A RE$EARCH MONEY Q&A with Sanofi Pasteur's Bruce Carpick

Q: Sanofi is obviously a big booster of Mitacs. What are your overall impressions of the program?

A: Overall, Mitacs is the type of program that I wish was around back when I was a grad student and postdoc. I really had no experience working in industry prior to joining Sanofi Pasteur in 1998, and for many of my contemporaries similarly trained in academic research, it was a similar story. Mitacs provides a unique opportunity for young scientists to perform R&D work in an industrial setting, not only leveraging their technical expertise acquired in their University, but also actively helping to facilitate the academic-industry collaboration. All of our Mitacs students and postdocs have told me the same thing - being able to work in an industrial lab as part of an established team was a positive and valuable experience for them.

Q: Could you give me an idea of the extent to which you've used Mitacs interns and how they are used strategically to benefit the firm?

A: Sanofi Pasteur is the vaccines division of Sanofi.  One of our company's mandates is to improve human health by developing superior innovative vaccination solutions against infectious disease.  To that end, we rely on state of the art analytical and bioprocessing capabilities in order to develop and manufacture new vaccines. 

Since launching our first Mitacs Accelerate collaboration in 2014 with York University, we've onboarded six students and postdocs in the Analytical R&D Biochemistry Platform at the Toronto site.  These individuals have been instrumental in helping us to develop and implement several key enabling technologies and workflows, in areas such as mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and capillary electrophoresis.  Such technologies will enable us to more efficiently and robustly characterize the purity, identity, and quality of our vaccine products, now and in the future. 

But it's not just about the technology - in my platform, our company, and in fact our industry, teamwork and innovation go hand in hand.  Our Mitacs students and fellows have the opportunity to become part of both a team and a community, and in the case of Sanofi Pasteur, it is a community where the products we work on (vaccines) are routinely administered to our children, our friends and families, and to ourselves.  

It's quite an experience to get a booster shot and know that you just received a potentially life-saving product that you or one of your colleagues actually worked on and helped to make!  By the same token, I and my existing team members have benefited greatly from the enthusiasm and fresh ideas that young folks such as Mitacs fellows and grad students bring to an established team.

Q: Has the program been responsive to your firm's needs?

A: Very much so.  I think the key to the Mitacs program is its flexibility - this is very important to my team and I think industry in Canada in general because of the challenging, dynamic business environment we operate in.  Mitacs is designed to meet the needs of the company, the university, and, most importantly, the people who make them run.  In our case at least, it's a big "win-win".

Q: Has Sanofi recruited any talent after they've served as interns?

A: Yes - even though our particular collaboration has been running only two years, we recently successfully recruited an "alumnus".  Another postdoc recently took a position in industry with another firm, and two of our original grad students have completed their terms and moved on with their studies.

Q: Mitacs has just released a new five-year strategic plan called Target 10,000: Talent, Ideas, Networks. What are your impressions and do you think Canadian industry has the capacity to absorb that number of interns?

A: Sure, why not, this is Canada, anything's possible!  I think one key will be visibility - one thing I've learned over the years is the incredible power of telling success stories.  People who I speak to about Mitacs will typically say "What's that?", and then become very interested once I describe the program. This has led to several colleagues launching their own proposals with academic partners because the win-win is so apparent.  The other key, of course, will be sustainable support from government. A country with a relatively small population like Canada will not succeed without a highly skilled and trained workforce.  This requires investment now and commitment tomorrow. Mitacs did not exist when I was a student, but it's my hope that it will be around to possibly benefit my children when they attend University - and that day is coming fast!