On November 14th, the Globe and Mail hosted the Biomedical Innovation Summit, sponsored by Novo Nordisk. The half-day event focused on how to grow Canada's strengths in the biomedical sector, with keynotes from Jason Field (Life Sciences Ontario) and technology investor Michael Hyatt.
PRiME's Director, Shana Kelley, presented during "Leveraging Canadian Strengths: Taking Stock of Our Biomedical Assets." Drawing on her experience across the U.S. and Canada and in both academia and start-ups, she highlighted the disparity between the volume of high-impact Canadian life-sciences research and the limited number of commercialization successes, suggesting a sharper focus on translating Canadian research — with PRiME as one example.
Kelley highlighted the lack of government funding for Canadian startups as a key roadblock, pointing to the U.S. NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program as a model. A second panel with Novo Nordisk Canada, Bloom Burton & Co., Zymeworks, and Lumira Ventures continued the themes of collaboration and investment. The summit drew a diverse audience of over 300.