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BioDiscovery Toronto: A one stop shop for innovation

By Shawn Lawrence
BDT is an organization linking 10 of Toronto's internationally recognized biomedical research institutions. It provides both the people and the funding to drive early-stage pre-commercial projects and has been successful in raising and deploying funds from several sources ranging from government, industry partners and members to promote the development of the most promising advances coming from Toronto’s universities and hospitals.

Its member institutions include: University of Toronto, Hospital for Sick Children, University Health Network, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and Ryerson University. BDT is also part of the Ontario regional innovation network (RINs).

The organization’s primary goal is to make the most of the intellectual property and opportunities that arise from hospital and university research projects and ultimately progress them towards industry relationships or new ventures.

“BDT is really designed to assist and to maintain a healthy flow of innovations from our biomedical research institutions,” states BDT executive director David Shindler. “The goal is to move projects to a point where they are commercially validated and therefore of more interest to a number of company receptors or venture receptors – and in some cases we can form new companies around those opportunities that provide a terrific benefit to the community.”

The organization concentrates on several gaps, specifically on the earlier stages of the innovation process.

“We have 35 projects in the biomedical field and an equal number funded through an allied effort at the University of Toronto network in the non medical fields. These are projects that have been supported specifically because of their future commercial potential. Two really important sources of funding for propelling these pre-commercial opportunities (opportunities that are too early to attract private-sector funding), are the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s ‘Ontario Research Commercialization Program’ (ORCP) and the federal Intellectual Property Management (IPM) program.

According to Shindler, BDT’s concentration from the onset is on deal flow, which means the development of technologies and ventures that have an economic impact on industry and services in society. The deal flow aspect is particularly important in poorer economic times because companies are facing greater challenges to maintain their research and development activities.

The problem BDT faces in 2009 is that all the sources of funding that BDT has employed to foster innovation and deal flow are under review. This includes the federal Intellectual Property Management Fund, and the ORCP at the Ontario level, along with core funding for BDT from the Ontario Research Innovation Networks Program. Coupled with the economic downturn, the gains in capacity and deal flow over the past five years may disappear, just as the members of BDT have achieved about 80% of the benchmarks of tech-transfer capacity for all of Canada.

However, Shindler remains optimistic that BDT’s funding will continue based on the organizations strong performance, but what’s at risk is a third of the new capacity if these programs are not sustained for long enough to achieve their objectives. A reduction in early deal flow capacity also may mean that new initiatives such as MaRS Innovation will not be have access to the required deal flow.

“We’ve made our initial investment over the last three years, but we need to sustain that. We need programs like ORCP and IPM funding to be continued in a more robust fashion, perhaps on a broader base for a much longer period of time because they have proven to be effective in really providing new opportunities for the private sector, new opportunities for industrial partnership coming from our very strong internationally recognized research base. Likewise I think we will have to be very creative about how we mobilize investment capital and incubate the opportunities, so that our opportunities and ventures can be positioned to emerge as investment capital starts to flow again. It is critical that we position our deals for future success,” he said.

But funding is only part of the equation Shindler says. The other part is having the right people in place to assist with these projects, essentially the commercial expertise that goes with that funding. Without the skilled people -typically associated with the ‘Tech-transfer/industry liaison/business development’ offices at the university or hospital - to guide these projects toward commercial objectives, many of the projects would not attain the commercially-relevant milestones.

“These skilled people are really special and are in short supply as mediators and mentors who understand both research and business and who are able to successfully operate in this nexus between academia and business. They have to understand intellectual property and the regulatory environment as they chart the steps necessary to achieve a new product or service,” Shindler explained.

If the above needs are met, Shindler is certain BioDiscovery Toronto can continue as a vehicle in driving successful early stage pre-commercial projects.

“I think one of the really important things that BDT has done is cement relationships among and between the research institutions in Toronto. We’ve broken down barriers and provided new levels of collaboration between the institutions and certainly between the technology development offices. Remember we’re in competition with the rest of the world and there are many opportunities out there so it’s up to us to drive our own opportunities and to make sure that they’re as successful as they can be.”