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Other successes of the past year include the creation of the MaRS Discovery District, a new centre on University Ave. that focuses on commercializing biomedical research, and the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp., he said

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."

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.

Three technology research centres in Ontario Monday said they have agreed to work together to help the province compete more effectively against countries like India and China.

Communitech is working with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation, an economic development corporation located in the nation's capital, and the MaRS Discovery District, a Toronto-based not-for-profit geared towards the commercialization of scientific and technological intellectual property.

The three organizations have agreed their partnership will function under the name the MaRS Network. MaRS is by far the youngest of the three organizations – Communitech is almost a decade old and OCRI is about 25 – but has become a business force since it opened last year.

commercialize our vast services potential

in university social sciences, humanities, art and design

Strengthen our areas of traditional comparative advantage: agriculture, forestry, mining, mineral processing, energy production

Ross Wallace, director of strategic partnerships at the MarS Centre, which brings together scientists, entrepreneurs and investors, has seen a lot of P3s at their best.

Wallace was as baffled as everybody else. But he believed a business model could be created that would connect medical discoveries coming out of universities and government labs with the money available from private foundations.A year ago, he won one of six fellowships offered by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation to young people eager to tackle global problems. His research led in an unexpected – and welcome – direction. It turned out that he didn't have to invent a new business model. One already existed."I found some really exciting collaboration going on," he said. "A new breed of partnerships had emerged that completely transformed the development and delivery of pharmaceuticals for neglected diseases."

So Wallace redefined his task. He would look for ways to bolster these fledgling P3s.They have a very short history. The first grew out of a program launched by the World Bank in 1999 to pull together money and talent for research on tropical diseases. But it remained buried within the global bureaucracy.

This is Toronto's research district, a maze of concrete and glass where the finest minds collaborate, turning the city into a global centre of biomedical discovery.

Nine research institutes employing 5,000 university faculty members, 2,000 graduate students and 1,100 postdoctoral and clinical fellows lie within a 20-minute walk of each other. This biomedical cluster at the heart of Toronto is one of the largest on the continent, and is one of the 10 largest in the world.

Tom Hudson from Montreal; cell biologist Ben Neel from Boston; and stem-cell biologist Gordon Keller, who came to Toronto in 2006, just months after New York magazine named him one of the scientists that city could not afford to lose. Toronto is also home to Tak Mak, who discovered the "key to the immune system" T-cell receptor, and John Dick, who discovered the first cancer stem cell in 1994 and last year grew a human cancer in a lab mouse for the first time.

The Stem Cell Network (SCN) has entered into a collaborative agreement with the MaRS Discovery District to transfer control of its nascent spin-off commercialization arm, Aggregate Therapeutics Inc (ATI). The agreement will see MaRS take immediate management responsibility for ATI, seek funding to operationalize the company and accelerate efforts to commercialize stem cell and regenerative medical research