Recordings now available!
ICYMI: tune into the BioAlberta You Tube channel here and listen to what presenters had to say at the Alberta Life Sciences Showcase at BioDigital 2021. To l earn more about participating companies and organizations that were featured at BioDigital see here. |
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Alberta’s Life Sciences - State of the Industry 2021 |
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Your Company Matters: Be Counted!
Welcome to the 2021 Alberta Life Sciences State of the Industry report survey!
State of the Industry is the most comprehensive view of Alberta’s life sciences industry and the companies that are working to grow the life sciences sector and diversify Alberta’s economy. It provides policy makers, support agencies and industry participants with a view of the opportunities and challenges that face our industry and insight into the policies and programs that support our growth.
Your company matters - be counted! State of the Industry is a survey of actual participants in the life sciences sector. In order to provide the highest quality report possible, BioAlberta has engaged Deloitte as our collaboration partner to produce the report. Deloitte will compile data collected through the participant survey as well as information from publicly available sources to provide an accurate view of Alberta’s Life Sciences sector.
Your participation in State of the Industry is critical to producing an accurate assessment of Life Sciences in Alberta. The data collected helps government policy makers understand policies and supports required to grow the sector and identify barriers that are preventing growth. It provides long term data on sector growth, and it allows industry to work together to champion our strengths to the world.
On behalf of BioAlberta and our partner Deloitte, I wish to thank you for taking the time to complete the survey and make sure your company is counted as part of the Life Sciences ecosystem in Alberta. Please click this link to take the survey: State of the Industry 2021 Survey.
The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Be assured that all responses and data will remain confidential, and will only be published in aggregate. Please complete the survey by July 15, 2021.
Thank you in advance for your participation in this year's survey. If you have any questions, please call Alex Holt-Brown, Business Analyst, BioAlberta at 780.638.2180. Alternatively, you may contact Badeia Jawhari, Senior Manager, Healthcare and Life Sciences at Deloitte, at 780.421.3887.
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Member Focal Point: Gaia Protein |
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Insect Protein Produced With Alternative Energy
Gaia Protein is a cricket production company that will use alternative energy to produce high quality protein products with environmental advantages. Insect agriculture is widely considered an essential contributing solution to global food insecurity and climate change, and Gaia Protein is building upon the natural advantages of insects.
By using an environmentally innovative process which reduces GHG emissions, GAIA Protein supports global targets of achieving net zero emissions by 2030. They plan to use rejected industrial heat in the production facility, which would otherwise be dissipated to the environment. In fact, Gaia Protein's team has successfully utilized rejected industrial heat in a previous bio-tech project. This proven process improves environmental outcomes and generates carbon offsets.
Contributing to the health and well being of people and the planet, through innovation in insect agriculture
Gaia Protein is applying modern agricultural science and engineering to insect production, to scale the production process to commerciall levels. They are committed to the full utilization of crickets and waste streams, and will commercialize all products. GAIA Protein is currently developing sustainable processing procedures, prototypes, and functional ingredients utilizing cricket proteins, oils, molts, and frass. Leveraging the combination of Alberta’s established agriculture and energy industries will allow Gaia Protein to execute this project with our industry partners.
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Gaia Protein is a purpose-driven company, consisting of a dedicated, multidisciplinary team. Our purpose is to contribute to the health and well-being of people and the planet, through innovation in insect agriculture. Gaia Protein is building the company around a well-defined and actionable ESG strategy, which is integrated with the business model. Gaia Protein currently operates a pilot production facility and is performing applied research and preparing for a commercial demonstration.
For more information consult the GAIA Protien website here.
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Natural Products Canada Ventures
A new $50M investment fund to invest in early-stage Canadian companies developing naturally-derived alternatives to synthetic products. Learn about this new opportunity here.
Proof of Concept Program
Designed to help establish the commercial feasibility of innovative natural products and technologies, and attract and de-risk subsequent investment- research institutes, start-ups and SMEs, see details here.
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Student Work Placement Program
Building Skills for Canada's bio-economy
Canadian universities and colleges are placing highly-
educated students in the bio-economy. If you are looking to hire young and eager talent, BioTalent Canada’s Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) can help.
SWPP will support you to hire, train and retain employees in a variety of sectors. See program details here and contact Colleen at chayes@biotalent.ca.
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AGE-WELL’s funding has been renewed through the federal Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program to the end of fiscal year 2022-2023. They have $21.9 million over three years from GoC to provide Canadians with technology-based solutions to improve quality of life for older adults and caregivers. If you have an idea apply for these exceptional funding opportunities now. Details can be found at: http://ow.ly/fgsL50zE3oO Y
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Western Economic Diversification Canada
Alberta businesses unable to access existing relief measures can apply to Western Economic Diversification Canada's Regional Relief and Recovery Fund worth $304 million.
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Edmonton International Airport (EIA) announced on June 7 it is launching a new manufacturing facility to help emerging Canadian food innovators access new national and global markets by filling a regional gap in food manufacturing.
With a federal investment of $550,000 through Western Economic Diversification Canada, EIA will partner with the Edmonton-based Uproot Food Collective and convert a former flight kitchen space into a new federally certified food production and contract packaging facility. Uproot Food Collective will be the first long-term tenant of the new Ag-celerator at EIA and will co-lead the construction of the facility with a design focused on advanced food production that offers scalable services for small business food manufacturers. Read the full release here. |
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Pacylex Pharmaceuticals, an oncology company unlocking a new approach to cancer therapy, and Greenfire Bio, a new Life Science development and investment company, announced on June 2, the closing of Series A financing for Pacylex. These funds will be used to support the initial Phase 1 clinical investigation of PCLX-001, a first-in-class N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) inhibitor, in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma and solid tumor patients. Pacylex is leading the development of novel therapies targeting the biological process of myristoylation in cancer.
Clinical site preparations are underway for the open label, dose escalation, Phase 1 clinical trial, principally to evaluate the safety of PCLX-001. The study will enroll 20-30 patients and the Company anticipates that enrollment will begin within the next month. Read the complete announcement here. |
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Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated announced on June 18 that Health Canada has granted Marketing Authorization for TRIKAFTA® (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor) for the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) in people ages 12 years and older who have at least one F508del mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, the most common CF-causing mutation.
With this approval, for the first time, approximately 1,100 eligible patients with CF ages 12 years and older who have at least one F508del mutation have a medicine that targets the underlying cause of their CF. The approval of TRIKAFTA marks a significant milestone for Canadians with CF, their families and Vertex. Read the full announcement here. |
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Kite, a Gilead Company (Nasdaq: GILD), announced on June 28, top-line results from the primary analysis of ZUMA-7, a randomized Phase 3 global, multicenter study showing superiority of Yescarta® (axicabtagene ciloleucel) compared to standard of care (SOC) in second-line relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL). With a median follow-up of two years, the study met the primary endpoint of event-free survival (EFS; hazard ratio 0.398, p <0.0001). The study also met the key secondary endpoint of objective response rate (ORR). The interim analysis of overall survival (OS) showed a trend favoring Yescarta; however, the data are immature at this time, and further analyses are planned for the future. Read the full press release here. |
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