Page 11 - Synapse Life Sciences Consortium

Hamilton Ecosystem:
A place of talent
Hamilton’s story is one of economic transformation,
built on a foundation as a heavy manufacturing
powerhouse to one encompassing strengths in life
sciences, technology, education, transportation and
the arts.
Hamilton is at the heart of a health and life sciences
corridor that stretches from toronto to Buffalo and
includes Canada’s largest pool of talent – nine million
people live within an hour’s drive. the city features
a terrific quality of life, nestled within the natural
beauty of the niagara Escarpment and framed by
more than a hundred waterfalls. a bustling restaurant
and arts scene is anchored by SuperCrawl, a globally
recognized musical festival that attracts 250,000
people each September. it also ranked no. 2 on
Foreign Direct investment magazine’s list of mid-sized
americas City of the Future.
Hamilton’s institutions graduate thousands in
engineering, life sciences, digital health and
medicine, many who stay in the city for its cultural
offerings, natural and architectural beauty, and great
quality of life.
together, the university and college have 62,000
students enrolled, with more than 50 per cent
representing StEm-related programs.
this talent pool fuels the growth of made-in-Hamilton
success stories, such as Fusion Pharmaceuticals,
triumvira immunologics and Empirica therapeutics.
access to high quality talent also convinced medical
device giant Stryker to maintain its Canadian
headquarters in Hamilton and to invest $100 million
in a new facility to support its growth.
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Responding to a
COVID Crisis
Hamilton was a key player in Ontario’s and
Canada’s COVID-19 response, pitching
in with prototyping and manufacturing of
personal protective equipment (PPE), testing
and vaccine development.
The Centre of Excellence in Protective
Equipment and Materials (CEPEM) at
McMaster brought together scientists,
engineers and clinicians to help Ontario-
based companies shift production efforts to
answer a critical shortage of PPE during the
pandemic. Canada’s first and only research
hub dedicated to PPE, CEPEM is also doing
research into next-generation devices using
new materials and coatings to improve
performance and shelf life, while also
exploring the use of sensors in PPE.
The McMaster Molecular Medium (MMM)
is a temperature-stable storage medium for
viral samples developed by researchers from
the Disease Diagnostics and Development
(D3) group at St. Joseph’s Healthcare
Hamilton. MMM inactivates the virus so it
cannot replicate and potentially infect a lab
technician. It improves pandemic testing by
keeping viruses viable for up to 14 days and
also allows for the ability to pool specimens,
boosting testing capacity and returning
results faster.
The MMM story underlines the power of
Hamilton’s life sciences ecosystem. The
technology originated by researchers at St.
Joesph’s Healthcare was licensed to Bay Area
Health Trust (BAHT). Through a partnership
deal, MMM is now available for research
use from Cedarlane Corporation, a leading
Canadian research reagents supplier with
customers in over 140 countries.
“Profits come to all the players and there is
a beautiful, symbiotic positive feedback loop
that comes out it. Now, we want to see that
model replicated,” said Peter Kalra, CEO of
Bay Area Health Trust.
Other pandemic successes include packaging
company Whitebird Inc.’s pivot to develop
a suite of domestically manufactured PPE
for Canadian care providers. McMaster’s
start-up, Elarex Inc., is helping vaccine
manufacturers reduce spoilage by developing
a novel formulation that eliminates the need
for vaccines to be stored at extreme cold
temperatures. Start-up FendX Technologies is
securing a patent for an antimicrobial coating
that repels the adhesion of pathogens and
inhibits their growth on surfaces.
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