I’m a Canadian-born scientist and I earned my Ph.D. in Biomaterials at the University of Toronto—and yet I never expected to launch a biotech company here. 

Thirty years ago, I moved to the United States to pursue opportunities in the biotech sector. Canada has an incredible legacy of biotech innovation, from developing insulin to the nanoparticles that deliver mRNA vaccines. But back in the ‘90s when I left, we didn’t have the tech incubators nor did we encourage a product development mindset as we do today.

Proudly, we’ve come a long way since then. Today we have the fifth-largest startup ecosystem in the world, according to the Global Startup Ecosystem Index. There are more than 50,000 startups in Canada and last year, they raised $1.3 billion in Q3 alone.

Even so, just a few years ago, I would have told you I had no plans to leave my job in Boston. But then came the opportunity to head up the drug delivery team at Interface Biologics (IBI), an innovative material science company which was founded on discoveries from Professor Paul Santerre’s labs at U of T and one of the initial tenants at the MaRS Discovery District in downtown Toronto. 

A breakthrough for patients with eye disease

Back when I was in grad school, I frequently walked past the corner of College and University—what was then Toronto General Hospital and the Heritage Building—never imagining it would one day become a vibrant tech hub. Then in 2013, I was back for a visit and drove past that same corner. Seeing MaRS for the first time, I immediately thought, “Wow, I’d love to work there someday.”

That dream came true with the opportunity to join IBI in 2016. And that’s just the start of the story. 

In 2020, after selling the majority of IBI to a German chemical company, my colleagues and I spun out the drug delivery part of IBI and founded Ripple Therapeutics. 

Ripple is a clinical-stage biotech company with a focus on ophthalmology. Our technology is based on a discovery that drugs can be designed to deliver themselves over an extended period of time by using a small amount of chemical engineering. We do this without polymers which enables drugs to be made into tiny implants that undergo slow, sustained release, sort of like a bar of soap dissolving over time. Many diseases of the eye require frequent drops or injections, which is a burden for patients and often results in low treatment compliance. With our technology, we’re aiming for six to 12 months of sustained treatment delivery with one injection. 

To give an example, one patient in our recently completed Phase 2 trial has a disease called diabetic macular edema. For the prior nine years she had been receiving injections every two months. She enrolled in our trial and had one injection of our slow releasing dexamethasone implant and then went eight months before she had to be retreated. For her, that was a fantastic quality of life improvement. 

If this sounds like a success story, imagine delivering these improvements at scale. 

That’s our goal. But it’s also our greatest struggle.

The “missing middle”

There is no doubt Canada has become a powerhouse when it comes to developing groundbreaking scientific innovations. But we are struggling to truly deliver on their promise because we are struggling with the next step: commercialization. 

I can’t think of a better place to continue growing Ripple. During my time at MaRS, I’ve enjoyed more than the stunning building that caught my attention back in 2013. I’ve found an incredible community of passionate scientists and multi-disciplinary experts, all focused, just like me, on conceiving and delivering breakthroughs that change lives. There’s a sense of collaboration and cross-pollination that boosts us all. For example, Ripple has benefited from MaRS tenant connections including equipment sharing with our South Tower third floor neighbour Cohesys, idea-sharing with our Atuka colleagues on the first-floor and through MaRS conferences like the Accelerate Conference where we connected with the Acceleration Consortium Self-Driving Lab on the South Tower 6th floor. 

But to deliver on all this potential en masse, biotech companies like ours must navigate a series of clinical trials. A Phase 2 trial, such as the one we’ve completed, typically includes fewer than 100 patients. Phase 3 trials randomize typically more than 500 patients, so you can imagine the additional complexity and cost. 

Made-in-Canada breakthroughs like ours are at risk because we lack the investment and infrastructure to support that “missing middle” and to help companies take their solutions from the lab into the real world. 

Raising equity dollars from Canadian sources continues to be one of the biggest challenges for early-stage biotech companies like Ripple. At Ripple, we’ve been successful in raising over $65M USD. But only $15M has been equity, the rest through partnership project payments and non-dilutive funding. 

To take the next steps, we need to create investment infrastructure, just as other countries have.

Creating a sustainable Canadian biotech ecosystem

What’s at stake if we don’t increase our support for Canadian biotech?

Just consider what happened with insulin, which was famously invented just a stone’s throw away from MaRS by Dr. Frederick Banting and Charles Best. Over time, the rights to produce this lifesaving drug were sold to Scandinavia and parlayed into the founding of Novo Nordisk. The benefits to Denmark have been enormous: last year, Novo Nordisk’s market value was $570-billion, and in 2023, the company contributed approximately $3-billion in taxes. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry is one of the greatest contributors to Denmark’s GDP. 

But it’s not just about leaving money on the table. 

In this “elbows up” moment, we need to expand our thinking beyond choosing Canadian at the grocery store or the fuel pumps and invest in biotech. There’s a practical benefit to this for Canadians—for example, think back to Covid-19 when we didn’t have the systems in place to make our own vaccines. Consider how attractive a profitable and dynamic biotech pipeline is to global talent.

Simply put, Canada’s biotech ecosystem is on the line. Without connecting companies like ours to the investment capital and infrastructure we need, we risk losing all this potential. Instead of taking companies to the next level here, we risk continuing down the path of forcing biotechs to take their breakthroughs—and all the benefits that come with this innovation—elsewhere.

As we focus on supporting Canada, let’s not forget about biotech. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Strong plan calls out that “it’s time to be ambitious, to invest in high-potential companies, to make sure that Canada is where the best and the brightest want to be.”

This is a unique time in Canada’s history indeed, and to truly capture this momentum, it’s time to bet on Canadian biotech. We simply can’t afford not to.