BIV Magazines: LifeSciences 2008

Dr. Michael Hayden certainly has much to get excited about. But today, the internationally recognized geneticist, founder of three biotech companies, director and senior scientist at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, University Killam professor at the department of medical genetics at UBC and director of the Child and Family Research Institute, is excited about LifeSciences BC and Karimah Es Sabar.

“She’s the Obama of the biotech world in Canada. She’s the new voice, the new vision,” he said of the association’s president. “LifeSciences BC is positioned as the protagonist for the future. It’s going to lead to more recognition of the biotech industry in B.C. and lead to more investment from the pharmaceutical industry.”

Hayden said the association has undergone profound changes in the recent past, due largely to Es Sabar’s personality, energy, enthusiasm and creativity.

“She takes people to another place forward. Her tremendous ability to bring people together. She appropriately has given a voice to biotech, science, life science research in the province and reinforces the notion that the economy of B.C. will be based not so much on lumber and fish, but on creativity and knowledge and biotechnology, built on infrastructure and outstanding research in the province.”

Heady praise indeed, but for Es Sabar, it didn’t start big.

“I came in with some trepidation,” said Es Sabar, whose training wasn’t in association management but instead was as a neurochemist with 20 years of experience in strategic marketing and international business. She held many senior positions in pharma then headed an international division at Connaught Laboratories. She played senior roles as VP and CEO in biotech and life sciences companies.

“I wasn’t sure if this was something I should really be doing. I was convinced I wanted biotech and technology sectors to be world class and drive ourselves as industry leaders. I had a lot of support – it was motivational for me.”

The biotech industry is much like Es Sabar in this regard – it doesn’t blow its own horn. Canada is the second largest biotech sector in the world (the U.S. is first) and she remains surprised at how many people didn’t know this.

“Australia makes more noise,” she said. “We didn’t position ourselves as number 2; and B.C. was nowhere to be seen. People were clearly not focused on the fact that of the top 10 biotech companies in Canada, five or six are homegrown in B.C. No one made a mental connection that where we are building profitable companies is in B.C.”

She is working to change this by doing two things: bringing B.C.’s biotech companies to the world, and bringing the world to B.C.’s biotech companies.

Together, those activities should achieve Es Sabar’s goal of making this province’s life sciences industries one of the top 10 life sciences clusters in the world.

“I see the potential. I know it’s there. We have great academic institutions and fantastic science, which is the watering hole for biotech,” she said. “We were not aggressively marketing our strengths. People don’t know us for our abilities in technology and science. They think natural resources and tourism, but now, the awareness is there after two to three years of marketing biotech.”

It seems that everyone is finding out about our hidden asset.

Partnership days are the association’s opportunity to target specific jurisdictions and international companies and bring them here to showcase what B.C. has to offer.

“It’s an opportunity for them to look. They will find opportunities here,” she said. “It’s like speed dating – you can meet 20 companies in two days.”

Hoffmann-La Roche of Switzerland was one of the first to attend a partnership day and learn that B.C. has the entire ecosystem necessary for life sciences. Pfizer and Takeda have also come. “A minimum of one deal has emerged from each partnership day; in many cases several emerged,” said Es Sabar. “The right people together at the right time in the right place; out of it comes good opportunities.”

Attending the big BIO meetings was previously done primarily to network. Now, LifeSciences BC also goes to smaller regional BIO meetings.

Organizations like the BC Cancer Agency and Xenon will tell you that great deals originate out of these meetings.

“We don’t just do one-offs; we build relationships with global companies,” added Es Sabar.

“We have a dialogue with them. We target companies and jurisdictions with the interest and ability to invest and collaborate with companies here and we research their compatibility.”

B.C. companies previously attended Medica in Dusseldorf, the largest medical device tradeshow in the world, on an ad hoc basis. This year, even more companies went, as a delegation, all branded as the province of B.C.

A LifeSciences BC trade mission went to India in December with an industry agenda supported by the premier. An India mission is returning the visit in June, just one month after the association returns from another trade mission in Beijing.

In October, it’s off to Marseille for the World Biomarine Conference, and an MoU has been signed for B.C. to host the conference every alternate year.

“B.C. is a leader in marine projects,” said Es Sabar. “A world leader – how many people knew that? It’s not just bio pharma; it’s all bio that LifeSciences BC represents, and we have strengths in so many of these bio sectors.”

Europe is taking notice. Medicon Valley, the second largest life sciences cluster in Europe, took a hard look at the world to determine best practices and identify the top 10 life science clusters they believe will emerge in the next 10 years.

Guess what?

“They recognized Canada as number 2,” said Es Sabar. “They went to Quebec and Ontario and came here and found that B.C. had the potential to be one of the top 10 clusters of the future and felt they had a shared vision with us.”

The Medicon Valley Ambassador program is an exchange program. Europe sends an ambassador here for three years, and we send one there (see report, p.10).

“They are embedded in their infrastructure for three years. They are actively looking for opportunities for collaboration and investment in research and in industry.”

B.C. has a track record in building companies that are acquired by multinationals. Look at ID Biomedical, sold for $1.7 billion, or Anormed for $600 million, or Aspreva for $900 million, she said.

“People don’t buy companies that aren’t worth buying,” she said, adding that she wants to see world-class companies being built and then staying in B.C. even if they are acquired, such as the Aspreva acquisition by Galenica, a Swiss company, or Amgen’s acquisition of Abgenix, which is based in Burnaby. “They bought it and they stayed.” •

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