North Meets South

Canada’s health biotech firms are charting a new path toward global collaboration

by Melinda Wenner Moyer

When you think of global biotechnology leaders, Canada probably does not come to mind. Canadian biotechnology companies developed only 1.4 percent of all therapies approved over the past decade in countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. During the same period, the U.S. produced 66 percent of them. In the coming decade, however, Canada’s piece of the biotech pie might grow substantially, thanks to the country’s new-sprung dedication to international collaboration. Specifically, Canadian biotech firms have started marrying their expertise to the complementary strengths of scientists and biotechnology firms in developing countries.

In a study published in the September 2009 issue of Nature Biotechnology, one quarter of the Canadian health biotechs questioned partner with companies in developing countries. Most of these Canadian "North-South" collaborations, as they are called, involve businesses and scientists in China, India or Latin America. The partnerships are sought for many reasons: joint distribution, R&D, clinical trial governance and manufacturing. "I think the key benefit is that companies can use their diverse strengths, and they’re able to develop things more cost effectively," says study co-author Halla Thorsteinsdóttir, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health.

In some cases, the firms in developing countries are the ones providing the financing and scientific expertise to their Canadian partners. Ontario-based YM BioSciences relies on its collaborator, Cuba’s Centre for Molecular Immunology, for the basic research behind its anticancer compounds. And Montreal-based Biosyntech received a $5.4 million equity investment from Indian pharmaceutical giant Piramal Healthcare in 2006, when it approached the company after having financing troubles.

The Best For Both Worlds

Indeed, these partnerships are not simply about providing aid to developing countries. "As much as we’re helping them, the same help comes back to us as well," explains Bharat Rudra, the country manager for India at International Science & Technology Partnerhips Canada (ISTPCanada), a non-profit organization that funds and promotes collaborative research between Canadian scientists and companies and scientists in India, China and Brazil. ISTPCanada was born out of the Canadian government’s international science and technology partnerships program, which it created in 2005 to promote collaboration between Canadian and foreign scientists. The organization is somewhat special: although there are many ongoing collaborations between U.S. biotechnology companies and those in emerging economies, no American organizations exist that mirror ISTPCanada’s mission.

“ You really need to harness global strengths to get somewhere. ”

India and Canada have particularly complementary strengths, Rudra explains. Over the past 15 years, India’s pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed enormous success by developing generic drugs for their own population and those of other developing countries. But now, they are hoping to break into more creative markets, and Canada is "all about innovation," Rudra says. "Putting them together, they could really come up with some innovative solutions and innovative products." Among the many Indian-Canadian partnerships currently supported by ISTPCanada is one in which scientists are developing new types of antimalarial drugs; another involves efforts to develop quick, cost-effective diagnostic tests for multiple sexually transmitted diseases.

Canadian firms have other unique strengths to offer its partners, such as regulatory expertise. And they can help developing countries carry out clinical trials on a more global scale. In 2006, India’s Piramal Healthcare chose the Ontario-based Juravinski Cancer Centre as a site for a phase I clinical trial of one of its anticancer compounds. Such a venture does not just provide additional test subjects; drugs tested in Canada may be more readily accepted in Western markets like the U.S.

The Canadian firms benefit from the unique insight their partners provide, too, especially on how market needs in developing countries differ from those in the West. "Differences in infrastructure can mean that health products and technologies which work well in countries with well developed health systems and resources are inappropriate for countries which do not enjoy good facilities," says Joanna Chataway, director of innovation and technology policy for RAND Europe, a nonprofit research policy organization. Scientists in emerging economies, Chataway adds, might also have local knowledge that can inform public health research. "Artemisinin, one of the most effective modern agents in combating malaria, had been used as a traditional medicine in China long before it became the focus of drug development by pharmaceutical companies," she says.

Matchmaking In A Small World

At present, it is impossible to know just how much of a benefit these collaborations will provide each partner. According to the analysis performed by Thorsteinsdóttir and her colleagues, the average revenue of collaborating Canadian health biotechnology firms is four times higher than that of their non-partnering colleagues. Nevertheless, most collaborations began recently, making it impossible to know whether these financial differences are a cause or an effect of partnering.

There is little reason to think, however, that companies involved in partnerships will not eventually benefit from them, which is why Thorsteinsdóttir and her colleagues are arguing for further government support for such ventures. According to their 2009 analysis, only seven out of the 82 collaborative initiatives they identified received government aid toward establishing their partnerships. "It can be really hard for Canadian firms to know who to approach and who to trust in developing countries," she says. "And when we talk to firms in developing countries, we’ve been hearing that they don’t know about potentials in Canada."

ISTPCanada is working to solve this problem by offering a free "matchmaking service" between Canadian companies and those in China, India and Brazil, helping firms on both sides find suitable partners. And in January 2010, the organization brought together 150 stakeholders from industry, academia and government in British Columbia and India to forge new partnerships and devise guidelines to help other matchmaking organizations strengthen their impact. In the coming decades, North-South collaborations might become the norm in biotechnology, rather than the exception, and global success may depend on them. "The world is becoming smaller," Thorsteinsdóttir says. "You really need to harness global strengths to get somewhere."