There has been remarkable progress over the past several years in fundamental science. Today, the challenge is to convert these discoveries into innovations that will lead to new therapeutic treatments, diagnostics, devices and care management systems, among others. We need to be better at getting "our ideas out of our minds and into the marketplace," in the words of Prime Minister Paul Martin. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) works in partnership with Canadian researchers and biotechnology companies to make this vision a reality. Our collaboration enhances the impact of all of our efforts.
The Government of Canada has put significant resources toward improving our commercialization capacity and encouraging venture capital investment in Canada's areas of strength, including biotechnology. CIHR has a dynamic and innovative commercialization strategy to catalyze innovation. Our collaborative programs support the creation of fundamental knowledge and its translation into improved health and prosperity. This is but a snapshot of CIHR's current initiatives in innovation.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is Canada's premier agency for health research. Created in 2000, its objective is "to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system." Its mandate is unique in the requirement to not only create knowledge, but to translate it into application.
CIHR takes a problem-based and multidisciplinary approach to the health challenges facing Canadians. Its broad-based approach is facilitated by its 13 Institutes, each of which brings together researchers across disciplinary and geographic boundaries to address a domain of health research of immediate and identifiable importance. The majority of CIHR's funded research is investigator-driven, while some funding is reserved for initiatives that respond to Institute strategic priorities.
CIHR continues to evolve and grow. Blueprint 2007 identifies key areas where CIHR will focus over the period 2003-2007, including the need to support health innovations that contribute to a more productive health system and prosperous economy.
CIHR has a coherent suite of programs to help achieve this objective and move research from the academic setting to the marketplace. It is now planning to significantly expand these programs, with a commercialization strategy that will mobilize research, develop people and build partnerships. In so doing, CIHR will continue to play a central role in encouraging innovation that will result in improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened economy.
CIHR's innovative programs help transform today's research discoveries into tomorrow's health care solutions. They encourage the development of innovative new diagnostic methods and therapies that save lives and reduce the economic burden of ill health.
CIHR's discovery research programs yield the new concepts and materials that fuel the cycle of innovation. They are open to researchers across the full spectrum of health research and include training and salary awards for students and established researchers; operating, equipment, maintenance and workshop grants; randomized controlled trials; and a growing suite of strategic initiatives targeted to specific health issues.
These programs mark the beginning of the journey from the laboratory to the marketplace, a journey that enhances lives by offering new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases effectively and profitably.
Canada is a fertile environment for the world's biotechnology companies, and CIHR is committed to enhancing that environment with its dynamic and innovative commercialization strategy.
Mobilizing research
CIHR's 13 Institutes take a broad approach to specific health issues, incorporating not only biomedical and clinical research, but also health services and systems and population health research. Researchers from disciplines ranging from bioinformatics to engineering to the social sciences and humanities work together to focus on a problem from different perspectives.
An example of CIHR's ability to mobilize research is the Network for Chemical Biology. Through this major, new national initiative, CIHR will link academic and private sector researchers to stimulate the development and validation of novel compounds.
Developing people
A new approach to health research demands a new generation of researchers with a new skill set - the ability to work across disciplines to integrate knowledge and approaches. CIHR's training programs are supporting the creation of that new generation, ensuring a critical mass of excellent researchers now and in the future to work with biotechnology companies to achieve their goals.
Building partnerships
Since 1993, with the establishment of the first industry partnership program in the world, Canadian health researchers have collaborated with industry to further the cycle of innovation. Today, Canadian researchers recognize the opportunity and responsibility to derive economic value for Canadians from the fruits of publicly funded research and the value of partnerships to achieve this goal.
The priority the Government of Canada has placed on commercialization means more programs to support partnerships among government, academia and industry to move promising ideas forward and more access to venture capital to make these ideas a reality.
CIHR/Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Research Program
The CIHR/SME Research Program is a partnership between CIHR and biotechnology companies. It helps stimulate the health research programs of start-ups, university spin-offs and SMEs. This program contributes to the SME research environment, further strengthens IP portfolios and improves opportunities for growth and development.
One in 20 Canadians over age 65 and one in four over age 85 is affected by Alzheimer's disease. The cognitive decline that occurs as a result of this and other neurodegenerative diseases is linked to amyloid deposition. Dr. JoAnne McLaurin of the University of Toronto has developed small carbohydrate-based molecules that inhibit amyloid deposition, reducing cognitive decline. She has shown that the molecule works in animal models. Now, with support from the CIHR/SME Research Program, she is working with Toronto's Ellipsis Biotherapeutics Corp. to carry out the toxicology tests that are a necessary precursor to human clinical trials. If these are successful, physicians will have a new weapon in the battle against Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.
CIHR/Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) Research Program
The CIHR/Rx&D Research Program is a jointly funded partnership between CIHR and Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) that facilitates collaborative partnerships among academia, industry and government to enhance the transfer of publicly funded research to the private sector.
"Fight, fright and flight" are evolutionary instincts that serve us well in the short term by making our sympathetic nervous systems more active. Dr. Frans Leenen of the University of Ottawa has found, however, that heart attacks or high blood pressure make this system chronically active, placing too much strain on the heart. He has shown that blocking activation of this one system in the brain can prevent development of heart failure after a heart attack to a large extent. Dr. Leenen holds a Research Chair supported by Pfizer Canada Inc., CIHR and the Ottawa Heart Institute Foundation under the CIHR/Rx&D Research Program. He says the Chair permits him the freedom to explore "the imagination of the brain" and pursue new avenues of research at the early stages. His explorations could lead to new treatments that will reduce the burden of heart disease.
CIHR Randomized Controlled Trials
The CIHR Randomized Controlled Trials Program supports state-of-the-art trials. Studies of all aspects of health research are supported, including clinical, health services, population, social and behavioural research.
Nearly half of the 40 million people in the world infected with HIV/AIDS are women. They, in turn, spread the disease to their children through childbirth and breastfeeding. In a world where saying "no" to unsafe sex may not be an option, a prevention method under the control of women could save millions of lives. Laval University's Dr. Michel G. Bergeron is testing just such a method- a vaginal gel containing the microbicide sodium lauryl sulfate. With the support of the CIHR Randomized Controlled Trial program, he is testing its safety and acceptability on healthy young African women in Cameroon. If the gel proves effective, a new method of HIV/AIDS prevention may fall under the control of those who need it most. (Approved by Dr. Bergeron)
CIHR Proof of Principle (POP) Phase I Grants
CIHR POP Phase I grants supports research designed to establish proof of principle of an invention or discovery. It strengthens the commercial viability of health research at our universities and research hospitals and facilitates the efficiency of commercial transfer of knowledge and technologies from these institutions to the health sector.
Many of the bacteria that cause infections in hospitals are antibiotic-resistant. Dr. Neil Reiner, of the University of British Columbia, has discovered a strategy for drug targeting that could lead to new, more effective antibiotics for hospital-acquired infections and many infectious diseases. He and his colleagues have found that certain essential proteins present in both microbes and humans with overall high degrees of similarity nevertheless differ in key areas. By targeting the areas where they are different, the new strategy attacks the microbes without being toxic to humans. In vitro testing has shown that targeting these proteins can have an antibiotic effect. Now, support through a Proof of Principle Phase I grant is enabling him to test this new strategy in intact, viable microbes with candidate drugs, to prove that this targeting works.
CIHR Proof of Principle Phase II Grants
The CIHR POP Phase II grants fund follow-on proof of principle research conducted by previous POP grantees to help move a discovery to a further stage in the innovation cycle and build on the success of the POP Phase I grant. Partnership with a non-academic investor is a prerequisite for funding for POP Phase II grants.
Deep brain stimulation can vastly improve the quality of life of people with Parkinson's disease. Dr. Mandar Jog, of the London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ontario, with the help of Dr. Suwas Nikumb from the National Research Council, has developed a multi-channel device that can be implanted surgically to provide ongoing stimulation, and simultaneously and chronically record brain signals to ensure the stimulation is targeting the right area of the brain. Existing technology only uses a single channel and cannot record after implantation, making it difficult to work with precision. A Proof of Principle Phase I grant helped him develop a prototype device. Now, a Proof of Principle Phase II grant has brought him together with Sciemed Inc., a London-based company that is helping further develop this prototype for the marketplace. The prototype will be tested in humans in fall 2004 and could spark the development of additional technology towards commercialization of the device.
