Transforming Discovery into Opportunity
The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) addresses one of the biggest challenges facing the life sciences sector today: how to translate commercially promising health research conducted at the university level into new therapies that improve and save lives.
Canada invests billions of dollars in medical research each year and our universities have achieved impressive results in terms of scientific discoveries. Yet it is extremely difficult to translate these discoveries into commercial products. The main reason is risk.
That’s where CDRD comes in.
CDRD is Canada’s national, not-for-profit drug development and commercialization centre. Our mandate is to de-risk discoveries stemming from publicly funded research to create viable investment opportunities for the private sector— thereby bridging the commercialization gap between early-stage academic research and industry. CDRD is the only fully-integrated centre of its kind in the country — and one of a handful in the world — with the full expertise and infrastructure to source, evaluate, develop and commercialize both small molecule and biologic innovative technologies in virtually any therapeutic area.
CDRD was born of a shared vision between government, industry and academia. We were founded in 2007 as an independent, not-for-profit organization by a group of renowned academic investigators and business people with proven track records in creating new medicines. Just one year later, we were recognized by the Government of Canada as a national Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research (CECR).
Over the last half decade, CDRD has leveraged public and private sector funding to create a state-of-the-art drug development and commercialization platform with the infrastructure, scientific and business expertise and professional project management skills to develop innovative health technologies through the pre-clinical stage. To date, CDRD has established Innovation Funds with some of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK); undertaken over 100 research projects, launched a new start-up company; out-licensed three novel therapies; with five additional technologies moving to our commercial arm.
We provide one-stop, structured access to multiple research institutions, and produces a continuous pipeline of pre-validated and de-risked technologies that can be efficiently and cost-effectively brought to market. Our single mandate of commercialization results in cost-efficient collaboration and development using CDRD’s existing networks, facilities, and infrastructure.
Our commercial arm, CDRD Ventures Inc. (CVI), acts as the interface between CDRD and industry to drive drug development and technology commercialization further. CVI in-licenses selected intellectual property generated from CDRD projects directly from the affiliated institution or inventor, and forms strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to transform promising drug research into much-needed medical therapeutics. Profits from CVI flow back to CDRD to support future drug development projects.
We invite you to join us in this collaborative approach to meeting the health challenges of the next decade.
Click here to view a summary of some of CDRD’s key achievements to date.
Our Vision
To transform the culture of scientific innovation and commercialization impacting human health.
Our Mission
- To be a global leader in translating academic discoveries into new medicines.
- To bridge the commercialization gap between drug discovery and private investment by creating partnerships between academia, industry and government that mobilize scientific excellence and enable a robust biopharmaceutical sector.
- To provide the next generation of uniquely-trained highly qualified personnel to drive the development of the medicines of tomorrow.
