BioCentury
ARTICLE | Strategy

Canadian accelerant

September 25, 2014 7:00 AM UTC

After seven years of building bridges between the Canadian research and business communities through technology transfer consortia, the government's Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research program has launched the country's first national health science accelerator-Accel-Rx. Its mission is to promote the development of new startups and attract private funding, but the challenge will be to reignite interest in early stage biotechs among Canadian VC firms.

The Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) is providing Accel-Rx with C$14.5 million ($13.2 million) to begin operations, which will be managed by CDRD Ventures Inc., the commercialization arm of The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD). BDC Venture Capital will provide a portion of the venture funding for the newcos coming out of the accelerator...