Quebec funds seven public-private life sciences projects

Seven life sciences research projects worth $140 million have been announced by the Quebec government with $62.5 million in assistance from the $125-million Partnership Fund for an Innovative, Healthy Quebec. Launched May/13, the fund encourages public-private research partnerships in the biopharmaceutical sector, including medical devices. Priority was given to disciplines for which Quebec displays specific strengths, in particular the neurosciences, infectious diseases, oncology, genomics, and cardiometabolic diseases as well as applied research relating to personalized healthcare and ageing. To be administered by Genome Québec — the projects, their lead institutions and total value are: Customized diagnostics and cardiovascular therapies (Montreal Heart Institute/$49.2 million); multidisciplinary partnerships in drug discovery (Univ of Montreal's Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer/$29.5 million); vaccine production to protect against viral pneumonia in the elderly (McGill Univ Health Centre Research Institute/$12.9 million); diagnosis and control of hospital-acquired infections (Centre hospitalier de Québec/$7.4 million); network in personalized healthcare (Q-CROC) (Segal Cancer Centre, Jewish General Hospital/$18.4 million); optimized therapeutic approaches for frontline care (Univ of Montreal Research Centre Hospital/$18.4 million); and, diagnosis and treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee (École de technologie supérieure/$4.6 million)….