Growing our research commercialization ecosystem

Last week, the University of Toronto hosted its ninth annual Entrepreneurship Week to showcase and celebrate innovation and startup activity. Whether as founders, panelists or attendees, I was delighted to see so many members of the Temerty Medicine community take part in the events.

We have a proud history of enabling discoveries that have laid the groundwork for new therapies, devices, tools and policies that improved the lives of people around the world. Scientific inquiry will always remain a core part of our mission as a world-class hub for biomedical research, education and clinical care, but increasingly, we recognize the importance of taking our work one step further — to market.

You may ask, why should a medical school be concerned with commercialization?

The answer is simple: because of the future of health care demands it. We are tasked not just with discovering new treatments and developing new tools, but with ensuring they reach the people who need them in a timely and affordable manner. According to a 2023 report from Shift Health, the research commercialization ecosystem in Canada has not kept pace with the output from our research labs and the drive to turn those discoveries into solutions.

Luckily, that is changing.

The last few years have seen renewed efforts to build capacity and foster a culture of entrepreneurship among faculty and trainees alike.

Temerty Medicine’s Health Innovation Hub (H2i), led by Professor Paul Santerre, has been at the forefront of these efforts, helping to guide early-stage entrepreneurs along the path from lab to market. The campus-based accelerator is also the home of a recently announced national health hub aimed at accelerating the commercialization of life sciences discoveries.

Building on this momentum, I am excited to welcome Soror Sharifpoor to the Temerty Medicine team as our new director of commercialization and partnerships. In this role, which was enabled by the Temerty Foundation gift, Soror will lead and coordinate research translation and commercialization activities across the faculty.

These latest developments bring us one step closer to our goal of building a dynamic and collaborative ecosystem where innovation is nurtured from the ground up, supported by robust partnerships with industry and driven by a shared commitment to improving health outcomes.

By working with our partners to lower barriers and share resources and by cultivating both curiosity and an entrepreneurial mindset among our learners, faculty and staff, we ensure that the groundbreaking work happening within our walls has a meaningful and lasting impact on the world.

Together, we can harness the power of science, technology, and entrepreneurship to create a healthier, more innovative future.

Lisa Robinson
Dean, Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Vice-Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions, University of Toronto