Why Trade Matters
Trade and the Canadian Economy
Canada's Leading Edge in the Global Biotech Market
Stories of the Week - June 14, 2004
Over the last 80 years, the work of Canadian scientists and researchers has helped establish Canada's international reputation for scientific excellence and creativity. Their pioneering research has contributed significantly to several groundbreaking discoveries: insulin and its treatment of diabetes in 1922 by Sir Frederick Banting; a vaccine for tuberculosis in the 1930s; and, more recently, the gene that causes cystic fibrosis and the genetic link between apolipoprotein and the most common form of Alzheimer's disease; among many others.
In the last decade, Canada has become a world leader in the biotechnology sector. Innovation and research have helped establish Canada as the second-largest biotechnology centre in the world, after the United States, with the largest number per capita of biotechnology companies in the world.
Canada is a world leader in life-sciences research, in particular. Worth roughly $15 billion, this sector employs more than 60,000 people and is second only to the U.S. sector in the number of biotech firms. Canadian life-sciences activities support a public health sector that includes more than 100 hospitals and research institutes nationwide. Canada has also developed about 10 percent of the world's new medicines and helped discover more than 25 percent of known disease-causing genes. As of 2004, more than 500 therapeutic products are being developed in Canadian biopharma research labs.
In 2003, more than $1 billion was invested in life-sciences research and development (R&D;), with the pharmaceutical industry spending another $1 billion on R&D.;
Key to Canada's success is the development of biotechnology clusters, places where numbers of knowledge-intensive companies have congregated around universities, research institutions and government labs. Together home to more than 500 companies, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have become world-class biotech clusters and are ranked among the top 20 North American cities for biotechnology revenue. Quebec has the largest number of biotech firms in Canada. Montreal is the headquarters of more than 200 health-related biotech firms. Attracted in part by the National Research Council's Biotechnology Research Institute, the world's largest specialized research centre, and four local universities, nearly every large international pharmaceutical company has a base in Montreal.
The Greater Toronto Area has over 100 biotech companies, research hospitals and institutes. The University of Toronto and its affiliated research institutions help make Toronto one of the top four medical R&D; centres in North America.
In nearby Guelph, Ontario, significant agricultural research is being conducted at the University of Guelph and its cluster of biotechnology companies. As well, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is one of the world's leading centres for agricultural biotechnology, with more than 100 companies and a major university-related research park.
Vancouver, British Columbia, is particularly strong in health and genomics, and B.C. is now recognized as one of the top 20 biotechnology communities in North America.
Canadian researchers are also making great advances in health research: in pioneering or improving medical devices for diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, in genetic engineering, in health care, in telemedicine and in environmental biotechnologies.
Canada offers major advantages to biotech companies and research institutes. It has the most highly skilled and educated workforce, as well as the highest computer literacy rates, in the G7. Among G7 countries, Canada has the fastest growth in the number of workers devoted to R&D;, in external patent applications and in business expenditures on R&D.;
Canada also offers a highly competitive R&D; environment. KPMG's
2004 international business cost study demonstrated that Canada
is the least costly place in which to do business among the G7 countries,
with the lowest business costs, the lowest payroll taxes and the
best R&D; tax treatment. The cost of biomedical R&D; in Canada, for
example, is 16.6% lower than in the United States.
Canada's rapid growth in the biotech sector is due largely to its strong base of scientific expertise and its continuous investment in R&D.;
The federal government's commitment to biotechnology has also contributed significantly to Canada's success in this sector. It has stimulated the development of a research infrastructure that emphasizes clusters and partnerships; large pools of post-graduate and post-doctoral researchers; world-class academic, public- and private-sector researchers; entrepreneurs; and a renewed vision through the Canadian Biotechnology Strategy.
Canada's international reputation for its leading-edge innovation and research is contributing to our profile as an innovative, dynamic 21st-century economy.
Many of Canada's top biotech companies were represented at the Canada Pavilion at BIO 2004, the major annual event of the biotech industry, held this year in San Francisco from June 6 to 9.
This issue of Stories of the Week features three companies that have succeeded in exporting Canada's biotech expertise.
Stories of the Week - June 14, 2004
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Mending Bones with Canadian Biotechnology
Millenium Biologix Inc., Kingston, Ontario
A specialist in regenerative medicine, Millenium Biologix Inc. (MBI) develops and manufactures proprietary biomaterials and growth factors that repair and replace skeletal tissues.
The Kingston-based company has developed SkeliteTM, a synthetic bone-graft substitute for the repair of defects caused by trauma or diseases such as osteoporosis. Once implanted, Skelite mimics the structure of natural bone and accelerates the healing process while gradually being replaced by the patient's own bone tissue. This process, called remodelling, is unique to Skelite and eliminates the problem of unpredictable physical degradation exhibited by alternative products.
Cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a few years ago, Skelite recently received CE Mark approval, clearing the way for its commercialization throughout the European Community. "Expanding market access in Europe and other key CE Mark territories will reinforce MBI's international business base, and provide a valuable clinical network as we launch a follow-on series of orthobiologics," says Dr. Timothy Smith, MBI President and Chief Operating Officer. Three other company products, PrimacollTM and PeptosTM for enhanced bone healing, and ACTESTM, initially targeting cartilage, are also close to the commercialization stage.
MBI is enabling leading-edge research in space as well as terrestrial medicine. The company's OSTEOTMbiosystem was on board the NASA Space Shuttle STS-95 in 1998 and the ill-fated Columbia in 2003, in order to collect important scientific information about the activity of bone cells in a microgravity environment. OSTEO will fly again in 2006 with Canadian and European research experiments.
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Treating Age-Related Blindness with Photosensitizers
QLT Inc., Vancouver, British Columbia
Visudyne®, the only drug approved for the treatment of "wet" age-related macular degeneration—the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 50—was discovered and developed by Vancouver-based QLT Inc. Visudyne uses a non-thermal laser process that selectively targets abnormal blood vessels under the retina, resulting in a reduction in their growth without affecting healthy retina tissue.
Combining expertise in ophthalmology, oncology and photodynamics, QLT is dedicated to the discovery, development and commercialization of new treatments for eye diseases, cancer and dermatology-related conditions. The company has an exclusive co-development agreement with Novartis Ophthalmics of Switzerland, which markets and distributes Visudyne worldwide. To date, the therapy has been used on more than 300,000 patients in 73 countries. QLT's newest export market is Japan, where Visudyne was granted government approval in April 2004.
Founded in 1981 by a group of University of British Columbia professors, QLT today is ranked as one of North America's fastest-growing technology companies by sources such as Deloitte & Touche and Profit magazine. In 2003, the Helen Keller Foundation for Research and Education presented QLT and Novartis Ophthalmics with its prestigious Prize for Innovation in Eye Care.
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Using Genomics to Monitor Food Safety
Warnex Inc., Laval, Quebec
One of the world's largest turkey processors has adopted Canadian genomics expertise to check its products for salmonella and listeria.
Carolina Turkeys of North Carolina is the latest client for Genevision™, a DNA-based technology developed by Laval-based Warnex Inc. that rapidly detects the presence of pathogens in food. "This is exactly the type of customer that is best suited to our technology: a high-volume food processing plant that can fully benefit from Genevision's advantages," says Mark Busgang, President and CEO of Warnex. Other clients that have signed on for Genevision since its commercial rollout in October 2003 include Cardinal Meat Specialists of Mississauga and New Jersey-based Plumrose USA.
Now that Warnex has a solid foothold in the North American market, the company is making forays into Asia, Europe and South America. In March 2004, an agreement was signed with a major international distributor, Foss S.P.A., to market Genevision in Italy, while another deal is being finalized with a French distributor for the entire European continent. "We expect to be marketing to China and Japan in the fall of 2004," says Busgang, "and have also started discussions in South America."
Other applications currently in the Genevision development pipeline involve the detection of viruses, allergens, toxins, yeasts and fungi, genetically modified organisms and bioterrorism.
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