Science and Enterprise

Tag: Canada

  • GSK to Fund Canadian Life Sciences Start-Ups, Institutes

    The global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline Inc. (GSK) announced in Toronto a new $50 million fund for early stage life sciences research in Canada. GSK says the Canada Life Sciences Innovation Fund will identify investment opportunities at Canada’s academic and health institutions, translational research centers, and start-up companies. Paul Lucas, president of GlaxoSmithKline Canada, calls the…

  • Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada Fund TB Diagnostic

    A device called an Electronic Nose that can detect tuberculosis in the breath of a patient, has received a $950,000 grant from Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The funding will support further development and testing of the technology, developed by the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in…

  • Canadian Corporate R&D Spending Drops for 5th Straight Year

    Industry market research company Research Infosource in Toronto, Ontario says total corporate R&D spending in Canada dropped for the fifth year in a row in the 2010 fiscal year, despite an increase in revenues for these companies. The top R&D spenders among Canadian companies in 2010 were found in the information technology, engineering, and aerospace…

  • Genomics Consortium Adds Two Members, Gains $49 Million

    The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) says it added two new pharmaceutical companies as members and $48.9 million in new funding. The partnership of drug companies and science funding agencies conducts basic drug discovery research, with its findings released to the public domain. SGC added Eli Lilly Canada and Pfizer Inc. to its membership that also…

  • Roche, Canadian Not-for-Profit to Partner on New Drugs

    The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) in Vancouver, Canada and Swiss pharmaceutical maker F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. have agreed to collaborate on development and commercialization of new drug therapies. The exact therapies are yet to be defined, according to the announcement, but will be “for the treatment of diseases with high unmet medical…

  • Roche to Build Canadian Pharmaceutical Development Center

    Roche Canada, a division of the global drug company based in Switzerland, says it will build a new pharmaceutical development center at its current site in Mississauga, Ontario near Toronto. The new center, says Roche, involves an investment of $190 million over the next five years, and will add 200 skilled staff. The new center…

  • NSF, Energy Dept to Fund Power Grid Research Center

    National Science Foundation and Department of Energy awarded a grant to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and its partners to establish a new Engineering Research Center for research and education on the nation’s electrical grid infrastructure. The two agencies will invest $18.5 million in the research center over five years. The facility, known as the…

  • Evaluation Tool Developed to Predict Death in Obese People

    Medical researchers and statisticians from Canada and the U.S. have developed a rating scale to predict mortality of overweight and obese people. The Edmonton obesity staging system, named for the city in Alberta, Canada where the scale was developed, is described in the 15 August issue of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The most common…

  • Court Backs “Clear and Convincing Evidence” Patent Standard

    The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 8-0 vote, upheld a lower court ruling that Microsoft Corporation infringed on the patent of a small Canadian software developer, and affirmed the current high bar challengers must clear before overturning a patent. The unanimous decision — Chief Justice John Roberts did not vote because he owns Microsoft stock…

  • Cancer Institute Invests in Three Spin-Off Companies

    The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) in Toronto says it invested in three new Ontario companies aimed at bringing anti-cancer technologies to market. OICR previously provided seed funding for the three companies. The three companies include: – TORCell Therapeutics Inc. is a spin-off of OICR and University Health Network in Toronto. The company is…