The Ontario Life Sciences Strategy and the Growth of the Innovation Ecosystem

The recently released Ontario Life Sciences Strategy is an important step in the right direction for the growth of this sector and its underlying ecosystem in Ontario. Global investments in life sciences and its supporting infrastructure have risen sharply in recent years. While Canada is a global leader in life sciences innovation, to create and retain value from those innovations and to compete on a global scale, we need to work together to retain Canadian innovators and innovations, generate capital investment and become a trusted supplier in global markets.

McMaster Innovation Park (MIP) was pleased to be the venue for the announcement of Ontario’s Life Science Strategy which targets the life sciences and biomanufacturing sectors. Ontario aspires to be a global leader in the development, commercialization and early-stage adoption of innovative health services and products. The goal of the provincial policy is to grow these sectors by at least 25% over the next eight years while enhancing the innovation ecosystem.

To support this objective, there will need to be significant increases of investment in specialized life sciences operations, biomanufacturing capacity and purpose-built real estate. The requirements of life sciences laboratory space are highly specialized and near-term access to such infrastructure is mission critical for scaling companies. Access to suitable laboratory space often determines whether a growing company stays in Canada or exits for an offshore location that can provide them with the infrastructure needed to develop their products on a cost-effective basis.