Thank you very much.
Madam Chair, committee members, first, we would like to thank you for this invitation. We hope that our testimony will provide a unique perspective and data for your important study on successes, challenges and opportunities for science in Canada.
My name is Stéphanie Michaud. I am president and CEO of BioCanRx, a not-for-profit launched in 2015 that is uniquely focused on accelerating the development of cancer immunotherapies for the benefit of patients. I am extremely pleased to be joined here today by Dr. John Bell, our scientific director and architect of the BioCanRx network.
BioCanRx works by connecting the dots around a technology and building out the connective tissue between sectors invested in and aligned with our mission to do what's needed to advance a technology towards a clinical trial. The result is a highly productive Canadian translational ecosystem in the area of oncology.
To provide the committee with an example of our dedication to our mission and ensuing productivity, from 2005 to 2015 less than one per cent of oncology clinical trials in Canada were based upon discoveries made in our own labs. As of 2020, BioCanRx had doubled this number.
I would now like to turn it over to Dr. Bell.