Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the Centre for Drug Research and Development, CDRD, and our commercialization vehicle, CDRD Ventures, I'd like to sincerely thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today.
First, I will introduce our organization. Headquartered in Vancouver, CDRD is Canada's national drug development and commercialization centre, the only one of its kind, providing the expertise and infrastructure to transform basic health research into commercialized therapeutics, improving human health, while at the same time growing our national health sciences industry into a fully optimized generator of economic prosperity.
CDRD represents an effective means to advance innovative technologies forward along the innovation continuum, adding value throughout that process. These value-added technologies can then form the foundation of a critical mass of new health sciences companies, thus creating long-lasting high-paying jobs for Canadian families, and supporting continuing Canadian brain gain by providing biomedical researchers with attractive opportunities in Canada.
At the same time, training opportunities that generate new, industry-ready, highly qualified personnel to lead the industry into the future is also a key cornerstone for CDRD's success.
CDRD-developed technologies also represent an opportunity to improve patient care while reducing health care costs through more effective treatments and front-line care for Canadian families, for example, better management of chronic diseases and subsequent reduced hospitalization.
In terms of supporting families and helping vulnerable Canadians specifically, CDRD represents a new way to bring innovative therapeutics to patients, a national model that fosters collaboration, sharing of resources, leveraging of investments, and mitigation of risk. It also offers the opportunity to improve patient care while reducing health care costs through more effective treatments and front-line care.
To further illustrate the potential impact on patients, I refer to our partnership with the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada announced earlier this year. This partnership has been created with one goal in mind: to speed up the development of new treatments and find a cure for people living with MS.
I'd like to cite a related passage by MS Canada's vice-president of research, Dr. Karen Lee. She said:
When I look back over the years I can recall a lot of great research that has been done to better understand, diagnose and manage MS. Studies funded by the MS Society, in addition to what has been conducted around the world, have changed the landscape of MS research in monumental ways. But one thing that always seems to come up in my conversations with people with MS is that advancements in research still take a very long time, and they fear that they will not see the true benefits or impacts of the research in their lifetime. This led to the establishment of a very important collaboration with an organization that not only has the tools and resources to speed up treatment delivery for MS, but is located right here in...[Canada], CDRD.
Next week we will in fact be announcing our very first drug development collaboration under this partnership, one which is very reflective of the strength of our model as it brings together a lead researcher from Memorial University in Newfoundland, CDRD's drug development and commercialization experts in Vancouver, clinical collaborators at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and global industry funding partners.
To ensure Canadian families are provided with the best treatments and to further support this type of critical collaboration and CDRD's ongoing sustainability as a large-scale national endeavour, CDRD is therefore requesting a unique federal investment to support its next five years. This will provide the foundational support CDRD requires to ultimately reach the point of self-sustainability.
The federal government has a tremendous opportunity to build on CDRD's success and further optimize what it has already helped to seed. We have established an international competitive advantage for Canada and now have the opportunity to leverage this advantage to realize the full potential of Canada's health sciences industry and improve the health of Canadian families while creating good jobs. In doing so Canada will not only be the generator of world-class health research that it is today, but also be the generator of world-class innovation from the translation of that research.