Hi Everyone,
We hope you all had a great holiday, a restorative break and a good start to the new year so far.
We had the incredible joy of some good news earlier this month when our CEO Andrew MacIsaac received an Edifier Award from EDify Edmonton. Andrew’s vision and leadership has been such an asset to our organization and we are grateful to be part of this great team along with him!
“This award truly should go to the whole team at API and everyone who is pulling alongside with us. There are some phenomenal people doing great work in this city, province, and country, and I feel privileged to work with some of them. Together, we are all expanding the talent development, innovation and economic opportunities within Alberta and Canada, and I feel humbled and lucky to be doing what I’m doing,” Andrew shared.
As another pleasant start to the new year, we were delighted to read Deloitte’s latest Life Sciences and Health Care Predictions 2022. The report sheds light on some promising industry and economic statistics, insights into the upcoming trends and some conquered constraints for the life sciences and healthcare industry. An encouraging note in the report was how companies that are forging international partnerships with academia, as part of their STEM talent development strategies, are helping to address the life sciences talent gap. At API, bridging this talent gap has always been part of our core business model and we’re happy to see this recognition as a constraint being addressed globally. We’re confident that steps in this direction will lead to greater talent retention, job creation, and positive economic impact domestically and globally.
This year, we want to continue strengthening the life sciences community in Canada and through our participation in events, conferences, and discussions. And our top goals will be skill development, infrastructure investment, supporting innovation and innovators, and increasing Canada’s small-molecule drug manufacturing capacity.
The Startup TNT’s Life Sciences Investment Summit is one of the many events that we will be a part of this year. This summit is being hosted by Startup TNT, API and seven organizing partners. Our goal is to raise over $1,000,000 in private capital for life sciences startups, with a minimum investment of $150,000 guaranteed from our Angel Syndicate. We are thrilled to share that 21 Investors have already verbally committed to joining.
The Summit Finale will be on March 17th. More details about the Finale will be shared in the coming weeks.
If you’re raising money in 2022 this is a great place to start building relationships with investors. The organizing partners include Life Sciences investors UCeed, HaloHealth, and Thin Air Labs as well as service providers that can help life sciences companies commercialize their technologies (API, Innovate Calgary, Innovate Edmonton, Health Cities, and W21C).
Thank you all for being part of API’s journey and for your support. As always, if you’re interested in working with us as a network member, client, or trainee, you can contact us at letsconnect@appliedpharma.ca, or reach out on Twitter and Linkedin.
Until next time,
The API Team
| People of API |
Bringing talent and expertise into Alberta by way of investment attraction: Jason Pincock
As Canadian Life Sciences organizations continue to develop innovative drugs and therapeutics, it has become increasingly important for them to attract investment, experts, and talent from within Canada and across the world.
In this last part of a three video-series, Jason Pincock, CEO DynaLIFE Medical Labs and API Board Member shares insights into our global investment attraction strategy that focuses on two factors: first, to attract global projects and talent, and second, to provide innovators and pharmaceutical organizations with an opportunity to create life-saving products in a regulatory compliant manner using GMP practices.
| API News |
Research Commercialization Working Group
API is part of the Research Commercialization Working Group that was established by the Government of Alberta in August 2021 to implement goal 3 of the Alberta 2030: Building Skills for Jobs strategy – support innovation and commercialization.
By spring 2022, the working group will deliver an action plan to ensure Alberta’s post-secondary research drives economic diversification and growth by continuing to discover and commercialize new knowledge, ideas and solutions.
The group’s work supports the economic growth and diversification focus of Alberta’s Recovery Plan and includes representatives from the energy, agriculture, health and emerging technology industries, post-secondary institutions and government.
Life Sciences Investment Summit aims to provide more than $1M to growing companies
Startup TNT has partnered with Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation (API) to organize the event, which will be the province’s largest investment summit focused on life sciences — with a goal of investing over $1 million into participating seed-stage companies.
“This summit will fill a critical gap needed by companies as they move beyond initial non-dilutive grants and friends-and-family funding, giving companies the ability to scale,” API CEO Andrew MacIsaac told Taproot.
“The added criteria that companies do their development work here in Alberta is aimed at ensuring that every dollar raised goes back to jobs and economic growth in the province.”
To participate, companies must have or intend to have economic ties to Alberta, whether they are headquartered here, employ full-time staff here, or engage in ongoing research contracts with Alberta-based entities.
| Funding opportunity |
Canada Biomedical Research Fund
The Canada Biomedical Research Fund (CBRF) and Biosciences Research Infrastructure Fund (BRIF) are essential components of Canada’s Biomanufacturing and Life Sciences Strategy, each designed to strengthen research systems and the talent pipeline.
The CBRF supports high-risk, applied research, training and talent development, as part of a suite of foundational investments to establish a resilient, robust domestic biomanufacturing sector in Canada.
The BRIF addresses the biosciences research infrastructure needs of postsecondary institutions, and strengthens their capacity to support pandemic preparedness and responses to emerging health threats.
Read more here.
| Industry |
Government of Canada backs more than 5,500 trailblazing Canadian researchers
Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced support for more than 5,500 researchers from coast to coast to coast. This major investment of over $550 million, part of the government’s ongoing effort to support Canada’s science and research sector, will strengthen the country’s research enterprise and have real and lasting impacts on Canadians and the world.
Clinical trials in 2022: highlights for the year ahead
Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, clinical trials in 2022 will likely further embrace the mechanisms it had to speedily adopt in the past 22 months. Specifically, decentralised clinical trials will continue to be a hot topic, and trial sponsors will consider unconventional trial designs to ensure studies succeed in an unpredictable healthcare landscape.
Pharma developments in 2022: what you need to know
Pharma and biotech companies continue to innovate not just in the field of therapeutics and vaccines, but also in terms of the science to develop them. Overall trends indicate a move toward adopting emerging technologies to discover drugs, adapting existing scientific techniques to find new therapeutic approaches within the RNA field, and decentralising clinical trials.
To view the online version of the newsletter and subscribe, click the below link: https://mailchi.mp/appliedpharma/january-2022-newsletter-5086325