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Canada has always had to fight hard to attract talent and investment. As stated in Pharmafocus.com, "MaRS Discovery District helps to foster and accelerate the growth of successful Canadian businesses." MaRS Innovation has also been launched to accelerate ideas onto the market.

The US Commercial Service provides an excellent and free-for-use International Market Research search tool for 18 global industries. Global market research reports, country commercial guides, and best market reports can be accessed via search by industry, sector, region, country, keyword, or type of report. Older archived records can also be retrieved. The site offers search tips for finding market reports, as well as e-alerts.

An in-depth review of the private equity market in Canada. This fifth installment in the series, produced in conjunction with McKinsey & Company, provides a fact-based perspective of the key trends shaping the Canadian private equity market Volume 1: produced by Goodman and Carr LLP, provides an in-depth review of key market facts. It describes the main characteristics of Canada's private equity market, the preferences of its participants, and the market activity over the past year.

MaRS Innovation and the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital are announce that they have entered into an agreement to collaboratively initiate commercialization of an umbilical cord stem cell technology for potential treatment in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurological disorders.

Dr. Raphael Hofstein named president and CEO of the new MaRS Innovation initiative.

Consider the two faces of the global innovation movement. Company A, having grown through acquisition, produces multiple brands for multiple markets and operates a worldwide network of research and product development centers. Each of its R&D sites was initially responsible for its own brands and local market, but with globalization these distinctions have lost their importance. Company B, on the other hand, was built largely through internal growth and has two global brands. It operates one primary R&D center supported by a handful of special-purpose sites around the world. This comparatively sparse network has helped Company B win wide admiration for the efficiency of its engineering. Because expanding the number of nodes in a network exponentially increases its complexity, it is not surprising that Company A's R&D structure is more expensive to operate. Company A has considered closing some sites, but has resisted doing so because it fears losing capabilities and insights, and roiling local markets. Meanwhile, incremental budget cuts have chipped away at engineer and supplier morale. Having built its network to maximize the value associated with market access, it is now forced to manage the network for cost. Most global innovation networks look like Company A's - and suffer the same problems. Company B's R&D structure is clearly more productive, but it is not necessarily ideal either. Its network might be too compact, limiting access to knowledge that could maximize performance. Thus, to identify principles and practices for creating a truly well-designed innovation network, Booz Allen Hamilton and INSEAD, the international business school, surveyed R&D leaders in 186 companies from 17 industry sectors in 19 nations in 2005. The survey results, and our own experience, suggest one central truth: Organizations benefit when they configure their innovation networks for cost and manage them for value.

IDC is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. Technology advice can be searched by industry (energy, financial, health, life sciences, manufacturing, and other), or by country/region. The Canadian site provides geographical, business, communications, consumer, web, health, manufacturing, financial and other market reports. For the full list go here. The site also requires a subscription (free) to access most full-text documents - some reports may still require payment.

Advertisers are criticized as people who look for the creative and edgy, not the obvious. They will not be happy.Marketing people are criticized for getting hopelessly entangled in corporate egos and complicated projects. They will not be happy.Research people are criticized for generating more confusion than clarity. They will not be happy. Some big companies are criticized for their ill-fated marketing programs or lack of proper strategy. They will not be happy.Wall Street is criticized for putting too much emphasis on growth that is unnecessary and can be destructive to a brand. They will just ignore this criticism and continue trying to make as much money as they can. But this is a book not written to make people happy but to explain to marketers what their real problem is. Only then will they begin to look for the obvious solutions that will separate their products from their competitors -- in a way that is equally obvious to customers. All this comes with no jargon, no numbers, no complexity, and a great deal of common sense.

"The United States spends more on health care-related research and development than any other country. In 2003, it was estimated that the Federal government alone spent over $26 billion. Pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers and other private companies invested over $10 billion more. At its best, the American health care system is capable of delivering care unsurpassed anywhere else in the world. Yet, a 1999 Institute of Medicine study estimated that as many as 98,000 Americans die each year from hospital related medical errors. A recent study by the Rand Corporation (a non-profit think tank) concluded that less than 50 percent of encounters with doctors and hospitals resulted in optimal, evidence-based treatment. Studies show that as many as 42 million Americans - almost 15 percent of the population - lack health care insurance. Surveys reveal that patients do not feel they have adequate information about their conditions, and that their experience with health care ranks below that of most other sectors, in fact below that of the post office. In the aggregate, the country is spending nearly $2 trillion on health care, and yet the nation's health care system does not meet acceptable thresholds for safety, quality, access or cost. In 2005, VHA Health Foundation's board of directors sought to better understand the reasons behind this paradox. The foundation commissioned Larry Keeley and his associates at Doblin Inc. to apply the rigorous analytical methods that are used in their evaluation of other American industries and companies. The project set out to discover when, where and how innovation was taking place in health care. It also sought to identify organizations that were developing model innovation processes, and to explore where opportunities for successful innovation might lay."

MaRS Innovation announced its permanent Board of Directors. MaRS Innovation is focused on converting important discoveries into a new generation of products, services and high value jobs.

MaRS Innovation announced its permanent Board of Directors. MaRS Innovation is focused on converting important discoveries into a new generation of products, services and high value jobs. Feb 6, 2009

From University of North Carolina (Charlotte)'s J.Murrey Atkins Library comes VIBES (Virtual International Business & Economic Sources), a portal with more than 3,500 current links to free English Internet resources on international business and economic information. On VIBES one can find Comprehensive, Regional, or National information on world countries. Links to Patents, Emerging Markets, Economic Country Information, statistics, and other websites can also be found, as well as full-text research reports and tables and graphs.

Rotman NeXus provides a variety of services to non-profit and social enterprise businesses. In addition to providing organizational help including budgeting, market research, and operational design, Rotman NeXus calculates the social and economic impacts of projects for a small fee. Roman NeXus is staffed by University of Toronto's second year Joseph L. Rotman School of Management top-tier MBA students.

From Booklist: Joachimsthaler offers another book that promotes use of reinvented basic marketing principles to assist highly innovative companies. The author describes his DIG model (Demand-First Innovation & Growth), which consists of three interlinked parts: explore the demand for their products and services through an in-depth understanding of how people behave and live their lives and how they consume; apply an innovative routine of structured thinking to identify opportunities that customers cannot articulate; and formulate a strategy for effectively pursuing new opportunities. We learn that although most companies conduct some type of market research, they may fail to look for real opportunities and quantify them or fail to develop viable action plans that lead to results. This model illustrates how to become an unbiased observer of people's consumption and usage behaviors and offers a new approach to identifying and executing a company's growth strategy. Joachimsthaler, a consultant, reports that "successful opportunities for innovation and growth are right here, in front of us, and we often can't see them or don't act on them." Mary Whaley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

John Evans spearheads the MaRS project which will help to accelerate commercialization for scientific research. The official launch of the MaRS plan will happen on May 12, 2003.

MaRS Innovation and The University of Toronto (U of T) announce that they have entered into an agreement to collaboratively commercialize a novel sustained release formulation of nitric oxide (NO) for applications in wound healing, including diabetic ulcers.

To have a successful biotech initiative proximity to academic hubs and capital remains a crucial factor in hatching a thriving cluster. MaRS Discovery District is a good example of a vertical incubator and offers many services to help entrepreneurs at different stages.

Canada ranks #1 in global access to capital index from Milken Institute, apparently thanks to our stable equity market and sound economic policy framework. That means entrepreneurs here have more support than elsewhere in the world. And we're STILL complaining about lack of start-up money? Think about how hard it must be to be everyone else.

MaRS Client, Axela, talks about moving from human protein testing into the agricultural markets -- the challenges and the opportunities.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada provides free up-to-date access to local and global market reports (via subscription only). Market reports on the following industries are included: manufacturing, materials, aerospace and defense, agriculture (technology and food), arts, automotive, bio-tech, building products, chemicals, consumer products, electric power, environment, fish and seafood, forest, health, IT, metals, ocean tech, oil and gas, plastics, rail and urban transit, space, and tourism.

MaRS connects our clients with the Consulate of Canada in San Diego through a program called MarketLink. MarketLink connects large companies to start-ups with new technology. MMB Research and Talking Plug were able to pitch their cleantech IT technology to Sony.

Two MaRS cleantech clients, MMB Research and Talking Plug present their technologies to Sony.