Take a willing government, add some financial partners and a keen scientific community, and sprinkle in an appealing West Coast lifestyle.
It’s a recipe for success in growing a globally dominant biotechnology cluster in the province over the next 10 to 15 years, delegates to the Second Annual BioPartnering North America conference heard in Vancouver last week.
“If you’re not doing business here, you should be thinking about doing business here for the sake of your shareholders,” said George Hunter, president of Leading Edge British Columbia, which partners biotech industry marketing efforts with the province.
At the conference, Hunter outlined the history and future prospects for the biotech industry in the province. B.C. is currently Canada’s third-largest biotech region after Quebec and Ontario, and is situated at the northern end of what is called the Pacific Coast Biotech Cluster, an area extending to San Diego that boasts more than half of all biotech companies in the United States and Canada.
Hunter was joined by representatives of three biotech companies founded in B.C., all extolling the virtues of the province, including a favourable tax environment and a government committed to growing the biotech industry.
On what is known in Vancouver as a “recruiting day” – blue skies, sunshine, and not a drop of rain in sight – Paul Hastings, president and CEO of QLT Inc. said: “The long and short of it is that this is a really cool place, not only for living, but also for a very, very talented employee pool. The quality of life and the quality of the employment pool here are equally spectacular.”
QLT was part of the “first wave” of B.C.’s biotech industry when it expanded from its roots at the University of British Columbia in the 1980s. Hastings said partnerships, including a close liaison with the UBC, have made QLT what it is today – a profitable biotech whose star product, Visudyne, is the most successfully launched ophthalmology product ever, with $357 million US in sales in 2003.
Hastings said he has recruited people from different parts of the world to come to B.C. Recruited by company founder Julia Levy two years ago, he brought with him the experience and knowledge gained at major pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the U.S. and Europe. Calling himself an international citizen, he said: “I am a true-blue, proud, almost-landed immigrant of Canada.”
David Hall, co-founder and chief financial officer of Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., noted it was important for his company to be able to fill key positions with talent not available in Canada.
He added the credibility the new additions brought to the company spawned partnerships with the
investment banking industry in Canada and the U.S. Since its inception in 1994, Angiotech has raised more than $600 million in capital.
“I think the government has recognized that if we are able to bring in qualified people, whether they come from Europe or the United States, those talented people will train the next generation of Canadians,” Hall said.
“We’ve been very lucky just being born in B.C. The talent is here, people want to come here and that has allowed us to create an entity, a culture, that people gravitate toward. The corporate partnerships are becoming easier, and the investment bankers are up here shopping.”
“With all the partnerships with the bankers, the lawyers, the accountants and the universities, this is a cluster that’s going to spin off and develop an awful lot of technology.”
Andrew Shisko, deputy director and trade commissioner in the Department of International Trade/International Trade Centre based in Vancouver, added: “The strength of B.C., as elsewhere, derives primarily from the quality of science in the universities here and in the entrepreneurial climate which can take that forward.”
“Lifestyle is an important issue for people who are very well educated and who can go to a lot of different companies in a lot of different places around the world. Vancouver has an edge on them,” he said.
Richard Glickman, the co-founder and CEO of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, agreed, saying his company’s experience in recruiting in B.C. has been positively exceptional.
Making the company’s first presentation to a public forum, Glickman said the blend of access to capital and good technology coming out of the universities creates a positive environment for biotech development.
He added that the Vancouver Stock Exchange played a critical role in creating an environment for his company to flourish.
“It’s that kind of risk-taking, that kind of entrepreneurial alignment that created British Columbia’s cluster, and now it’s just a question of maturing it and continuing to feed it.”
Leading Edge British Columbia’s Hunter said personal capital gains, personal income, corporate capital gains, corporate tax and payroll taxes are all lower in B.C., and the province has a clear advantage when it comes to the effective corporate tax rate for bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing and biotech research and development.
One of the biotechs returning to the two-day conference for the second year was Burnaby-based Chromos Molecular Systems Inc., which was established in 1995 with artificial chromosome technology developed in Hungary. The company transferred to Vancouver when it secured venture capital investment in the city.
“There is an entrepreneurial spirit here in terms of the scientists at the universities who are willing and able
to develop their technologies and commercialize their technologies. The technology transfer offices here at the universities are excellent,” said Shafique Fidai, the company’s director of business development.
Shisko said the significant presence of big pharma, the ‘buzz in the corridor’ and the quality of science on offer for partnerships indicated the BioPartnering conference was a success. It has already secured dates to return to Vancouver for a third year.
(Jan Mansfield can be reached at jan@businessedge.ca)
