seed funding

WaveCheck to Transform Chemotherapy Monitoring for Women with Breast Cancer

Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for North American clinical study during Breast Cancer Awareness Month; 12 artists donate 13 original works worth over $15,000 to support campaign

Toronto, Canada (October 9, 2013) — WaveCheck — a painless, non-surgical clinical technique developed by a Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre oncologist and a Ryerson University physicist and supported by MaRS Innovation — is poised to transform chemotherapy response monitoring for women with breast cancer.

Dr. Gregory Czarnota of Sunnybrook Health Sciences (left) and Professor Michael Kolios of Ryerson University, WaveCheck's inventors. — Dr. Gregory Czarnota of Sunnybrook Health Sciences (left) and Professor Michael Kolios of Ryerson University, WaveCheck’s inventors.

WaveCheck combines traditional ultrasound with new software to detect responses to chemotherapy in breast cancer tissues. By making better, more accurate information available about a woman’s response to her chemotherapy treatment in weeks rather than months, WaveCheck creates greater transparency through dialogue between a women and her doctors, empowering her to participate in discussions about whether a given chemotherapy treatment is effective.

Contribute to WaveCheck‘s Indiegogo campaign and help make this technology available to all women with breast cancer faster.

Media coverage: CTV News Channel, the Globe and Mail and Canadian Healthcare Technology have covered WaveCheck’s campaign.

Developed by Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, and Michael C. Kolios, professor of Physics and Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Applications of Ultrasound at Ryerson, WaveCheck has been used in clinical studies with nearly 100 women receiving upfront, neoadjuvant chemotherapy to treat locally-advanced breast cancer. These results are published in two leading journals, Clinical Cancer Research and Translational Oncology.

In the Indiegogo campaign video, Czarnota, Kolios and three of the 100 women who participated in the first Sunnybrook study explain WaveCheck’s impact.

“The hard truth for women with breast cancer is that 60 to 70 per cent of chemotherapy treatments fail,” said Czarnota, who is also a senior scientist and director of cancer research at Sunnybrook Research Institute and assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics within the Faculty of Medicine. “The 1.5 million women worldwide who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year need to know that their chemotherapy is working as soon as possible. But this kind of treatment monitoring doesn’t currently exist in standard clinical practice. Instead, a woman’s tumour response is evaluated after she completes her chemotherapy treatment, which is typically a four- to six-month process.

Cellax profiled in SciBX; MaRS Innovation’s MSc PoP program cited in National Post supplement

The Cellax technology was profiled in a recent issue of SciBX (subscription necessary). MaRS Innovation is mentioned in the article as the technology’s commercialization agent.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Ontario Institute for Cancer Research scientists have developed glycopolymer-conjugated docetaxel nanoparticles that outperform Abraxane in mouse models of breast cancer. The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) is backing the program with $1.5 million to take it to the clinic. The expectation is that the product’s ability to target the tumor stroma rather than the tumor itself will differentiate it from Abraxane and other chemotherapeutic formulations.”

Call for Applications: MaRS Innovation seeks applicants for early-stage MSc POP projects

September 4, 2013
Susanne Staer
BresoTec Inc.

MaRS Innovation (MI) seeks applicants for the Medical Sciences Proof-of-Principle (MSc PoP) program, which supports early-stage medical science technologies and allows their founding teams to conduct crucial proof-of-principle work.

Through the two-year MSc POP program, MI will distribute funding awards to qualified applicants within its membership on behalf of the Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI). Funds are available in $25,000 or $75,000 grants.

“At MaRS Innovation, the PoP program functions as a kind of internal Dragons’ Den,” says Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO of MaRS Innovation. “For three years, we’ve used a panel of industry leaders to hear pitches from the founding teams of the most promising technologies in our intellectual property pipeline. Based on their assessments, the strongest projects receive PoP funding to fuel their prototyping and other proof-of-principle work.”

Yonge Street Media: Crowdmark, moderated marking and helping teachers grade better

June 19, 2013
Susanne Staer
Crowdmark

Yonge Street Media, a weekly online magazine that covers talent, innovation, diversity and quality of life stories in the Toronto region, covered Crowdmark‘s efforts to disrupt the way teachers grade and interact with students in their Innovation section on Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

Crowdmark graduated from the UTEST program earlier this spring. Last week, the company announced it has raised $600,000 in seed funding and completed two successful proof-of-concept pilot projects. Its co-founders are from the University of Toronto.

Here’s an excerpt from Hamutal Dotan‘s article (emphasis ours):

It is the bane of every teacher’s existence: grading. Though essential, it’s also repetitive and time-consuming. It is also increasingly prone to concerns about inequity: from grade inflation to inconsistent standards across different classrooms, sometimes parents, students, and even teachers themselves have a hard time deciding just what the grades they have assigned actually mean.

Aiming to help with both those problems is Toronto startup Crowdmark. Founded by two University of Toronto mathematics experts–the department’s associate chair, James Colliander, and graduate student Martin Muñoz–Crowdmark provides teachers with a suite of tools to facilitate faster grading, and enables teachers to handle large volumes of grading collaboratively.

XLV Diagnostics Inc. awarded $500,000 to develop digital mammography technology

TORONTO, ON (Feb. 19, 2013) – XLV Diagnostics Inc., a start-up company working to commercialize a faster, cheaper and better digital mammography technology, has received a $500,000 investment from FedNor.

Over 600 million women living in developing countries have inadequate access to breast screening for early cancer detection. In the developed world, many radiology departments are replacing traditional film and screen systems with digital technologies. In both cases, better digital mammography technology promises to solve logistical challenges and save money.

XLV’s solution has the potential to provide image quality that equals or surpasses that which is currently in use, making images easy to analyze, manipulate and transfer much like digital photographs. It will also substantially decrease the cost of digital mammography machines.

OCE invests $250,000 in ScarX Therapeutics’ revolutionary anti-scarring medication

TORONTO, ON (Jan. 24, 2013) – ScarX Therapeutics, a start-up company commercializing a groundbreaking treatment to dramatically reduce post-operation scarring, is receiving a $250,000 investment from Ontario Centres of Excellence.

This story was covered in Yonge Street Media on January 30, 2013.

ScarX, a topical medication, emerged from Dr. Benjamin Alman‘s research. Alman, head of orthopedic surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children, is developing his invention in conjunction with MaRS Innovation.

Benjamin Alman, founder of ScarX Therapeutics. — **Dr. Benjamin Alman**, founder of ScarX Therapeutics. Photo courtesy of The Hospital for Sick Children.

Each year, doctors worldwide perform 240 million surgeries. Currently, no clinically-proven prescription therapeutic exists to reduce post-surgical scarring. Given this critical need for its technology, ScarX Therapeutics believes sales of the ScarX product could potentially reach into the billions of dollars.

“ScarX is a true game-changer when it comes to reducing the scarring associated with many surgeries,” said Dr. Tom Corr, president and CEO of Ontario Centres of Excellence. “Through our Market Readiness program, OCE is pleased to be supporting both the commercialization of this revolutionary research-based product and Ontario’s economy.”

VP Joel Liederman: MaRS Innovation, Canadian Research and the Commercialization Test

August 13, 2012
Susanne Staer
Media Coverage

Joel Liederman, vice-president of business development and physical sciences — Joel Liederman, MI’s vice-president of business development and physical sciences

Joel Liederman, MaRS Innovation’s vice-president of Business Development and Physical Sciences, was quoted in a National Post article, published August 13, probing whether Canadian research is passing the commercialization test.

Here’s an excerpt:

While academics have often been accused of being disconnected from the real world and consuming themselves with the theoretical, it’s hard to imagine they would be able to get away with squandering funding dollars on things that make them go hmmm, particularly in light of the hyper focus on fiscal prudence.

Indeed, those who are intimately involved in attempting to bridge the commercialization gap agree that the old system of leaving university professors to their own devices had long ago been shelved in favour of a more judicious approach.

Joel Liederman, vice president of Business Development and Physical Sciences at MaRS Innovation, says there’s no doubt that much of the R&D being performed in Canada never makes it past the patent stage, but not because its origins were founded on theory instead of commercial need.

Encycle investigators receive CQDM investment

CQDM invests $1.5 million in two collaborative projects within the Québec/Ontario Life Sciences Corridor

Toronto, December 6, 2011 — The Québec Consortium for Drug Discovery (CQDM) is pleased to announce $1.5 million in funding for two joint Québec/Ontario research projects in biomedical research.

The news was released today at the conference, Connecting Life Sciences Across the Ontario-Québec Corridor, which was held in Toronto.

Xagenic secures $1 million investment in chip-based technology for detecting disease, cancer and infection

MaRS Innovation, HTX, OICR and CCR commit over $1 million to speed commercialization of a new rapid molecular diagnostic technology.

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