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Canada has always had to fight hard to attract talent and investment

MaRS Vital to Toronto's life sciences vision is MaRS (derived from Medical and Related Sciences) a non-profit organisation and business centre located in the heart of the city. Its core function is as a biotech incubator and business park, known as MaRS Discovery District. The venture was first established in 2000 to help foster and accelerate the growth of successful Canadian businesses and, after some uncertain times, it is now gathering momentum. A separate technology transfer office, MaRS Innovation, has also been established that, it is hoped, can be a world beater in its own right (see Turning good ideas into world beaters below). The location of the MaRS building in central Toronto is important, as it is just a stone's throw away from an existing cluster of universities and academic hospitals. MaRS has many links with other research-based organisations, including collaborations with three local universities, 10 academic teaching hospitals and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. MaRS occupies the Old Toronto general hospital, where insulin was first discovered by Best and Banting in 1921 and then developed for use in human trials. The 21st Century organisation can build on this heritage in patient-focused discovery and development. Formerly the head of venture capital firm Primaxis, Ilse Treurnicht is chief executive of MaRS Discovery District. She acknowledges the crisis in venture capital funding, and says Canada's sector has always had less access funds through this route than other countries. This is one of the drivers behind the search for a new approach. Treurnicht says the old models of building biotech and life sciences businesses have to be discarded, as they have failed to build companies with critical mass. She says MaRS' new 'Convergence Innovation' strategy of bringing science, capital and business together will pay off.

"We call our strategy 'Convergence Innovation' and what we are trying to do is move away from the old linear model of academics struggling in their spare time to build companies or entrepreneurs doing this in a very incremental way."It takes time and it has many risk points along the way. So using this Convergence centre model to create a much more dynamic organisation which can help accelerate good ideas towards the commercialisation." But she says Canada's geography and demographics are always going to be a challenge. "This is a very large country with a small population. If you think in terms of clusters and hub regions, Canada's business hubs are separated geographically, and there is not much in between in terms of people."That means we can't try to be a little United States, because we just won't show up on the radar. We have to take a different approach. We have to think about collaboration as our potential competitive advantage - that means using networks and associations to solve problems and build businesses."So as new opportunities emerge, we can take them to market faster and hopefully with a higher success rate." The centre currently accommodates numerous start up companies, as well as those providing legal and financial services to them. AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline also have offices on site. In all, MaRS provides mentoring for over 200 different companies across Ontario, and runs courses on entrepreneurship and preparing products for market.

infrastructures that support entrepreneurial activity by providing access to capital

Canada, with its stable equity market and a sound economic policy framework, was able to withstand some of the global credit market issues and moved to first place in the Milken Institute’s 2008 Capital Access Index.

nd development of new ideas. It provides not only office and lab space but also free mentoring assistance to new businesses in science, technology and social innovation. While there are probably no chickens hatching at MaRS, it wouldn't be at all surprising to find a company working on, say, a vaccine for bird flu. Approximately 20 incubator companies are currently housed at MaRS, including Clera Inc. - which is developing treatments for schizophrenia and depression; AXS Biomedical Animations Studio - a company that creates 3D medical animation for biomedical research and other applications; and Kanata Chemical Technologies (KCT), which has had great success developing catalysts for the chemical industry (catalysts speed up chemical reactions without being changed or consumed in those reactions

All of the above definitions could apply to the wider innovation community connected with the MaRS Centre. Located in the heart of Toronto's Discovery District - a 2.5 sq. kilometre downtown research district, MaRS is a non-profit environment for the birt

KCT founder and president Kamal Abdur-Rashid came to Canada in 1997 with a degree from the University of the West Indies

For Dr. John Evans, growing a strong biotechnology industry is much the same: cities must provide a nurturing environment where science and business can thrive together.

That's why Evans, former president of the University of Toronto and current chairman of Torstar Corp., is spearheading the $345-million Medical and Related Science initiative, or MaRS--a petri dish of sorts for commercializing science research. "A lot of intellectual property is being commercialized outside Canada," says Evans. "I think we've been slow in realizing just how important technology developments are to the economic future of the country. MaRS is an attempt to give this a kick into a higher gear." The centrepiece of the MaRS plan, which will officially launch May 12, is a 1.3-million-square-foot, five-building complex in downtown Toronto that will provide office and lab space for small and medium-size companies and incubators, including the not-for-profit Toronto Biotechnology Commercialization Centre. While Evans is reluctant to limit its scope, MaRS will generally focus on health-related technologies, from new drugs and genetic treatments to medical devices and imaging software. Branded a "convergence centre," it will also house a careful mix of support services: intellectual property lawyers, accountants, marketing experts, government funding organizations and venture capital financiers. Plus, start-ups will have access to all the latest equipment on site. For instance, MaRS is in talks with MDS Sciex to supply mass spectrometers, used in proteomics research.

But MaRS will be more than just a New Economy real estate development. Evans's intention is to funnel tenants' rent money into services--such as entrepreneurship seminars and angel-matching programs--that MaRS will offer to the broader biotech community. That's why MaRS's location is key: the centre will be built in the heart of what Toronto has dubbed the "Discovery District," a two-square-kilometre chunk of the downtown core, encompassing U of T and four major hospitals. From there, MaRS hopes to act as a network hub across Ontario, with links to research-intensive universities. "None of them," says Evans, "have the critical mass to put it all together on their own."

MaRS aggregates the discovery pipelines of its member institutions, which include three universities, 10 academic teaching hospitals, and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

MaRS is another good example. Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, the MaRS facility is less than a mile from five major teaching hospitals, the Ontario legislature, and the University of Toronto. More than two dozen research institutes and Toronto’s financial district are also nearby.

Consequently, MaRS is a vertical incubator, with a wide variety of companies and stages of development. That mix helps companies better understand the conditions that foster growth. MaRS is home to more than 65 organizations, including The Hospital for Sick Children, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Merck Frosst Canada, the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Celtic House Venture Partners, AIM Therapeutics, and AstraZeneca Canada.