Commentary: Sticking to the Knitting: CIHR, Innovation and Canadian Biotech

Abstract

The novel proposal outlined by Glenn Brimacombe suggests that the federal government directly participate in funding incremental venture capital investment in Canadian biotechnology, with the goal of facilitating commercialization of Canadian biotechnology and health sciences intellectual property. In this way, they suggest, the economic development benefits of the Canadian current investment in health sciences will be increased. The proposal is based on two premises that need further evaluation: (1) the biotechnology sector in Canada presently underperforms in terms of value creation; (2) this underperformance is due to inadequate venture capital investment. It is the author's view that, although several measures do suggest relative system underperformance, this is likely due to structural differences rather than inadequate venture capital investment. The absence of large, integrated, global biopharmaceutical firms based in Canada, the large number of very small biotech firms and the absence of a clear federal policy mandate supporting technology transfer and underinvestment in public sector funded basic research may all be contributory factors. Given the Canadian biotech sector's current efficiency at creating value from limited public investment in basic science, increasing the core CIHR budget might be an even better investment opportunity for limited incremental funding.