Government of Canada announces 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research

World-class centres will share $163 million to move discoveries out of the lab and onto the marketplace

Ottawa, February 14, 2008 – The Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry, today announced $163 million to establish 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs). These centres will share $163 million to pursue major discoveries and bring them to the marketplace over the next five years.

"Today's announcement marks a milestone in Canadian research history," said Minister Prentice. "The technologies, therapies, services and products generated by these new centres will help improve the well-being of all Canadians while positioning Canada at the forefront of priority research areas. As we stated in our Science and Technology Strategy, this Government is committed to encouraging these exciting, multidisciplinary partnerships between the private, academic and public sectors."

The 11 CECRs and their funding amounts are:

• Advanced Applied Physics Solutions, Inc. (AAPS), Vancouver, BC – $14.95 million
• Bioindustrial Innovation Centre (BIC), Sarnia, ON – $14.95 million
• Centre for the Commercialization of Research (CCR), Ottawa, ON – $14.95 million
• Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Vancouver, BC – $14.95 million
• Centre of Excellence in Personalized Medicine (CEPM), Montreal, QC – $13.8 million
• Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization (CPDC), Hamilton, ON – $14.95 million
• Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer CECR in Therapeutics Discovery (IRICoR), Montreal, QC – $14.95 million
• MaRS Innovation, Toronto, ON – $14.95 million
• The Prostate Centre's Translational Research Initiative for Accelerated Discovery and Development (PC-TRIADD), Vancouver, BC – $14.95 million
• Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise (PREVENT), Saskatoon, SK – $14.95 million
• Centre of Excellence for the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF Centre), Vancouver, BC – $14.95 million

More information on each Centre is provided in the backgrounder.

Budget 2007 set aside $195 million over the next two years to create new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research in four priority areas: environmental science and technologies, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. The program will support the operating and commercialization costs of the centres.

These 11 CECRs join seven Centres of Excellence announced in Budget 2007. The Government invested $105 million in these seven centres, located in B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.

The CECR program is a cornerstone of Canada's Science and Technology Strategy. One of the goals of the strategy, launched in May 2007, is to encourage more private sector investment in research and development. The strategy also emphasizes capitalizing on our people, knowledge and entrepreneurial advantages to build a stronger Canadian society and economy.

The CECR competition and program are administered by the secretariat of the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE), successful research partnerships between universities, industry, not-for-profit organizations and government. The NCE program is an initiative of the three federal granting agencies—the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research—in partnership with Industry Canada.

"The NCE program is proud to be a part of the Government's vision for a more prosperous, advanced and competitive Canada," said Dr. Suzanne Fortier, Chair of the NCE Steering Committee and President of NSERC. "We welcome these 11 CECRs into the NCE family. We look forward to working with their directors, researchers and partners to help them achieve their maximum potential and impact."

As part of today's event, Dr. Fortier also announced the members of the Private Sector Advisory Board (PSAB). This group of respected industry leaders was established at the onset of the CECR competition to assess the economic and commercial benefits and opportunities of each proposal and to provide recommendations to the NCE Steering Committee, who determined the final selection. The PSAB members are:

• The Honourable Perrin Beatty (Chair), President, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
• Dr. Sue Abu-Hakima, President/CEO, Amika Mobile Corporation
• Mr. Alan Bernardi (alternate), Director, Bell University Laboratories
• Mr. James E.C. Carter, former President, Syncrude Canada Ltd.
• Mr. J. Haig deB. Farris, President, Fractal Capital Corp.
• Dr. Kevin O'Brien Fehr, Director, Basic Research and Genetics, GlaxoSmithKline Inc.
• Mr. Fred Hemphill (alternate), former Vice President, Technology Project Development and Research, Syncrude Canada Ltd.
• Ms. Francine Laurent , former President, Innovatech Québec
• Mr. Raymond Leduc, Director, IBM plant, Bromont, QC
• Mr. Donald Lush, President, Environmental Bio-detection Products Inc.
• Mr. Keith Stoodley, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Provincial Aerospace Group of Companies
• Mr. Jeff Turner, CEO, Tissue Regeneration Therapeutics Inc.

Biographical information is provided in the backgrounder.

For further information, please contact:

Backgrounder

Private Sector Advisory Board

The Private Sector Advisory Board was established in August 2007 by the secretariat of the Networks of Centres of Excellence, fulfilling a commitment made by the Government of Canada in Budget 2007 to establish such a body.

The PSAB's role was to provide the NCE Steering Committee, made up of the Presidents of the three federal granting councils (NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR), with their expert advice and recommendations in the CECR competition process. Specifically, PSAB members recommended projects expected to create a strategic, long term economic advantage for Canada.

The PSAB will also be involved in the peer-review process for the Business-Led NCE competition as well as NSERC's College and Community Innovation Program.

Consultation within the research and development community produced and initial list of around 100 suggested names. After taking suitability and availability into consideration, the final 12 members (10 permanent and two alternates) were selected by the NCE Steering Committee.

The members of the 2007-08 Private Sector Advisory Board are:

The Honourable Perrin Beatty (Chair): President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the 170,000 member Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Prior to joining the Canadian Chamber in August 2007, Mr. Beatty was President and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME). He was President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and has held portfolios in Progressive Conservative governments, including Treasury Board, National Revenue, Solicitor General, National Defence, Health and Welfare, Communications, and Secretary of State for External Affairs. Mr. Beatty serves on a number of Canadian Government advisory committees covering issues that include national security, border management, privacy and international trade. He is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and served for five years as Business Co-Chair of the Canadian Labour and Business Centre.

Sue Abu-Hakima: co-founder, President and CEO of Amika Mobile Corporation, her second startup, launched in 2007. She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Centres of Excellence and is Chair of the Board of Management for the Center of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology. She is also on the Board of the Ottawa Software Cluster. In 2003 she contributed to the Prime Minister's Task Force on Women Entrepreneurs. Dr. Abu-Hakima holds 19 international patents in messaging and content analysis, with a 20th pending. She has published and presented over 100 papers. Dr. Abu-Hakima holds Masters and Doctorate degrees from Carleton University in Ottawa, with a specialization in artificial intelligence.

Alan Bernardi: Director of Bell University Laboratories (BUL). He manages over 60 research and development projects in the BUL initiative in Canada. In 2005, he received the First Invention Award which recognizes and rewards BCE innovators for creating and developing their first patentable invention. Since 1984, he has worked at CAE Electronic, Bell-Northern Research (BNR), Nortel, Bell Emergis and Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal (CRIM) as a Director for research teams in telecommunications, software engineering and knowledge-based systems. At CRIM he established two international partnerships. From 1993-1996, he taught in the McGill University MBA program, and currently teaches in the Department of industrial engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal. Mr. Bernadi is a member of the scientific committee for the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS) Networks of Centres of Excellence.

James E.C. Carter: served Syncrude Canada Ltd. for more than 27 years, including 10 years as President and 18 years as operations chief. He played a prominent role in a variety of initiatives to enhance safety, reliability, production, unit costs and product quality. Prior to joining Syncrude, Mr. Carter held senior management positions at McIntyre Mines Ltd. and the Iron Ore Company of Canada. Mr. Carter serves on the Boards of Directors of EPCOR Inc. and Careers: The Next Generation. He is a director and past chair of the Mining Association of Canada and was also a member, director, and executive member of the Alberta Chamber of Resources. In 2005, he was named Resource Person of the Year by the Alberta Chamber of Resources and was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

J. Haig deB. Farris: President of Fractal Capital Corp., a private venture capital company financing high technology start-ups and resource services technology companies. A former Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), he is a founder and director of two UBC spin-off companies: D-Wave Systems Inc., a quantum computing company; and Zymeworks Inc., a biosciences and enzyme engineering technologies company. Mr. Farris is a Council Member at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and is past Chair of the Science Council of British Columbia. He co-founded a financial consulting firm and was co-founder of the largest venture capital pool in western Canada. Mr. Farris has received a Friend of Science World award, the Bill Thompson Award for career achievement from the BC Technology Industries Association, and the Pioneer of Innovation Award from the Vancouver Board of Trade.

Kevin O'Brien Fehr: Since 1992, Dr. Fehr, who has a background in pharmacology, has managed basic research and genetics studies conducted in Canadian companies and universities on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). She also works to attract funding from GSK's international sources to support Canadian researchers. She serves in an advisory capacity on several Boards of Directors, including the AllerGen Network of Centres of Excellence and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. After working for 10 years at the Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario as a scientist and educator, Dr. Fehr joined the staff of the Medical Liaison Service of Sandoz Canada. There, she spent five years liaising between the company and the Canadian medical research community in the areas of psychiatry and neurology.

Fred Hemphill has played a key role in transformation of Alberta's oil sands industry. He spent his entire career at Syncrude Canada Ltd., retiring from the position of Vice President, Technology Project Development and Research. He was responsible for the research and development of new technological innovations and for the engineering and construction of these technologies. During his long and distinguished career at Syncrude, he held many senior management positions including Vice President, Bitumen Process and Vice President, Human Resources and Support Services. Mr. Hemphill is a past-president of the Fort McMurray United Way and has served on boards and committees of Keyano College, the Alberta Science Centre and the Oil Sands Discovery Centre.

Francine Laurent has 20 years of experience in technology, management and financing. In 1996, joined Innovatech Québec, a $125 million early-stage venture capital fund, as an investment analyst, and became president in 1998. She has overseen more than $100 million worth of investment in technology and has served on the boards of numerous private companies and public organizations. In 2008, Mme Laurent resigned from Innovatech to take on a role as Advisor on investment and economic development to the office of the Mayor of Quebec City She is a member of the Quebec Science and Technology Council.

Raymond Leduc heads IBM's largest semiconductor assembly and test site in Bromont, QC, which produces microelectronic components for all of IBM's leading products as well as the microprocessor components for the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft's XBox 360, and Sony's Playstation 3. Mr. Leduc joined IBM in 1981. He has held various management positions in the engineering and finance departments before being named Director of the Bromont plant in 2003.

Donald Lush: President of Environmental Bio-detection Products Inc. in Mississauga, ON. EBPI develops and manufactures biologically based testing kits for evaluation of toxicity of contaminants in environmental media and the evaluation of chemicals and environmental samples. During his 30 years in the environmental consulting business, Mr. Lush has served in technical, management and advisory roles as founder, president and chairman of a number of environmental and technology focused companies in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. He spent most of his consulting career with Beak International as a senior principal and board member and acted as Chairman of the Board for 15 years. He is Chair of the Board of Microbial Insights, located in Knoxville, TN.

Keith Stoodley: Senior Vice President of Marketing with the Provincial Aerospace Group of Companies, based in St. John's NL, which specializes in fixed wing aircraft based maritime surveillance modifications and operations. Mr. Stoodley also chairs a public-private partnership focused on the development of the ocean industry cluster in Newfoundland and Labrador. Prior to 2005, he was Vice President and Director, Oceans, with the Lotek Group. Under his stewardship, Lotek received Canada Exporter Awards in 2002 and 2003 and the National Research Council's Innovation Award in 2004. He has served as a director and a member of the Environmental Export Council of the Canadian Environmental Industry Association, the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce Innovation Council, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador's Genesis Centre and International Business Advisory Council and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Jeff Turner: CEO of Tissue Regeneration Therapeutics Inc. Dr. Turner is a biotech industry executive and entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in life science product development and commercialization. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto. He holds 34 domestic and international patents and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and abstracts. As President and CEO of Nexia Biotechnologies Inc., the world's second-largest transgenic animal company, Dr. Turner managed 124 employees in Canada and the U.S and raised $67 million in private and public funds. In 2006 he completed a $20-million licensing agreement for the company's stem cell technology.