Scientists hope to link lab bench with pharmacy shelves through Edmonton drug plant
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University researchers and drug developers in Edmonton are joining forces to create what they say will be Canada's first facility that can take the latest scientific pharmaceutical insights from the lab through clinical trials to the marketplace.
University researchers and drug developers in Edmonton are joining forces to create what they say will be Canada's first facility that can take the latest scientific pharmaceutical insights from the lab through clinical trials to the marketplace.
The partnership, announced Monday, brings together a world-leading laboratory and an existing drug manufacturer to plug a hole in Canada's drug supply system, said Andrew MacIsaac of Advanced Pharmaceutical Innovation, the not-for-profit corporation involved in the effort.
“It's the first large-scale marrying of what API is doing and what researchers at a post-secondary institution are undertaking,” he said.
MacIsaac's firm, which currently employs about 40 scientists at its Edmonton facility, is teaming up with the University of Alberta's renowned Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology to form the Canadian Critical Drug Initiative.
“This was a good marriage for both,” said Lorne Tyrrell, institute co-director and the discoverer of the first oral treatment for hepatitis B.
Canada currently lacks the capacity to manufacture its own drug supply, a gap that became obvious when the federal government was trying to lock up supplies of COVID-19 vaccine. The federal government has since funded specific research and manufacturing facilities in Montreal, Winnipeg and Saskatoon.
But the Alberta effort would be unique in linking the lab bench and the drugstore shelf, as well as in the type and breadth of drugs it would help develop.