Alberta’s innovation system

alberta’S

InnovatIon SyStem

Five years ago, the Alberta government undertook the task of reviewing all of its agencies related to innovation in the province.

It was an ambitious plan driven by the hope of adding more rigour to a system where Albertan businesses, government, and universities could collaborate, share resources, experts, and ideas across sectors. A further focus was enhancing efficiency, targeting research in areas of strategic importance to the province, and going beyond traditional industries (such as oil and gas ) and expanding capacity to commercialize new technologies. From this review, a new government funded body, Alberta Innovates, was born.

Today, Alberta Innovates is a globally competitive research and innovation system focused on the key areas of agriculture, forestry and life sciences; health and medical research; energy, water and the environment. Four corporations make up the Alberta Innovates family, they are: Bio Solutions, Health Solutions, Energy and Environment Solutions and lastly Technology Futures.

In a short period of time, each organization has taken on a leading role in creating and funding projects within the province in their selected areas, while at the same time, they maintain a highly integrated relationship.

AlbertA InnovAtes

Technology FuTures

Good working partnerships and timely support can be key to a company’s ability to quickly translate research into the meaningful products, processes and services that new and existing businesses can confidently and successfully take to market.

Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures helps entrepreneurs, innovators, businesses and industries find solutions, develop products and move technologies to market.

“We’re building on Alberta’s already established advantages in platform technologies like nanotechnology, information communications technologies, and genomics. Our focus is on enhancing the technical capacity of Alberta’s high-tech sector,” says Don Back, vice president Health Technologies, Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures.

“As a key player in Alberta’s innovation system, we guide our clients to the supports and services available for innovation, commercialization and new venture growth. And we invest in and attract the research talent essential in the priority areas important to Alberta.”

Tech Futures is part of a system working to move research, into the innovations that create new products, new services and new businesses in the province. Alberta Innovates supports provincial research and innovation priorities in the industry sectors of: agriculture, food and forestry; energy and the environment; health; and technology commercialization.

Four Alberta Innovates corporations – Bio Solutions, Health Solutions, Energy and Environment Solutions, and Technology Futures – coordinate research investments and activities across public, private and academic sectors. Through the corporations and a network of additional providers, services are delivered to entrepreneurs, established companies, and technology driven start-up businesses.

Tech Futures is unique within the Alberta Innovates system for the range of services it provides. Focusing on technology, it provides hands-on applied research services, business development services, and talent

attraction initiatives encouraging a strong science, technology and entrepreneurial culture in Alberta.

More than 3,000 entrepreneurs, large and small businesses, industries and agencies in Alberta and beyond, access Tech Futures’ team of 600 world-class scientists, researchers, engineers, technicians and business experts, for support in commercialization services and applied research.

Clients have access to a range of commercialization expertise including: intellectual property management; technology deployment; technology transfer; channel development; fi nancing; and investment readiness. A Regional Innovation Network links Alberta’s small and medium enterprises, innovators and entrepreneurs through Technology Development Advisors and partner agencies, to the services and resources they need.

Active problem solving in a range of applied research areas is supported by Tech Futures’ world-class technical expertise and laboratory facilities on a fee-for-service basis.

Tech Futures’ Applied Research Centres occupy one million square feet of laboratory, pilot plant, scale-up, collaboration and offi ce space in locations in Edmonton, Calgary, Vegreville and Devon.

Highly client-centric and industry-driven, services are designed to: de-risk technology development and investment; develop and commercialize leading-edge technologies; and facilitate industry and government consortia collaborations in complex issue areas.

“Our highly experienced teams take a value-added approach to product development. We see ourselves as partners working closely with our customers to develop solutions that meet their individual needs,” says Back.

The Health Technologies division helps clients commercialize new health products. They provide collaborative R&D, worldclass facilities, technical services and depth of expertise that can take clients’ products from discovery and development, through to scale-up, prototyping and regulatory stages, including pre- and post-clinical trials. Health Technologies primary areas are: chemistry (small molecule, process, pharma and drug development); fermentation (see page 28 of this issue to learn more); and non-clinical research for product development and for product safety in support of regulatory approval.

“Our regulatory program is designed to help companies develop the processes they need to demonstrate regulatory compliance,” says Back. “We have programs largely directed towards medical device technologies including assisted and diagnostic devices. We also offer a suite of technology and product development funding to help companies move from one stage of development to the next. When companies reach the fi nal product stage, we can support them with market introduction services as well.”

Orpyx is a good example of a young start-up company, run by bright individuals, looking to enter the Canadian market, says Back. “We’re helping them bridge the gap between research and market development.”

Half of all people with diabetes will lose sensation in their feet—a condition called “peripheral neuropathy”. Without proper sensory feedback in the feet, diabetic patients are not aware of the damage the lack of circulation and sensation causes. Serious complications can develop including foot ulcers, infection, and even amputation.

Orpyx developed a sensor-based shoe insole that lets people with diabetes know if and when they need to adjust their movement to increase their circulation.

Tech Futures is working with Orpyx to help the company develop the quality management system needed to meet the regulatory requirements applicable to medical devices. Tech Futures is also facilitating registration of the medical device with Health Canada. Through the course of its business development, Orpyx has received additional support from various members of the Alberta Innovates system.

There are many more stories like Orpyx at Tech Futures, as it bridges the gap between research and commercialization. Visit albertatechfutures.ca to learn more.

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AlbertA InnovAtes

healTh soluTions

Alberta Innovates Health Solutions (AIHS) is helping put Alberta on the map as a global competitor in the realm of health research and innovation management. Already, Alberta’s health research environment is perhaps one of the more enviable ones in Canada. With a history of strong funding for health research and innovation, and a government that’s made innovating healthcare a priority, the province has built up an attractive spot for researchers from around the world.

Alberta Innovates Health Solutions is responsible for providing support – including funding – for these researchers, enabling them to tackle some of the major health issues Alberta and Canada are facing.

The corporation emerged on Jan. 1, 2010, as the corporation responsible for health research and innovation management within the newly launched Alberta Innovates model. It took the place of the Alberta Health Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR), its predecessor for funding health research in Alberta. Since being brought into existence three years ago, AIHS has continued the commitment to funding made under AHFMR. It has also expanded into a much more proactive leadership role as the province’s leading agency for all-round strategic support of research and the innovations resulting from research investments. “We’ve spent the last three years really revamping all of our funding programs, so that we invest in collaborations and partnerships that will help to get us towards the mandate of the organization, which is to improve the health and wellbeing of Albertans and contribute to innovative health service delivery within the province,” says Pam Valentine, COO of Alberta Innovates Health Solutions. Although AIHS has new programs, it continues to focus on top-quality, internationally competitive health research and innovation, determined through peer review and global networks of experts.

AIHS sees the key to success is through collaboration, foundational in the development of new ventures with partners and in the relationships the corporation is forging with a much broader audience. It’s also the critical component in the new funding programs which invite groups of people to combine their talent and know-how to compete for project funding. This is a big change from the individual-focused, long term salary support funding of before.

“Before 2010, we focused mostly on capacity building, we funded individuals,” says Valentine. “Over the last three years, we’ve put in a portfolio of funding opportunities that are really targeted at getting at those outcomes, so that it’s more focused on addressing defined problems and developing solutions than it is on funding individuals. These are collaborations, often of individuals from different disciplines coming together to tackle some of the major health issues that we have in the province and more broadly in Canada and around the world.”

Some of the funding opportunities they currently offer include: • The inaugural Alberta Partnership for

Research and Innovation in the Health

System (PRIHS), a partnership between

Alberta Health Services and AIHS that supports research and innovation aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the health care system; • The Collaborative Research and Innovation

Opportunities (CRIO) Team, for investing in collaborative research activities that address priority issues in areas of health, wellness, and health services; • The Alberta/Pfizer Translational Research

Fund Opportunity, a partnered funding opportunity focused on research activities that have potential for development into future healthcare tools, therapies and treatments.

These are just some examples of the mechanisms through which AIHS funds activity encompassing all pillars of health research: biomedical, clinical, health systems and services, and health of populations—all with the intent of moving evidence into policy and practice and bringing products or treatments to fruition that can improve Alberta’s healthcare system and ultimately improve the health of Albertans.

AIHS is also driving collaborations on provincial and national levels that bring investment and expertise into the province. It has taken a lead role in bringing together partners from the public and private sector to invest in the wealth of research potential in the province. The end goal is to transform the province into a health research and innovation node.

“Certainly everything that we take for granted in healthcare, things from eye tests and vaccinations, to heart transplants and MRIs, have all come without exception, from a research idea,” says Valentine. “And it’s not only new ways to improve health. Research will help us determine what we can replace and eliminate in the health system. That will result in system efficiencies, improved patient experience and money saved for taxpayers. Research is the genesis for improvements in every facet of health.”

One such genesis that AIHS has invested in is Smart-e-Pants. Created by Dr. Vivian Mushahwar and her colleagues at the University of Alberta, Smart-e-Pants is a custom-made disposable undergarment for individuals either in a bed or a wheelchair. The underwear has embedded electrodes in it that run electrical currents for 10 seconds every 10 minutes. It stimulates the nerves and muscles, the equivalent to what we do when we fidget in our chairs. This prevents bedsores, a major problem for people confined to a bed or a wheelchair that can cause infection or even lead to death.

Another example is Linda Pilarski, a cancer researcher at the University of Alberta. Dr. Pilarski and a team of her colleagues created a ‘lab-on-a-chip’ technology. The small, inexpensive device can detect pathogens in the blood and test human genetic makeup. About the size of a domino, the chip can carry out 20 genetic tests from a single drop of blood. The invention resulted in a spin out company called Aquila Diagnostics Systems Inc., which took the product to market. Visit www.aihealthsolutions.ca to learn more.

AlbertA InnovAtes

Bio soluTions

Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions (AI Bio) invests in research in the fields of agriculture, food and forestry. Its core business is identifying, coordinating, and funding leading edge research initiatives that could transform these sectors.

“Our mandate is to work with these industries in all parts of the continuum, whether there’s basic research that is required, applied work and adaptive kind of activities,” explains Dr. Stan Blade, CEO of AI Bio. “Our primary concern is to make sure Alberta industries remain profitable and globally competitive.”

Some of the initiatives that AI Bio is currently involved in include improving canola vegetable oil quality, enhancing the health benefits and taste of meat products, developing new products derived from agriculture and forest fibre, as well as projects that ensure food safety.

“The combined economic activity of agriculture, food and forestry in this province is well over $25 billion. This includes substantial amounts of farm-gate receipts going back to agricultural producers, between eight to $12 billion a year, a food processing industry that is somewhere around $12 billion a year, and then a forest industry that falls in the $4.5 billion range. These are important industries for the province of Alberta, they are renewable industries, and they have just a remarkable fit, both for their rural development elements, but in the straight economic and diversification opportunities that they offer the province,” says Blade.

Working with the other Alberta Innovates corporations is part of day-to-day activity at AI Bio Solutions.

“The most interesting things happen at those interfaces. On a number of research calls we’ve collaborated with Alberta Innovates Health Solutions in food and nutrition, with Alberta Innovates Energy and Environment Solutions we’ve worked very closely on the bio-energy file and in the case of commercialization we’re very much in lockstep with Alberta Innovates Technology Futures. Another example is our support for the Alberta Biomaterials Development Centre in collaboration with Alberta Innovates Technology Futures. Really, it’s about working very closely together, sharing networks and making sure that things get done.”

As of this year, AI Bio is managing more than 160 active projects in an investment portfolio of more than $71 million over the lifetime of these projects. The agreements span a wide array of research in priority areas such as boreal reclamation, nanocrystalline cellulose, livestock genomics, prions, and dietary fibre from peas, beans or lentils.

In total, AI Bio has five priority areas of science and innovation investments.

“The first is tied to sustainable production, so things to do with making sure that we can continue to produce high-quality products, whether it’s fibre from our forests or crops or livestock. This can encompass everything from genomics research, working on the most recent canola disease or even something as obscure as looking at issues around grizzly bear recovery. Our second focus area is food innovation. This is everything from working with industry, companies like Maple Leaf Foods and General Mills Canada, applying science in developing improved basic ingredients, whether it’s improving the quality of flour from pulse crops like peas, looking at the health benefits of things like canola oil and in fact improving the nutritious nature of some of those vegetable oils.”

AI Bio also has strong interest in bioeconomy activities, representing a third area of interest. This includes supporting projects such as using biomass in ways that go beyond traditional commodities. This has led to a wide array of research, including investments in the Biorefining Conversions Network based at the University of Alberta.

“The general principle behind this initiative is tearing biomass apart and combining it back in unique ways that will be of interest to buyers in the biomaterial, biochemical and bioenergy industries in Canada and around the world.”

The fourth area is AI Bio involvement in Prion research, which was one of the very first initiatives AI Bio took on.

“We inherited the work of the Alberta Prion Research Institute and subsequently had another re-investment from the government of Alberta of over $15 million to continue this work to understand prions, not just for BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease) but to understand more about its relationship to human disease. There are a number of human dementias – Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, that seem to also have a basis in prion science. So some of the work Alberta has invested admittedly starting on the livestock side, there appears to be aspects that are also related to the human side.”

A fifth and final area is tied to ecosystem services. Focusing on environmental solutions and on enhancing those ecosystem services not currently rewarded through existing markets, by using economic or market-based instruments, is a strategic area of priority for AI Bio.

In 2012-13 AI Bio invested more than $15 million in its five priority areas, says Blade. Blade explains that the direction of AI Bio in allocating its investments, like the other Alberta Innovates corporations, is guided by an independent board of industry experts.

“They identify certainly these five areas and we will put out calls for proposals in specific areas, whether it’s around food for health or green building activities, those kinds of things, because of the way we’re set up we can sometimes be proactive and go to what we determine to be the best science group and ask them to do some work for us, some of this work is on a recurring basis. As an example, we’ve had specific calls around using genomics as a diagnostic tool both for listeria and for e coli, and in this instance we partnered with Genome Canada and Genome Alberta. In another case our partner was the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. So we engage the science community and come up with potential opportunities, usually around technologies that are going to help our industry both in the short and long term. This type of work is peerreviewed and of course we have a periodic reporting process of checking on the milestones of the project, making sure that groups are delivering on what they’ve committed to.”

There are already examples of success stories spinning out of AI Bio investments.

“In the area of bio-economy we’ve started to interact with groups that were not traditional partner stakeholders for us. There’s a company, BioComposites Group a subsidiary of TTS Inc, that’s working in one of the smaller forest-based towns in Alberta. They are doing really interesting things with fibre to produce different kinds of biomaterials like engineered fibre mats for autoparts and erosion control. They have now set up a facility that’s going to be commissioned very soon. We also hope to support a joint project with Magna and with other companies that are very interested in developing high quality fibres for the autoparts industry and others. In the case of livestock genomics, we made an investment in Livestock Gentec, an Alberta Innovates Centre based at the University of Alberta, which has led to a spinoff company, Delta Genomics. They are in the process of developing high throughput processors that can use genomic information and give a sense to an animal’s important traits and how those traits might be passed on to the next generation.”

To read more about AI Bio, visit www.bio. albertainnovates.ca.

To see this story online visit http://biotechnologyfocus. ca/?p=7380