Compiled by Daniela Fisher
québec
Spotlight on Québec
CQDM: Success story
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ince 2009, Biotechnology Focus has been profiling the Québec Consortium for Drug Discovery (CQDM), a non-profit consortium created in 2008 as a strategic initiative for drug discovery. The CQDM is responsible for fostering partnerships between biotech companies, universities, and hospitals. As a publicprivate venture, the CQDM is supported by six A-list pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline and Lilly, along with Canada’s federal and provincial governments. Over these past few years, the CQDM has seen the birth of many innovations and collaborations. Its principal mission is to identify, finance and support research projects aimed at developing tools and technologies that facilitate new drug discovery and development. These projects are carried out in partnerships between the academic and hospital networks in the public sector, and pharma and biotech companies in the private sector. By promoting this synergy between academic and industry, and through creating an international exchange network, the CQDM intends to expand Québec’s leadership in biopharma research, and open up new doors for research that will benefit the entire industry. The CQDM has also increased Québec’s collaboration with international industry partners, including a new bilateral agreement signed in June 2012 between the CQDM and Lyonbiopole. At the BIO International Convention 2012, Lyonbiopole joined the already existing consortium signed in November 2010 between Alsace BioValley and the CQDM. This new agreement aims to develop a joint program to enhance biomedical research in Québec, Alsace and Rhone-Alpes, by aligning international resources. This collaborative program aims to co-finance research projects between the three regions: Québec, Alsace and RhoneAlpes. This year also saw the creation of a new
Plants thrive in a sunny environment at Medicago facilities initiative to fund collaborative life sciences research projects in the Ontario-Québec Life Sciences Corridor. The CQDM is partnering with MaRS Innovation (MI), Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) and Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), to launch the Québec/Ontario CQDM Funding Program, which will support collaborative research projects that seek to develop new tools for biopharmaceutical research. Since 2008, the CQDM has launched seven competitions through four funding programs. Over 325 projects were submitted, totaling over $400 million in funding requests. Currently, the Consortium is supporting 27 outstanding research projects, adding up to $29.7 million. These 27 projects involve a network of more than 350 researchers, working together to address the most important aspects of the pharmaceutical R&D productivity gap. The first CQDM projects are now reaching maturity, and can be seen as a testament of the CQDM’s success. They are also an example of how the CQDM’s business model can help generate impact on biopharmaceutical research.
One such success story is Medicago Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel vaccines and therapeutic proteins to address a broad range of infectious diseases worldwide. In 2009, Medicago was awarded $1.77 million in funding from the CQDM, to support the development of Medicago’s VLPExpress™, a high-throughput technology for accelerating the discovery and development of new vaccine antigens based on Virus-Like Particles (VLPs). The automated platform enables the rapid expression, purification and testing of VLPs, to identify the best antigen presentations for a disease-causing agent within 10 weeks. As one of the recipients of the CQDM’s very first competition, the company has been with the CQDM since the Consortium’s inception. Their partnership has been successful: in February 2012, Medicago announced plans to invest approximately $4 million to enhance the capacity of its pilot production facility located in Québec City. The investment included capital expenditures, labour costs and preclinical studies for a rabies vaccine as well as other products.
OCTOBER 2012 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS 23
