U of T to host new national hub for accelerating life sciences breakthroughs

The University of Toronto and its partners are receiving $4.25 million over the next five years to establish a national hub aimed at accelerating the commercialization of life sciences discoveries.

The funding is part of a $32-million grant awarded to Dalhousie University from the Government of Canada through the Lab to Market grants, administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) in collaboration with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

The grant will expand Lab2Market — Canada’s national network for innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship skills training — through the creation of a national health hub based at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and six regional hubs.

“This funding support will play a critical part in our drive to translate research for the public good. There is an incredible wealth of important science happening at Temerty Medicine and we are committed to seeing as much of it as possible incorporated into new diagnostics, therapies and other technologies that can be scaled and distributed globally,” says Justin Nodwell, vice dean, research and health science education at Temerty Medicine.

“As the new home for the national health hub, we look forward to building on the university’s stellar track record in research commercialization and working with our partners to strengthen the life sciences innovation economy across the country.”

The national health hub will develop and deliver programs to help students and faculty bring breakthrough ideas to market, with a specific focus on addressing the unique regulatory challenges facing health and medical start-ups.

The new hub will be hosted at Temerty Medicine’s Health Innovation Hub (H2i), a campus-based accelerator that helps early-stage entrepreneurs turn their discoveries and innovations into problem-solving designs, products and services. Since launching in 2014, H2i has guided more than 750 ventures along the commercialization pathway. Collectively these start-ups have generated over $520 million through sales, investments and other revenue sources.

“With a comprehensive scope from ideation all the way to regulatory validation, H2i will bring unparalleled expertise and experience to support life sciences entrepreneurs through the national health hub,” says Paul Santerre, co-founder and director of H2i and a professor of biomedical engineering and dentistry at U of T.

Leveraging H2i’s network of 118 partner organizations and over 130 industry mentors, the hub will provide opportunities for students to build their entrepreneurship and business acumen while strengthening Canada’s innovation sector through the development of highly skilled workers and life sciences start-ups.

“Our trainees understand that they don’t only want to do outstanding research, but they also want their research to impact society,” says Santerre.

“I hope that this new funding will be culture changing because if we want to keep those young people in Canada, we need a thriving innovation ecosystem where they can apply their knowledge, and we need to give students opportunities to expose themselves to the commercial innovation sector while they are still training.”

Over the next five years, the funding enables Lab2Market to scale nationally as the network has grown to over 150 partners and collaborators, including a core of more than 50 universities, colleges, and research hospitals, generating almost $7.8 billion in research funding income in 2022–23.

The national health hub includes 38 university, hospital and organizational partners and will be guided by a steering committee comprising representatives of the eight university partners — Dalhousie University, McGill University, McMaster University, Toronto Metropolitan University, Université de Montréal, University of British Columbia, University of Calgary and U of T.