Opportunities for Industry
CDRD was created to de-risk promising discoveries stemming from publicly-funded health research and transform them into commercially viable opportunities for the private sector. In doing so, the private sector is then much better positioned to develop these pre-validated technologies into new treatments for patients.
At the same time, there is a growing need in the life sciences and global healthcare industry for new approaches to access commercially promising early-stage research. CDRD provides a more transparent and effective means to invest in early-stage drug development projects, and unprecedented access to a continuous pipeline of pre-validated and de-risked technologies.
CDRD is in fact, the only fully-integrated centre of its kind in Canada — and one of a handful in the world — with the full expertise and infrastructure to source, evaluate, develop and commercialize new healthcare products.
CDRD works with principal investigators from our network of more than 20 affiliated research institutions and partner organizations. Together, these partnerships involve 1,500 scientists and represent $2 billion in annual health research. We work with these investigators and their teams to identify the most commercially promising projects, and then to overcome their scientific roadblocks addressing the critical questions required to move the research towards commercialization. From the outset, we instill scientific and business discipline in the development process, with a focus on commercialization and the optimization of resources. This process includes:
- Identifying the critical issues required to establish therapeutic potential
- Conducting key, critical experiments
- Providing project management and managing multi-investigator programs
Our six scientific divisions cover the full spectrum of pre-clinical drug development and are professionally-managed and operated by experts with broad industry experience and proven track records in drug development research and commercialization. Our infrastructure includes 20,000 sq. ft. of state-of-the-art facilities and a complete drug development platform housed at three British Columbia sites and affiliate research institutes across Canada.
To date, we have undertaken more than 100 projects (80 technologies), successfully advanced 40 of these technologies toward commercialization, and formed strategic partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Roche and Johnson and Johnson (for more information on these partnerships, click here). We have also successfully out-licensed therapies for breast and colorectal cancer to the private sector, and moved two additional technologies (therapies for bladder cancer and influenza) into our commercial arm, CDRD Ventures Inc. (CVI) for further commercial development, while also launching one new spin-off company.
For additional information on industry’s opportunities in working with CDRD, please contact:
Dr. Kaley Wilson
Manager, Business Liaison
kwilson@cdrd.ca
CDRD meets the needs of industry by providing:
- One-stop, structured access to world-class scientists and innovation pipeline in Canada and world-wide with access to NCEs, novel targets and mechanisms, validated data, and discovery programs
- Development of new technologies through the application of rigorous industry standards
- New avenues to de-risk and validate those technologies
- Focused science with clear critical path to a product
- Transparency in use of funding and in progress of research
- Training and mentoring of qualified, industry-ready life sciences graduates.
“CDRD builds on the strength of thousands of researchers and applies commercial insight and scientific rigour to select technologies.”
Paul Levesque
Chief Marketing Officer, Pfizer Inc.
