Innovation Anthology #236:
Alberta has one of the fastest growing biotechnology clusters in Canada.
The industry employs almost 5000 people and supports more than 130 companies. The majority are concentrated in health, agricultural biotechnology, industrial bioproducts and medical devices.
Ryan Radke is President of BioAlberta, the association that promotes the interests of Alberta’s life sciences industry.
RYAN RADKE: One of the local companies, NAEJA Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Ron Micetich was involved in the development and early creation of a couple of blockbuster drugs that actually went on to market. But the ones that some of the people might be familiar with of course are often maybe not on the drug development side but functional foods, nutraceuticals, things like that. So a lot of people realize that things like Cold-fx are actually developed here in Edmonton. Dr. Jackie Shan, started out with the University of Alberta and the technology from there, spun it out, they’ve got a facility on the south side of Edmonton.
According to Ryan Radke, future economic diversification will rely heavily on the commercialization of discoveries in the life sciences sector, including alternative forms of energy, plastics, and paper.
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Program Date: 2009-06-25