New partnership leverages promising Canadian stem cell IP

Regium is the first spin-off of Aggregate

In the past year I’ve spent a good chunk of my time working on this project: “New partnership leverages promising Canadian stem cell IP“.

Aggregate Therapeutics Inc. is a development-stage regenerative-medicine company that aggregates complementary technologies and leverages them across a common development platform, management team and source of capital. This approach gives the company critical mass and lowers the risk, cost, and time to market in developing and commercializing stem cell-based therapeutic products.

In the eternal debate about whether science should be commercial, I can argue equally for both sides.

“Wikinomicsâ€? authors discuss a so called “Balancing Point” (p.180) in the broader context of finding the right balance between the public foundation and private enterprise.

Aggregate Therapeutics Inc., in its current form, promises to strike this balance and to deliver on many important points which are considered to be essential for success:

1. Incentives reward inventors and encourage dissemination of their output;
2. Balance between market mechanisms for selecting projects for development and government support to offset risks undertaken by the early investors;
3. Legal structure which enables commercial freedom of action while preserving academic freedom of inquiry.

Aggregate was started as an ambitious experiment, a brand new model for commercializing university and hospital based research. I heard many unsolicited comments from observers outside of Canada that the first phase of this effort has been a resounding success. The second phase is just starting now.

Our team has not taken on an easy task. While the eventual economic impact of regenerative medicine is immense, these are early days for the industry. Now is the time for visionary and ambitious investors to come to the table as well.

Related Blogs

 

Using the power of “social” to steer healthcare innovation
A lot of hope is riding on innovation as the silver bullet that will solve many of society’s wicked problems – from unsustainable healthcare to transit to food safety. However, implementing ne

Another “B” for Canada in health. I would rather get an “A”!
According to the latest Conference Board of Canada report card on health, Canada maintains its “B” grade and 10th-place ranking among the 17 peer countries. On the 11 indicators used to measure he

Will mHealth change healthcare any time soon?
There are some compelling indicators about the value of using mHealth applications (those based on mobile technologies) for healthcare: 17,000 mHealth applications are already available 300 million p

Alzheimer’s and aging: A look at the facts and future
As busy professionals, many of us take on extra roles. For example, we care for our aging parents in addition to juggling careers and young families, a group known collectively as the “sandwich

Bees do it… what about us?
The impending perfect storm of unsustainable health care systems collapsing under demographic burdens and economic austerity programs has already been well documented (Standard & Poor’s report G

Building teams: Tribes rule!
Peter T’s observation (“The biggest year in venture capital investing since 2001″) that VC funds with specialized sector “practice groups” are outperforming “generalist̶

Tags: Veronika Litinski