A Support Structure Takes Shape

In Nova Scotia, the Life Sciences Development Association was formed recently to devise a strategy for developing a world-class life sciences sector in the province. A key goal of the group -- which is comprised of business, academic, government and health services entities -- is to establish a Life Sciences Research Village. This effort will provide the infrastructure in the Halifax area needed for research and development in emerging industries.
        "We step in where they leave off," says Marli MacNeil, executive director of BioNova, an association of life science companies and related entities. "Our role is to help companies commercialize the results of their research."
        Members of BioNova include parties associated with the Brain Repair Centre in Halifax, which in June became the beneficiary of a $9 million (Canadian) investment by National Research Council (NRC) Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia. The investment will purchase a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system and associated research facilities. Some of the NRC monies will fund the long-term sustainability of the province's plans to become a center of neuroscience research. But there's more to Nova Scotia's strategy.
        "We plan to put a business development officer in our NRC [office] there to manage hardware or software spin-offs that ensue and help commercialize them," says Dr. Ian Smith, director general of the Institute for Biodiagnostics of the NRC, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who is overseeing implementation of the technology in Halifax. "This will be a special place given the combinations of technologies and resources there," says Smith. "The economic and social impact will be quite significant in Nova Scotia and eventually the other Atlantic provinces."
        "A lot of biomedical work is done in Nova Scotia as well as marine biology work and agriculture work," says MacNeil. "Then there is the support industry that has sprung up to assist these companies, from software developers to laboratory support firms to consultants and accountants working around the industry to enable it to grow. It's a vibrant group of people," she relates. "The balance sheets may not be where you would want them to be, and a lot of small companies are trying to get off the ground. Two I can think of are spin-offs from Dalhousie University in the midst of commercialization."
        MacNeil acknowledges the dearth of venture capital in the region. "We sponsored a conference and expo in May called BioPort, part of which was a session with some international venture capitalists who talked to the industry here about some of the challenges they see," she notes. "Quite frankly, one of them is that our projects are so small. They're not yet ripe for them to come in and have a look at. So we're a little far from where the venture capitalists who do biotech are -- and they tend to look at projects in their own jurisdictions. Many of them are in Boston. And they're used to dealing with companies that deal with the U.S. Food and Drug Adminsitration. The Canadian Department of Health and Welfare and their regulations are foreign to them, and they're somewhat nervous about that."
        The Atlantic Canada biotech industry needs help financing early-stage product development, says MacNeil, the projects that fly under the radar screens of the funding community. "We have to help venture capital firms learn about how to do business in Canada, and we have to encourage venture capital within our own borders," she stresses. "Nova Scotia has made huge strides in biotechnology in the last several years. We've got to let people know that."