Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Ontario Government, University of Toronto, and MaRS secure Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS for Toronto – first JLABS Incubator outside of United States

September 8, 2015
Susanne Staer
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)

Partners for JLABS @ Toronto include Janssen Inc., MaRS Innovation and seven of MI’s 15 member institutions

Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure Brad Duguid announces the arrival of JLABS @ Toronto in the MaRS Discovery District. First row, left to right: Chris Halyk, president of Janssen Inc.; Melinda Richter, head of JLABS, Johnson & Johnson; Dr. Meric Gertler, president, University of Toronto; Minister Duguid; Dr. Ilse Treuricht, CEO MaRS Discovery District; Dr. Raphael (Rafi) Hofstein, president and CEO MaRS Innovation, and Robert Urban, head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation Boston. Second row: Dr. Robert Howard, president and CEO St. Michael's Hospital; Dr. Catherine Zahn, president and CEO CAMH; Dr. Barry McLellan, president and CEO Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Dr. Peter Pisters, president & CEO University Health Network; Dr. Jim Woddgett, director of research, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital; and Dr. Michael Apkon, president and CEO, The Hospital for Sick Children. — Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure Brad Duguid announces the arrival of JLABS @ Toronto in the MaRS Discovery District. First row, left to right: Chris Halyk, president of Janssen Inc.; Melinda Richter, head of JLABS, Johnson & Johnson; Dr. Meric Gertler, president, University of Toronto; Minister Duguid; Dr. Ilse Treuricht, CEO MaRS Discovery District; Dr. Raphael (Rafi) Hofstein, president and CEO MaRS Innovation, and Robert Urban, head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation Boston. Second row: Dr. Robert Howard, president and CEO St. Michael’s Hospital; Dr. Catherine Zahn, president and CEO CAMH; Dr. Barry McLellan, president and CEO Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Dr. Peter Pisters, president & CEO University Health Network; Dr. Jim Woddgett, director of research, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital; and Dr. Michael Apkon, president and CEO, The Hospital for Sick Children.

TORONTO, Sept. 8, 2015 — The Ontario Government, University of Toronto, and MaRS Discovery District (MaRS) today announced a collaboration with Janssen Inc. to launch the successful Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS incubator model in Toronto.

This announcement has been covered in the Toronto Star, Metro News Canada, Sing Tao Daily, OurWindsor.ca, FierceBiotech, BioCentury, MedCity News, BioSpace, Biotechnology Focus, Lab Product News, ChinaNews.com, Pan European Networks, Economic Development Blog, BetaKit, Torontoist, and TechVibes.

It was also featured news on Rx&D‘s and Life Sciences Ontario‘s websites.

The new facility, called JLABS @ Toronto, will open in spring of 2016 at MaRS Discovery District and will support start-ups with lab space, programs, and potential investment partners as they work to build important, successful early-stage companies.

“The arrival of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS model to MaRS’ West Tower reinforces Ontario’s position as one of the world’s leading life sciences clusters,” said Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure. “JLABS @ Toronto will support researchers and entrepreneurs across the province and accelerate the development of Ontario companies while connecting Toronto to potential Johnson & Johnson collaborators and investors.”

“Research and innovation are fundamental to the mission of the University of Toronto,” said Dr. Meric S. Gertler, President, University of Toronto. “We host a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem featuring nine campus-led accelerators under the umbrella of our Banting & Best Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The addition of JLABS to this ecosystem will further propel the creation of new companies and new jobs, and ultimately new healthcare solutions that will benefit individuals and our society for years to come.”

“Toronto is home to a vibrant and prolific healthcare and life sciences community led by academic hospitals, world-class research institutions, top scientists, and a strong start-up ecosystem. For these reasons, Toronto is a natural choice for our first international expansion of JLABS,” said Melinda Richter, Head of JLABS. “The Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies has long been active within the Toronto Ontario community, forming many important collaborations. Today we are pleased to begin an even deeper relationship with this important community. Our new location, within a University of Toronto site, close to our hospital collaborators, and neighbouring the financial centre of Canada, will deliver great opportunities and impact for emerging biomedical technology entrepreneurs.”

MaRS Innovation featured in International Innovation magazine

MaRS Innovation and its member institutions are is profiled in International Innovation‘s July issue (#191) in a feature interview with Dr. Rafi Hofstein, MI’s president and CEO, written by Rosemary Peters.

The article is posted on the publication’s website and viewable through a digital interface (pages 80 and 81).

Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Hofstein’s comments:

“Canada’s academic research community is internationally highly competitive, but it has been argued that its scientific commercial success tags behind other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. While this remains a matter of debate, I do agree that we need to continually encourage additional sources of seed capital to join is so as to allow for accelerated advancement of early-stage technologies. Industry needs to become much more engaged in advancing early-stage (and promising!) technologies emerging from the academic sector, which are usually young and in significant attention, navigation, management expertise and seed capital provisions. These are areas of rising importance in Canada, as many innovations fall into the ‘valley of death’ due to a lack of proper funding, or they leave the country and flourish in the U.S. where funding is more abundant.

Ontario Government Invests $1 Million in Toronto’s Neuroscience Catalyst Consortium

June 16, 2015
Susanne Staer
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)

Ministry of Research & Innovation joins founding partners University of Toronto and Janssen Inc., and new partners Evotec AG, MaRS Innovation and Ontario Centres of Excellence, to advance treatments for neurological disorders and develop early-stage biotech companies

From left to right: Dr. Rafi Hofstein, president and CEO of MaRS Innovation; Professor Ruth Ross, director of the Centre for Collaborative Drug Research at the University of Toronto; Guy Seabrook, vice president of Neuroscience Scientific Innovation at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, California; the Honourable Reza Moridi, Minister of Research &Innovation; and Chris Halyk, president of Janssen Inc.

TORONTO and PHILADELPHIA (June 16, 2015)— Toronto’s neuroscience efforts to find new drugs to treat and manage brain disorders — specifically, mood disorders and Alzheimer’s disease — took another step forward as the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation announced a $1 million contribution to the Neuroscience Catalyst consortium, bringing the total raised for the open innovation fund to $3.7 million. Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation and Minister of Training Colleges and Universities, announced the contribution at the 2015 BIO International conference in Philadelphia during the opening of the Ontario pavilion.

This release was covered by Pharma TV and in TechVibes, BioSpace and Biotechnology Focus, and was referenced on the Canadian Science Policy Centre‘s and the Alzheimer Society of Toronto’s respective websites.

“We are pleased to support this collaborative innovation model which will accelerate the development of better treatment options for people with neurological disorders,” said Minister Moridi. “Partnerships between universities, academic hospitals, research institutes, industries and government are key to positioning Ontario as a global leader in Life Sciences.”

Founded by the University of Toronto (U of T) in partnership with Janssen Inc. and facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the Neuroscience Catalyst consortium is using the Toronto research community’s well-established strengths in neuroscience to identify promising early-stage molecules and technologies through an open innovation model. The consortium aims to combine expertise to enable and accelerate the translation of basic sciences through to start-up companies and investor partnerships.

“We all want the next generation of solutions that are so desperately needed by patients and their families,” said Professor Ruth Ross, director of the Centre for Collaborative Drug Research at U of T. “In Canada, mood disorders such as depressive disorder and bipolar disorder affect about 10 per cent of the population. Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 745,000 Canadians. The need is urgent and this unique open collaborative partnership will allow us to rapidly develop new treatments.”

Other partners joining the project include MaRS Innovation, which introduced the partners to the Ministry of Research & Innovation and led the early conversation; Evotec, a global, high-quality provider in the drug discovery field; and Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), which is administering the funding.

Dr. Raphael Hofstein in Biotechnology Focus: It’s time to declare an end to Canada’s two research solitudes

Biotechnology Focus, a compendium of the Canadian life sciences industry, has published a guest column by Dr. Raphael Hofstein, MaRS Innovation’s president & CEO, and Elizabeth Monier-Williams, director of marketing and communications.

The article explores the way research focused on discovery and commercialization are often viewed or positioned as competitors within the funding ecosystem and the need to align their goals:

The time of Canada’s French and English solitudes may be past, as Governor General Michaëlle Jean notably stated when she took office in 2005, but the solitudes of thought concerning how Canada supports basic and commercial research persist.

This thinking is most easily spotted after the government announces a federal budget, triggering a flurry of opinion pieces debating the breakdown for the $2.7 billion Canada spends on research.

Most recently, Jim Balsillie, co-founder of Research in Motion (now BlackBerry Ltd.), wrote for the Globe & Mail about the Canadian need to understand that “geopolitics is at the heart of commercializing ideas,” and create better policies to protect Canadian ideas, including “better
incentives for researchers to spur commercialization,” such as during an academic’s consideration for tenure. Yet, like any business endeavor whose success depends on people, there’s more involved in changing Canada’s approach to commercialization than just policy.

The people must want to change, too.

Sunnybrook forms new industry partnership to advance WaveCheck technology

Co-development agreement, brokered by MaRS Innovation, to advance ultrasound chemotherapy monitoring technology as clinical tool

TORONTO (March 12, 2015) — Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and MaRS Innovation today announced a co-development agreement for WaveCheck, an ultrasound technology that transforms conventional equipment so that physicians can monitor a breast cancer tumour’s response to chemotherapy.

This announcement was covered in Biotechnology Focus, Aunt Minnie.com (radiology blog), dotmed.com, Bio-Medicine.org, Bloomberg Business and Research Views.

The partnership with GE Healthcare, brokered by MaRS Innovation, seeks to develop WaveCheck as a clinical tool that gives clinicians rapid, improved transparency to determine if breast cancer tumors are responding to chemotherapy.

WaveCheck is a clinical technique invented, refined and tested by Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, and Michael C. Kolios, professor of Physics and associate dean, Research and Graduate Studies, in Ryerson University’s Faculty of Science. Their technology uses ultrasound to visually demonstrate whether chemotherapy is destroying a breast cancer tumour at the beginning of chemotherapy treatment in as little as one week. If applied to the clinic, this knowledge has the power to transform patient experience, since existing breast cancer patients typically wait until the end of treatment, anywhere from four to six months, to know if their tumor has responded.

In early clinical testing, WaveCheck’s inexpensive, non-invasive, image-guided technology (shown here) shows promise as an accurate, efficient way to monitor tumour response. Sunnybrook has partnered with GE Healthcare to co-develop WaveCheck as a clinical tool.

In early clinical testing, WaveCheck’s inexpensive, non-invasive, image-guided technology shows promise as an accurate, efficient way to monitor tumour response, opening the door to tailored treatment.

The agreement leverages GE Healthcare’s extensive ultrasound technology and market expertise in bringing new ultrasound innovations to global hospitals and clinics with Sunnybrook’s leadership in oncology research and cancer care through the Odette Cancer Centre.

Triphase Accelerator announces new cancer collaboration with Sunnybrook Research Institute

February 27, 2015
Susanne Staer
Industry Partners

TORONTO and SAN DIEGO (Feb. 26, 2015) — Triphase Accelerator Corporation has entered into an academic center collaboration with Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI), the research arm of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, a MaRS Innovation member institution. MaRS Innovation is also a Triphase investor.

Under the agreement, SRI will assist in the development of Triphase’s novel, first-in-class, fully human bi-specific antibody TRPH 011 and evaluate the role of bifunctional targeting of VEGFR-2 and TIE 2 receptors in cancer. TRPH 011 binds and neutralizes VEGFR-2/KDR and TIE 2 receptors simultaneously, resulting in sustained inhibition of tumor growth and angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels and a fundamental step in the transition of tumors from a benign to a malignant state).

Under the terms of the agreement, Triphase will provide funding to the laboratory of Dr. Robert S. Kerbel, senior scientist in the Biological Sciences Platform at SRI. Dr. Kerbel and his colleagues will evaluate TRPH 011 in preclinical pharmacology models. Triphase will use the findings to advance the TRPH 011 program toward an Investigational New Drug (IND) filing.

MaRS Innovation’s top 10 portfolio stories for 2014

December 15, 2014
Susanne Staer
Acquisitions

MaRS Innovation enjoyed an exceptional year in 2014. Our team continues to collaborate with researchers within our membership to help bridge the commercialization gap between their world-leading research and creating successful start-up companies or licenses.

Here are our picks for the top 10 news stories from MaRS Innovation’s portfolio.

1. Triphase Accelerator Corporation, in which MaRS Innovation is an investor, started the year with a bang by signing a collaboration and option agreement with Celgene Corporation. In October, Triphase initiated a Phase I clinical study to evaluate marizomib in Glioblastoma (GBM) with Celgene, signed an agreement to provide Celgene with an option to acquire a new bi-specific antibody (licensed by Triphase from PharmAbcine) and closed the year by announcing that Triphase’s proteasome inhibitor, marizomib, demonstrates potent synergistic anti-multiple myeloma activity in combination with pomalidomide.

2. Flybits Inc., spun out of Ryerson University, announced a $3.75 million Series A financing with Robert Bosch Venture Capital to advance its context-aware mobile experience platform. The company was also named a Red Herring Top 100 North America winner.

3. XLV Diagnostics Inc., spun out from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, secured a $3 million Series A investment round with Boston-based Bernard M. Gordon Unitrust. XLV’s product will provide mammography image quality equivalent to top-of-the-line mammography machines currently in use, and will do so at a fraction of the cost of current generation systems. The funding will support continued product development and regulatory approval.

BioCentury features Vasomune Therapeutics

October 27, 2014
Susanne Staer
Media Coverage

Vasomune Therapeutics, a MaRS Innovation start-up company from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s Sunnybrook Research Institute, was featured in a BioCentury emerging company profile by Michael J. Haas.

The company is currently raising a Series A financing round and recently closed a seed investment with Genome Canada and an unnamed industry partner. MaRS Innovation also contributed a third of the investment, bringing the round’s total to $1.5 million.

Haas’ profile, “Vasomune: Lassoing Tie2,” is available behind a paywall on the BioCentury website.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Agonizing Tie2 could restore vascular integrity and limit tissue damage in kidney injury, but bringing together the four copies needed to activate the receptor is a job too big for small molecules or antibodies. Vasomune Therapeutics Inc. has shown its four-armed peptidomimetic, vasculotide, activates Tie2 and restores vascular integrity in [preclinical] models.

“Many renal diseases are ultimately characterized by a loss in vascular integrity that damages tubules in the kidney,” CEO Parimal Nathwani said. “Our idea is to use vasculotide to fix the problem and restore normal vascular integrity before it gets out of control.”

Vasomune Therapeutics awarded $1.5 million to advance lead asset for renal disease

TORONTO (October 20, 2014) — Vasomune Therapeutics, a biotechnology start-up founded by Drs. Dan Dumont and Paul Van Slyke of Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) in partnership with MaRS Innovation, has received $1.5 million, in part through Genome Canada’s Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP), to advance Vasculotide, the company’s lead Tie-2 activating agent, towards clinical development.

This announcement was covered in Biotechnology Focus.

The Honourable Ed Holder, Minister of State (Science and Technology) and Dr. Pierre Meulien, president and CEO of Genome Canada, announced the funding as part of 12 selected projects under Genome Canada’s Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP), on October 15 in Wallenstein, Ontario.

**Parimal Nathwani**, president and CEO of Vasomune Therapeutics Inc.

“We believe that our technology is well positioned to accelerate from preclinical research into clinical development based on its strong data package,” said Parimal Nathwani, president and CEO of Vasomune Therapeutics. “This award, in combination with industry funding, validates the Vasculotide opportunity and gives us the required funds to advance the drug candidate toward the clinic.”

In preclinical studies, Vasculotide has shown to be an effective treatment for multiple renal diseases including acute kidney injury (AKI), which in humans is a possible outcome of kidney function loss that manifests in nearly a third of high-risk cardiac patients. AKI may result from short-term interruptions in blood flow during surgery; 11 percent of patients who develop AKI after bypass surgery will die. People who survive AKI are at risk of developing longer-term kidney complications such as chronic kidney disease or End Stage Renal Disease. Vasomune’s founders conceptualized and designed Vasculotide to bind to the Tie-2 receptor, which is responsible for maintaining vascular health (and thus blood flow).

With this new funding, a third from Vasomune and MaRS Innovation, a third from Genome Canada and a third from a leading multinational pharmaceutical company, Vasomune can transition its program into manufacturing optimization, pharmacokinetics and toxicology studies to prepare for clinical development in early 2016.

BioPrinter engineering team wins Canada Dyson Award

September 22, 2014
Susanne Staer
Awards

This story appears courtesy of our colleagues at U of T Engineering News.

The printer was developed by (clockwise from top right) University of Toronto students Arianna Mcallister and Lian Leng; former student Boyang Zhang and University of Toronto associate professor Axel Guenther. (Photo courtesy of the James Dyson Foundation)

While some of us are using the new power of 3D printers to make smartphone cases and chocolate figurines, two engineering students from the University of Toronto are using them to print functional human skin.

On September 18, Arianna McAllister and Lian Leng were named the Canadian winners of the 2014 James Dyson Award for their invention, the PrintAlive Bioprinter.

This story was covered by CBC News and BBC News. The BioPrinter team is working with MaRS Innovation to commercialize their technology; read the news archive.

This 3D skin printer won four U of T engineers a $3,500 Canada James Dyson Award and a chance to compete for a $60,000 international prize (photo courtesy of PrintAlive and U of T news).

The machine – created in collaboration with Professor Axel Guenther, alumnus Boyang Zhang and Dr. Marc Jeschke, head of Sunnybrook Hospital’s Ross Tilley Burn Centre – prints large, continuous layers of tissue that recreate natural skin.

Ontario Government, University of Toronto, and MaRS secure Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS for Toronto – first JLABS Incubator outside of United States

Partners for JLABS @ Toronto include Janssen Inc., MaRS Innovation and seven of MI’s 15 member institutions

MaRS Innovation featured in International Innovation magazine

Ontario Government Invests $1 Million in Toronto’s Neuroscience Catalyst Consortium

Ministry of Research & Innovation joins founding partners University of Toronto and Janssen Inc., and new partners Evotec AG, MaRS Innovation and Ontario Centres of Excellence, to advance treatments for neurological disorders and develop early-stage biotech companies

Dr. Raphael Hofstein in Biotechnology Focus: It’s time to declare an end to Canada’s two research solitudes

Sunnybrook forms new industry partnership to advance WaveCheck technology

Triphase Accelerator announces new cancer collaboration with Sunnybrook Research Institute

MaRS Innovation’s top 10 portfolio stories for 2014

BioCentury features Vasomune Therapeutics

Vasomune Therapeutics awarded $1.5 million to advance lead asset for renal disease

BioPrinter engineering team wins Canada Dyson Award

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