Spotlight on Québec
By Daniela Fisher
cqDM
celebrates its 5th anniversary
The innovation engine –
sparking drug discovery research in Québec
One of the most successful organizations helping advance drug discovery in Québec is the Québec Consortium for Drug Discovery (CQDM).The consortium has become a powerful engine, driving innovation and collaboration in the biopharmaceutical industry. Its mission is to identify, fund and support research projects conducted jointly by academia and the private sector. Projects funded by the CQDM target the development of new tools and technologies that accelerate drug discovery. In addition to numerous funding programs and competitions, the CQDM has a unique mentorship program in place. Every project funded by the CQDM is supported by mentors that are appointed by the CQDM’s pharma partners (Pfizer, Merck and AstraZeneca). The mentors are senior scientists from their respective global corporations, chosen for their relative expertise in a project area. This year, the CQDM is celebrating its fifth anniversary. In the five years since its inception, the consortium has met with quite a few successes. Three of its projects have recently been completed, and have had significant impact on the scientific community and the
pharmaceutical industry. In several cases, the tools developed in the projects are being used by CQDM pharma members, who will contribute to the future development of the technologies or who have expressed an interest in acquiring these tools. These three projects are: the Université de Montréal project, led by Michel Bouvier, for developing multiplexed biosensors to identify and monitor cellular events associated with drug therapeutic efficacies and side effects; the Montréal Heart Institute project, led by Jocelyn Dupuis, demonstrating the safety of PulmoBind and its ability to non-invasively image the lung; and the Caprion Proteomics project, led by Eustache Paramithiotis, for developing new biomarkers for early diagnosis and monitoring of diabetes and prediction of therapeutic responses. These projects, as well as many others, have produced positive and tangible benefits for both researchers and mentors. As the mentors are well-positioned to understand the technology and talk about the technology at their own organizations, this also increases the likelihood of attracting the interest of the global pharma companies. For Michel Bouvier’s project, the CQDM pharma members were interested in the project from very early on. Through the mentorship program, Pfizer, Merck and AstraZeneca began testing his team’s biosensors, for potentially licensing them in the future. The interest of the pharmaceutical partner is an important validation of the technology, says Bouvier, and one that he hopes will lead to collaborations beyond the CQDM network.
“For us, the interest generated by the technology is very important. It recognizes its potential for drug discovery.” — Michel Bouvier 24
Biotechnology Focus / October 2013
