Canada should be manufacturing its own cell and gene therapies, not just vaccines
Barrie McKenna is a former Globe and Mail columnist and author of the Innovation Economy Council white paper
So, as head of the liver tissue engineering and cell therapy lab at Montreal’s Sainte-Justine children’s hospital, Mr. Paganelli in 2018 teamed up with his stem-cell biologist wife Claudia Raggi to develop a life-saving alternative. The result is Morphocell Technologies Inc., a Montreal-based startup company that aims to start clinical trials and get its cell therapy into patients within two years.
“This is the future of medicine,” says Michael May, president and chief executive of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine in Toronto. “If we want Canadians to have access to these life-saving medicines, then we need to be in the game.” CCRM, a public-private partnership, has already helped see and nurture nearly a dozen promising cell and gene therapy companies, including Morphocell. Combined, they employ 250 people and have attracted nearly $800-million in venture capital. The organization is now working to fill a much-needed industry gap by building the country’s first large-scale contract biomanufacturing plant for cell and gene therapies.
One way to overcome the cost and complexity is to refine the process of engineering and mass producing disease-killing cells from donors. For example, Vancouver-based Notch Therapeutics is refining the production of universal immune enhancing T-cells that combat various cancers.
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