Alberta’s fledgling biotech industry is struggling to weather the economic downturn as venture capital dries up and the provincial government tightens its belt on spending.
“Obviously, it’s made it really difficult,” says Myka Osinchuk, executive director of BioAlberta, a three-year-old non-profit industry association of biotech companies in the province. “Share prices have gone down and companies needing to raise money now are facing very, very difficult times.
“I know of a number of companies just being started up right now. It’s always a struggle for early-stage companies, and it’s more of a struggle now.”
There are about 35 biotechnology companies in Alberta, eight publicly traded, which employ more than 1,000 people mainly in the health and agricultural sciences and agri-food sectors.
Osinchuk estimates these companies have raised more than $150 million in financing in the last year, but securing continuing support to keep their innovations commercially viable is a constant challenge.
“We can’t expect to maintain that momentum in this market, but I think we will continue to see excellent growth,” said Osinchuk during a break at BioAlberta’s annual general meeting held in Calgary on Friday.
Alberta success stories include Calgary-based SemBioSys Genetics Inc., which raised $16.5 million last year to develop its canola-based oilseed technology for personal care and topical pharmaceutical products, and Oncolytics Biotech Inc., which inked an agreement with U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. to develop and market a cancer-fighting virus to treat animals.
Edmonton-based Isotechnika received approval from Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use its immunosuppressive drug to begin Phase II clinical trials on kidney transplant patients. Earlier this month, Biomira Inc., an Edmonton company specializing in cancer management therapies, announced it had secured $15 million US in private financing.
There are more than 350 biotech companies in Canada, employing more than 62,000 workers.
A labour shortage in the biotechnology industry is also of concern to the association, and while local companies have a good pool of scientists from which to choose, senior job specialties such as executive managers and regulatory affairs specialists are harder to fill, Osinchuk says.
At the annual meeting on Friday, provincial Innovation and Science Minister Victor Doerksen said the government wants to make Alberta a world leader in life sciences — but communicating innovative developments to the public is critical.
“Among the Marthas and Henrys — and I put myself in that category — sometimes trying to understand what’s happening in the life sciences in research and development is a bit frightening and a bit scary,” Doerksen told industry representatives. “We have to do a good job in communicating the benefits and what we can accomplish as we develop new technologies.”
Last week, federal Liberal MPs defeated a private member’s bill that would have required mandatory labelling of genetically modified foods, dubbed “Frankenfood” by some GM critics.
The bill called for warning labels on all foods with at least one per cent of genetically modified content.
While Health Minister Allan Rock has said publicly that he supports mandatory labelling, Osinchuk says the biotech industry feels a better approach is developing voluntary standards. “The industry has taken a standpoint that consumers have the right to know. But they have the right to accurate, reliable and verifiable information,” she added.
