Alberta's biotech sector is continuing to flourish, says a new report that will be released in September.

But the state-of-the-industry account for 2005 is also expected to point out that an ongoing need for funding remains a key concern.

Ryan Radke, vice-president operations and programs for BioAlberta, an Edmonton-based private, not-for-profit industry association representing the biotechnology sector, says the report is still being put together. But when it's complete he believes it will illustrate, among other things, that hiring by the association's member companies is on the rise.

Meanwhile, as BioAlberta prepares for National Biotech Week at the end of September, it is also searching for a new executive director. Radke says hiring a replacement for Myka Osinchuk, who stepped down as executive director in early July, is a priority.

Ryan Radke

Osinchuk, who was BioAlberta employee No. 1 six years ago, says it was time to chart a new course.

"It's time for new challenges after six years of growing the association from a startup to a successful industry association that has really become a model for the biotech industry across the country," Osinchuk says. "It wasn't an easy decision to leave, but it was just the right time."

She also adds that biotech in Alberta is doing better than ever. "We've see more of our companies receive substantial financing, and there's a very positive feeling in the industry that success is right around the corner."

Some of that success will be evident when BioAlberta releases its 2005 report in conjunction with National Biotech Week.

Radke says employment numbers for biotech should show an increase in the neighbourhood of 100 jobs, both direct and indirect, boosting last year's totals of 1,200 people working directly in the biotech industry and about 3,600 overall, once indirect employment figures are factored in. "We definitely see those numbers rising," says Radke.

On the financing side, the new report will also illustrate that raising money for biotech ventures is starting to become just a little bit easier. Radke points to $41.4 million raised by Edmonton-based BioMS Medical Corp. in March of this year as an example.

BioMs, a University of Alberta spinoff, is in Phase 3 trials of its MBP8298 drug. If successful, it could result in a commercial venture with sales in excess of $4 billion per year, says Tony Hesby, the company's vice-president of corporate affairs.

The drug is targeted at an unmet need in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, says Hesby, and enrolment in the two'-year trial, to be conducted in Canada, the United Kingdom and one Scandinavian country, is now under way.

Expensive clinical development programs, including sophisticated human trials "require that you have the ability to raise very large amounts of money," Hesby says.

"To date, we've raised $91 million and it's a long, arduous and expensive process to get a drug to market. But if you do get it to market, the rewards are dramatic."

One dramatic success could be all the sector needs to set it on fire, says Osinchuk.

"One company's success breeds a whole lot of success around it," Osinchuk adds. "We've seen that happen in Vancouver with QLT and Angio-tech. One big success is important. "However, you can't undervalue a whole lot of little successes that we're seeing. Companies like CV Technologies (the Edmonton-based maker of COLD-fX, the popular cold remedy) are reaching a point of success and we should celebrate that."

But BioAlberta says it still needs to pursue its earlier recommendations for supportive tax and fiscal policies designed for research-intensive businesses and the development of an active venture capital industry.

While it is too early to say, Radke believes momentum is building in talks with the provincial government over the past few years. However, he was unable to say when anything concrete could materialize.

For Andrew Baum, the chairman of BioAlberta, the sector's future is bright.

"Biotech continues to be a major growth industry and in North America it continues to do fairly well," Baum says. "It's Alberta's to lose if we don't become a biotech centre. The government needs to be more proactive."

However, while industry awaits a government response, potential discoveries continue to keep biotech companies active across the province.

In Edmonton, where the lion's share of Alberta's biotech companies are based - roughly 75 per cent - one promising development is from the U of A's Institute for Biomolecular Design. Michael Ellison, the institute's director, is kept busy on their lead project, Cybercell.

"It's an ambitious effort to simulate the complex physiological process, i.e., the virtual cell. The goal is to recreate life at the molecular level on the computer," says Ellison.

A prototype is being developed and Ellison believes that within the next two to three years they'll be able to grow cells that will replicate and respond to their virtual environment. If successful, it means they'll be able to screen the effects of pharmaceutical drugs for both targeted and untargeted effects in a virtual cell, allowing researchers to test their hypotheses more quickly and at a lower cost.

In Calgary, another example of biotech research under way is at Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. The company is working on developing therapeutic agents for inducing a patient's own neural stem cells to proliferate and differentiate to form new brain tissue. It says this therapy could have the potential to treat diseases such as Huntington's and Alzheimer's.

"We're (also) seeing companies reaching milestones in later stages of development and going after larger rounds of financing," says Osinchuk, who even though she is no longer at the helm of BioAlberta would like to keep a foot in the door. "Hopefully we'll see some products from them and once that happens we'll see an industry that will really start to flourish."

Osinchuk is taking the summer off and will become director of life science at the Alberta Research Council this fall.

"I'm also exploring some other opportunities. I'd like to obviously keep my finger in this industry (biotech) and there's a lot of exciting things happening in this industry that I'd like to be involved with."

(Laura Severs can be reached at laura@businessedge.ca)