal administrative infrastructure, even if they don’t have the full-time resources to do it.”

For scientists who found a biotech business, and who don’t have an interest or aptitude for the business-side of the organiza-tion, contracting to a management firm offers freedom to pursue the science.

Moving through the stagesBiotech companies move rapidly through a series of stages, from start-up to commercialization. Each stage brings unique needs.

“You can either hire on from the beginning as though you’re already what you hope to become down the road, which is pos-sible if you have a lot of money,” says Harack. “However, chances are you won’t have a lot of money and outsourcing services that fit your current needs will be far and away the best option.”

For example, as the business grows, a biotech needs full-time administrators or sales staff.

“You don’t want your scientists dealing with resumes, for instance,” says Harack. “Evaluating the resumes that come from a job posting can be time consuming. It’s not necessarily that these companies can’t do the business-end work, whatever it is, or don’t understand how to do it. It’s more a question of time. It makes sense to go out and hire somebody with contacts, business experi-ence or what have you, to do it.”

As a biotech moves through the stages of product develop-

Abnousi Financial Consultantswww.abnousi.com604.518.2040

Accelligent Management Groupwww.accelligent.com416.840.4536

Acerna Incorporatedwww.acerna.ca905.472.5747

Acetechwww.acetech.org604.683.5852

Advisory Pharmawww.advisorypharma.com416.926.9393

Aerotekwww.aerotek.com514.798.6450

Outsource management tasks and focus on the science

Management service providers operating in the life science sector

Alba Biologics Groupwww.albabiogroup.com416.452.7242

Best Management Services Inc.www.bestmanagement.ca780.464.2790

BioConsult H/R Inc.www.bioconsulthr.com514.637.6287

BioPharma Solutionswww.biopharmasolutions.com604.408.4310

BioTalent Canadawww.biotalent.ca613.235.1402

CanReg Inc.www.canreginc.com905.689.3980

Corporate Symphony Internationalwww.corporatesymphony.com604.484.3190

CREA Groupwww.groupecrea.com514.982.6969

Deloittewww.deloitte.comAcross Canada

Egon Zehnder International Inc.www.egonzehnder.com416.364.0222

GVI Clinical Development Solutionswww.gvicds.com204.478.5607

Innomar Strategies Inc.www.innomar-strategies.com905.681.6551


Business Services

InNOVAcorpwww.innovacorp.ca902.424.8670

Invictus Consultingwww.invictusconsulting.com902.483.1360

Koenig and Consultants Inc.www.koenigconsultants.ca416.640.0773

MaRS www.marsdd.com416.673.8100

MTN Consulting Associateswww.mtnconsulting.ca780.436.3993

Nova Scotia Business Inc.www.novascotiabusiness.com902.722.1323

Pricewaterhouse Cooperswww.pwc.com902.491.7400

PRIME Strategies Inc.www.primestrategies.com604.689.3446

Selkirk Strategy Consultants Incwww.selkirkconsulting.com604.325.3250

SHI Consultingwww.shiconsulting.com416.236.1054

Tarquin Consulting Inc.www.tarquinconsulting.com780.903.7365

ment, they can hire the services of manage-ment firms with specialities in different areas. For example, start-up management firms can get the business off the ground, help with attracting investors, manage the public relations, and keep the books. A later-stage, more established firm can tap the expertise and resources to market products, determine pricing, and build market share.

Who to work withManagement consultants develop business models, evaluate human resources needs, hold administrate meetings, and provide any number of services on a temporary basis for a smaller invest-ment than a full-time staff.

The best bet for a biotech start-up is an independent contractor with demonstrable

Brent Pollock (Analytical Services) and Brent Zettl (President and CEO) of

Prairie Plant Systems

Prairie Plant Systems:A Saskatchewan company

harnessing the power of plants for better health

www.prairieplant.com

To learn more about Saskatchewan bioscience innovation, contact Ag-West Bio www.agwest.sk.ca

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LIST OF ADVERTISERS & WEBSITESAg-West.............................. Page 25………….. ................ www.agwest.sk.caBiotalent ............................. Page 11, 22 ...............................www.biotalent.caBlake Cassell ...................... Page 18 ............................www.www.blakes.com Enterprise Saskatchewan ... Page 8…………... . www.www.enterprisesask.caEppendorf ........................... Page 27…………... ............ www.eppendorf.comGowlings ............................ Page 21…………... .............. www.gowlings.comPfizer .................................. Page 19…………... www.morethanmedication.ca Res. & Innovation Ont. ........ Page 4……… .... www.InvestInOntario.com/talentRx & D. ............................... Page 7……… ............... www.canadapharma.orgVIDO ................................... Page 28 .......................................... www.vido.orgVWR ................................... Page 2 ............................................www.vwr.com

industry experience. Independent contract-ors are entrepreneurs themselves and more likely to understand the unique needs of a burgeoning business.

“I find a lot of the larger management consulting firms are not really interested in the small cap sector,” says Harack. “The larger firms have overhead costs too and the margins on the sector are too thin.”

Independent contractors, she explains, are more flexible with payment schedules and provide a better fit for the early stage life science company with their ability to adapt to changing business needs. BB

Bio Business does not endorse the companies in this index.


Business Leadership

It likely happened between three and eight million years ago. Scientists say it was a result of climate change, forcing our ancestors out of the trees and onto the plains. Tall grass may

have obscured its line of sight. To get a better view, and with no nearby trees to climb, an ancestor shared by humans and chimpanzees stood up.

As this ancestor ventured onto the plains, walking upright became common. A small change in behaviour at the time became one of the earliest defining characteristics of humans.

Business, like nature, evolves. What works for one generation of biotech busi-nesses won’t for the next generation.

Today, small biotech companies strug-gle to stay afloat. Money is hard to come by, experienced management is in short supply and the long-term plan for many biotech executives is often to sellout to a powerful partner and move on to start the next company.

Dr. Aiping Young, President and CEO of Lorus Therapeutics Inc., thinks it’s time for the biotech industry to evolve, in part because of a reluctance on behalf of govern-ment to help biotech companies with the same vigor it helps the resource industry.

“The Canadian government is not providing enough to bio-tech. They do have very good policies for resource companies. But those companies have had those tax incentives for 20 years. If you really look at the statistics, a lot of public biotech companies dis-appeared,” says Young.

This shouldn’t discourage Canadian biotech companies. “We are still a relatively small, young industry, and we can always ask the government to help us, because they can always do more,” says Young. “But changing government is a lot of work.”

Instead, the biotech industry can change itself, Young argues. Biotechs should strive for early stage partnerships with multiple products. This strategy distributes risk and promotes business

development.“You might have to prepare to spend $20 or $30 million to

bring a drug to stage-three or beyond,” says Young. “But that money can be spent on early stage clinical trials too. They might be able to bring three or four drugs into stage two, rather than a single drug further along in development.”

This, Young says, gives more opportunities to partner with large pharmaceutical companies who are cutting back on drug

discovery and basic-level research. “With the current capital situation we

think it’s more appropriate to combine efforts with partners, and more drugs in the mid-stages of development mean more opportunities for partnership,” says Young, a scientist with a diverse background in phar-macology and molecular and cell biology.

The pharma industry is eager to partner with small biotech companies. Patent pro-tection for masses of blockbuster medicines will soon expire and innovative new thera-pies developed by today’s small biotech and biopharma companies are tomorrow’s blockbusters.

“Since around 2006 the biotech market has been changing, and I have strong feelings that these early companies are needed as the foundation of the market today,” says Young.

Currently, Lorus, an Ontario biotech company, has three cancer therapies in clinical development, two of which are approaching stage-three. LOR-2040, Lorus’ most promising drug candidate, is the first to garner interest from the U.S. national Cancer Institute. Lorus has an additional five products preclinical or younger.

“We’re the first Canadians to ever be selected for this. It’s something we’re very proud of,” says Young. “This is the kind of partnership that allows us to move our second lead product for-ward, and we can use the funding that we have to develop our early stage products further.” BB

By Jason Hagerman

Instead of pushing a single third-stage product, companies should champion several early stage products and distribute the risk, says President and CEO of Lorus Therapeutics.

“With the current capital

situation we think it’s more

appropriate to combine

efforts with partners, and

more drugs in the

mid-stages of development

mean more opportunities

for partnership.”

Dr. AipingYoung

Full page journal ad BioBusiness and Lab Business - BBU and LBU

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� PCR Instruments and Consumables

� Pipettes and Pipette tips

� Micro- and Multipurpose Centrifuges

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In the U.S.: Eppendorf North America, Inc. 800-645-3050 • In Canada: Eppendorf Canada Ltd. 800-263-8715

Whether you’re pipetting, heating, shaking, centrifuging, preparing, storing or analyzing, chances are, you’re using an Eppendorf product. Eppendorf is known around the world for easy, innovative and durable laboratory instrumentation and consumables.

For those who want the very best in accuracy, precision and reproducibility, use Eppendorf everyday!

New products this year include a full line of –86 ºC ULT freezers; bottletop dispensers; a new line of manual and electronic pipettes; compact and eco-friendly refrigerated microcentrifuges; new multipurpose rotors and accessories; as well as enhancements to our automatic liquid handler, epMotion, to work with bar coded samples.

Learn more about Eppendorf and our exciting new products, offers and the latest up-to-date technical bulletins.

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Full page journal ad BioBusiness and Lab Business - BBU and LBU

CE

NA

.A1.

0138

.A ©

201

0 E

pp

end

orf A

G

� PCR Instruments and Consumables

� Pipettes and Pipette tips

� Micro- and Multipurpose Centrifuges

� Sample Preparation Mixers, heaters, ULT freezers

and microplates

www.eppendorf.com • Email: [email protected]

In the U.S.: Eppendorf North America, Inc. 800-645-3050 • In Canada: Eppendorf Canada Ltd. 800-263-8715

Whether you’re pipetting, heating, shaking, centrifuging, preparing, storing or analyzing, chances are, you’re using an Eppendorf product. Eppendorf is known around the world for easy, innovative and durable laboratory instrumentation and consumables.

For those who want the very best in accuracy, precision and reproducibility, use Eppendorf everyday!

New products this year include a full line of –86 ºC ULT freezers; bottletop dispensers; a new line of manual and electronic pipettes; compact and eco-friendly refrigerated microcentrifuges; new multipurpose rotors and accessories; as well as enhancements to our automatic liquid handler, epMotion, to work with bar coded samples.

Learn more about Eppendorf and our exciting new products, offers and the latest up-to-date technical bulletins.

� For specially priced Eppendorf Advantage product offers visit:www.eppendorfna.com/advantage

� For the latest in application papers, BioNews, published articles and literature visit:www.eppendorfna.com/tech-resources

� Order from your preferred laboratory supply dealer or directly online at:www.eppendorfna.com/eshop

� For general product information visit:www.eppendorfna.com

Eppendorf everyday!

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Taking Vaccine Development to the next Level

Vaccine and infectious Disease organizationHome of the International Vaccine Centre | interVac

InterVac – the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization’s new Containment Level 3 facility – is the most advanced facility of its kind in the world.

VIDO-InterVac offers:

Containment Level 2 and 3 facilities for infectious diseases of humans and animals

50 multidisciplinary PhD scientists to address vaccine development requirements

Training opportunities for students, post doctoral fellows and visiting scientists

Full regulatory study capacity for animal vaccines

Development and preclinical testing of human vaccines

www.vido.org

ViDo-interVac, a research organization of the

for collaboration and partnership opportunities, please contact Business Development at [email protected]

ViDo-interVac

VIDO.indd 1 5/24/11 2:21 PM

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