Ontario: Breaking through to the future of medicine
Ontario’s leading biomedical innovators are working with global leaders on the problems of infectious disease, improved drugs and health care.
In December, the MaRS Future of Medicine™ 2010 Annual Conference brought together these pacesetters to talk about breakthroughs in medical innovation, exciting new approaches to drug discovery, innovative paths in personalized medicine and Ontario’s response to the challenge of infectious disease.
MaRS Future of Medicine™ is a ongoing program that highlights and promotes our greatest life sciences and health care innovations, provides opportunities to partner with industry and shares information on best practices. Our program has three types of event:
- Annual conference
- Monthly seminar series
- Special events
At this conference, we heard from 10 companies and organizations who’ve made major contributions to the fight against infectious disease or have developed powerful tools for personalized medicine. (You can find the full agenda here.)
The quality of the presentations was absolutely first-rate and confirmed what we’ve been hearing from many international life sciences clusters: Ontario is truly a world-class jurisdiction for the development of powerful medical technologies.
Some personal highlights:
- Learning from Sanofi Pasteur about Ontario’s long history of vaccine development and innovation
- Bio.Diaspora’s approach to predict and contain epidemics
- The indomitable Aled Edwards (SGC) on how to fix the pharma industry (or create a new one!)
- Finding out from Jeff Wrana how Dynemo’s protein network analysis can be used to accurately predict disease outcomes
The 144 conference delegates not only participated in these excellent presentations but also took advantage of the Partnering Forum to form valuable alliances with decision makers from pharma, biotech and venture capital.
My personal thanks to our sponsors AstraZeneca Canada Ltd and MaRS Innovation as well as our speakers and delegates for making the MaRS Future of Medicine™ 2010 Annual Conference such an enjoyable and informative event.
Stayed tuned for information on next year’s fantastic event and how you can be involved in the Future of Medicine in Ontario! Until then, catch the interviews with our expert speakers on the topics of infectious disease and personalized medicine.
Looking for more?
Join us for our next exploration of the future of health care on January 26th at Consumer Digital Health: Market Opportunities and New Business Models. Find out how technologies such as mobile, the web and wireless monitoring are converging to empower patients and offer physicians countless new ways to deliver health care.