In The News

In a breakthrough for healthcare innovation in Canada, Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre has signed a lucrative licensing deal with global pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis. As reported by the Globe and Mail, the deal resulted from Sunnybrook's groundbreaking research into the wound-healing molecule vasculotide, which Sanofi-Aventis hopes to eventually bring to market.

"It's a great example of what we've been missing here in this country and this city," says Mark Lievonen, president of Sanofi Pasteur Ltd., the Toronto-based vaccines division of the Sanofi-Aventis Group. The deal will see the drug company develop and commercialize Sunnybrook's research."

"We have great academic research and lots of work being done, but we have very difficult challenges in actually bringing deals to market," Mr. Lievonen said. "It's important to recognize and celebrate the success it really is."

"Historically, Canadian hospitals and other groups have shied away from commercialization, Mr. Lievonen explains. But people are growing excited about innovation and the positive effect it could have on the economy. "Hospitals and universities see the need to do it and more and more people are jumping on this bandwagon of innovation and looking for ways to achieve this kind of success," he says."

"The compound, called vasculotide, is used to treat chronic wounds. It is provided intravenously, and in animal studies it helped accelerate wound healing, in addition to creating better, deeper healing. Diabetic wounds tend to reopen."

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original source Globe & Mail