Facilitating innovation and growth between UK and Canada

The visit is part of a suite of activities from the £20 million joint biomanufacturing programme launched in June 2023 as part of the Canada-UK Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) on biomanufacturing. With each country’s government having committed £10 million, the programme aims to grow the biomanufacturing sector between the UK and Canada.

The group come from across Canada and are leaders in areas spanning drug discovery to GMP manufacturing, including AI-driven drug discovery, drug delivery and platform technologies to optimise manufacturing and testing, as well as pre-clinical and GMP manufacturing capabilities for advanced therapeutics. They include:

• AmacaThera Inc.
• Basetwo Artificial Intelligence Inc.
• BioCanRx – Biotherapeutics for Cancer Therapeutics
• Eyam Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics
• Nicoya Lifesciences Inc.
• OmniaBio Inc.
• Pegasus Biotech Inc.
• Phenomic AI In.
• ProteinQure Inc.
• Qeen Biotechnologies
• Somru BioScience Inc.
• Virica Biotech Inc.
• National Research Council of Canada – Human Health Therapeutics (HHT)

Representatives will also be in attendance from the High Commission of Canada to the UK, the National Research Council – Industrial Research Assistance Program, and the Office of Life Sciences & Biomanufacturing Readiness.

Visits and tours are planned with the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and CPI, part of the Catapult Network, a key national asset which plays a pivotal role in the UK innovation ecosystem. These innovation hubs act as a bridge between research and commercialisation, propelling innovative ideas into market-ready solutions.

The delegation will also explore the UK’s strong academic base with visits to Imperial College London, University College London, Teesside University’s National Horizons Centre, and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.

Additional visits include Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst and the vaccine manufacturing cluster in Liverpool with representatives from some of the global life sciences leaders.

Two open events are planned with UK organisations invited to attend and hear about the thriving biomanufacturing ecosystem in Canada. The events will also be an opportunity to gain early insights into a Canada-UK Collaborative R&D call that is expected to launch in May 2024 (delivered by Innovate UK and Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program).

The events will take place in London on 26 February and Manchester on 29 February. This is an ideal opportunity to start identifying partnerships through pitches, B2B meetings and more general networking.

As the biomanufacturing programme centres on fostering economic growth, visits like these bring together the complementary strengths of Canada and the UK, providing a crucial platform to initiate relationship-building, laying the foundations ahead of the collaborative funding opportunity coming soon.