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We measure our success through the companies that emerge after receiving help from MaRS

MaRS does not just provide research space, they are bringing business people, people with money

We don’t know for sure,” said Dr. John Evans, chair of the board of directors at MARS (Medical and Related Sciences) Discovery District in Toronto, and vicechair of Mississauga, Ont.-based NPSAllelix Biopharmaceuticals, one of the pioneers of biotech in Canada. “But we believe that if you could ‘type’ the patient processes of how he/she handles a drug, you could peel off those people who would be particularly sensitive to a drug. Then you could find a sub-population where the drug is safe and highly effective.” Evans used the arthritis drug Vioxx as an example. It helped millions of people battle painful inflammation, but was pulled from the market recently because of potential cardiac side effects in some people. “If the drug company could have predicted which patients would have complications from Vioxx treatment — through some genetic profiling — then a very powerful and effective drug could have been preserved,” Evans said. His company, NPS-Allelix Bio-pharmaceuticals, has been developing a product since 1989 that will be launched later this year. The drug secretes a parathyroid hormone for treating osteoporosis.

It builds up bone matrix and helps build bone, rather than just delay bone loss as other drugs do.

U of T’s proposed investment in a medical research-business complex will take the school into another orbit. The first of its kind in Canada, the MaRS (Medical and Related Sciences) Discovery District will include facilities for start-up companies created to develop and market research discoveries. U of T will kick in $5 million for the not-for-profit corporation to be located on College Street, east of University Avenue.

Charles Plant, Managing Director of the Market Readiness Program for entrepreneurs at MaRS

Plant says that acceptance of failure is a cultural problem in Canada in that we tend not to reward the people who have failed. "We tend to punish people who fail whereas in Silicon Valley, they tend to reward people who have failed because they've learned lessons and can gain from that failure.

"I think you have to quickly acknowledge when something is a failure and have a back up plan of what you're going to do," says Plant. "Don't keep flogging a dead horse."