New Government Initiative Promotes R&D Partnerships

---

By Quinn Damery

A federal government funding agency has launched a new strategy to promote increased R&D collaboration between Canadian industries and the academic sector.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), one of the largest sources of public-private R&D partnership grants, unveiled their Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation (SPI) in December 2009. The plan is designed to encourage Canadian businesses to leverage academic research resources and excel with their R&D. It involves new government programs that are focused on establishing initial contact between the two sectors to explore partnership opportunities.

NSERC has considerable experience in supporting research partnerships through previously available grant and scholarship programs with investments totaling more than $310 million annually. These successful partnerships have led to NSERC working with over 1,400 Canadian companies every year, including 65 of the top 100 R&D investment firms. Now, NSERC is using SPI to expand on that success by reaching out to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“Canada has a great research engine,” says NSERC President Dr. Suzanne Fortier. “We have the people and the resources to make our innovation output excel and be more competitive in a global context.”
With nearly 20,000 R&D-performing Canadian companies to tap into, the Council is putting a concerted effort into the new strategy and has set ambitious goals for its achievements. Through SPI, they intend to more than double the number of NSERC-supported partnerships from 1,400 to close to 3,000 by 2014.

SPI is the result of a year of consultations with more than 200 representatives from industry. The meetings confirmed that businesses had an overwhelming interest in R&D collaborations with the researchers and students of Canada’s post-secondary institutions. However, without a clear sense of what partnership opportunities existed or how to connect with the right individuals many companies were reluctant to spend the time and effort establishing contacts that could provide the innovation they desired. In response, NSERC designed SPI to bridge this gap between academic innovators and businesses with the know-how to implement ideas in the marketplace.

“Partnerships provide great opportunities for businesses and academics. The expertise, information and resources shared between both parties extends their capabilities. With this strategy, we would like more businesses to experience the success we have seen in NSERC-funded partnerships in the past,” says Fortier.

SPI builds on previous NSERC partnership initiatives, such as the Industrial Research Chairs program. This program allows an academic at a university, in collaboration with one or more industry partners, to focus on conducting expert research and training highly qualified personnel in an area of importance to the industrial sector. SPI complements existing initiatives like the Chairs program by providing a greater focus on SMEs and new levels of funding that increase to accommodate the opportunities of the partnership.

Beginning immediately with the strategy’s launch, NSERC’s five regional offices have been re-oriented with a focus on promoting partnership opportunities between industry and academia. The offices, located in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Mississauga, Montréal and Moncton, are reaching out to businesses in their area. They are learning about specific R&D challenges businesses are struggling with and locating suitable researchers who may be able to partner with companies to find a solution. For an initial meeting between potential partners, the Interaction Grant program will fund up to $5,000 to cover travel and meeting expenses for live discussions to take place.

If a meeting shows promise for both parties, the partnership can then apply for an Engage Grant. To qualify, companies must operate from a Canadian base, be engaged in R&D, actively participate in the collaboration and exploit the results within Canada. This program provides up to $25,000 for new research collaborations that identify company-specific, short-term R&D challenges. As with all NSERC programs, the funding supports the academic researcher’s direct project costs. Business partners provide input that guides the focus of the research and gain the benefits it produces. For the many companies that do not have their own laboratory, or only limited research facilities, they also gain the benefits of university resources.

For some partnerships, this initial collaboration may resolve their present R&D needs but for others it will be just the beginning of an invaluable relationship. Businesses have a choice of subsequent NSERC grant programs to advance their R&D partnership with academic researchers. The Collaborative Research and Development Grants, Strategic Networks Grants and Industrial Research Chair program are cost-sharing initiatives that provide substantial funding that matches cash and in-kind contributions from companies. These amounts can be in excess of $500,000 for multi-year projects.

While these initiatives are in place, the five-year SPI plan foresees the implementation of additional initiatives.

For instance, one of the actions planned for implementation is the establishment of Technology Access Centres (TAC). TACs will provide locations where businesses can go to form new R&D partnerships, similar to the College Centres for Technology Transfer that are part of Quebec’s CEGEP network. TACs will give businesses access to facilities and personnel on campuses to help with the development of innovations and will likely become valued resources for companies looking to jump hurdles in their R&D.

Dr. Helen Burt is the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Studies at the University of British Columbia. Since 1992, her research lab has collaborated with Vancouver-based Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc. on the design and development of polymeric drug delivery systems and drug-loaded surgical implants and medical devices. This highly successful partnership is an outstanding example of a multidisciplinary achievement encompassing engineering, biomaterials, drug delivery and clinical research.

Angiotech’s primary drug of interest, paclitaxel, inhibits important cellular mechanisms involved in aniogenesis, inflammation and scar formation. It is also the active ingredient in the widely used anti-cancer drug, Taxolreg. When Angiotech researchers realized the potential range of applications for paclitaxel in diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and psoriasis, they knew they had an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to pharmaceuticals. The problem was finding a way to get the water-insoluble compound into and distributed throughout the body.

Angiotech turned to Burt, whose expertise in drug delivery could provide the insight they needed to make new treatments for diseases that affect tens of millions of people.

“I could see the potential for paclitaxel right away,” says Burt. “There were some technical obstacles in creating the formulations though – we had nothing to guide us.”

“Helen is a wonderfully innovative scientist,” says Angiotech’s President and CEO Dr. William Hunter. “We just told her what we wanted and somehow she and her research team made that a reality.”

Burt and her team devised a polymer bubble to contain the compound with an oil-like interior which absorbs the drug and acts as a carrier. Paclitaxel’s solubility was increased 5,000 times as a result of this technology, and opened the door for further applications.

One of these applications became Angiotech’s first, and best-known product, the TAXUS coronary stent. This paclitaxel-eluting system for the treatment of coronary heart disease is a vast improvement over bare metal stents, and is on track to become an industry standard. When the balloon catheter is inflated, bare metal stents can cause tears in the artery wall that lead to restenosis, the growth of scar tissue that can trap the stent or re-block the artery with tissue.

TAXUS, with its paclitaxel-eluting technology, paralyzes cells to prevent their attraction to the site of injury, regulating scar growth and dramatically reducing the occurrence of restenosis. In the first 18 months after its launch in the United States in 2004, the product was implanted in more than two million patients. Today, TAXUS stents are implanted in four million patients worldwide and Angiotech is a global-leader in drug-device combination products.

Their successes earned the partners an NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation in 2006, a prize that recognizes outstanding examples of university-industry partnerships. Today, Dr. Burt receives NSERC funding through the Discovery Grants program and continues her lab’s fruitful relationship with the pharmaceutical company as the Angiotech Professor of Drug Delivery.

This collaboration has demonstrated value that goes beyond the benefits of breakthrough research. It has provided training for many undergraduate, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, given Angiotech a pipeline of talent already familiar with the company’s research and direction, and has enhanced the funding for the Faculties of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Medicine at UBC. Angiotech supports co-op and summer students, and company representatives participate as speakers and presenters at university functions.

“The collaborative research between my UBC lab and Angiotech has resulted in a tremendous growth in research productivity and graduate training within my research group,” says Burt. “Many of my former grad students are now working at Angiotech and our joint publications demonstrate our close ties.”

For more information on NSERC’s Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation, visit their website at www.nsercpartnerships.ca