Pharmaceuticals

Pharma in Ontario: A dynamic presence

To understand the staying power and potential of the pharmaceutical industry in Ontario, you just need to look at the numbers and how they’re trending. From strong to off-the-charts, the indicators are resoundingly positive.

Ontario is home to some 1,900 life sciences firms that employ some 70,100 people and generate over $65.2 billion in revenues annually. The pharmaceutical sector alone is responsible for $45.4 billion of those revenues and employs over 32,400 people.

Sanofi invests nearly $1B in vaccine development

With support from the Province and other levels of government, pharmaceutical giant Sanofi is transforming their historic Connaught site in Toronto, Ontario. This overall $925 million investment enables the company to bulk manufacture Fluzone High-Dose Quadrivalent Influenza Vaccine—a flu vaccine approved for people 65 years and older. The facility will include industrial-scale formulation, filling and packaging—a key requirement for pandemic preparedness.

Roche chose Ontario for AI-based medical research

In 2020, Roche announced it was creating a new Ontario-based AI centre of excellence in partnership with Canada’s leading AI research institutes: Toronto-based Vector Institute, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and Montreal’s MILA. Through collaboration, the centre’s goal will be to drive AI advances as they transform and optimize health care services in Canada and around the world.

Roche further put its trust in Ontario by also announcing a new $500-million investment in a global pharma technical operations site at its Mississauga headquarters—a region renowned for its life sciences leadership.

Collaborative ecosystem aids success

The open environment supporting collaboration between business and research in Ontario is the envy of innovators and entrepreneurs elsewhere. Here, life sciences firms can take advantage of more than a dozen research partnership programs and grants, including the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s (NSERC’s) Idea-to-Innovation Grant, and other industry programs:

• The Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) is a link between industry and academia, offering business leaders access to top research talent to help address innovation challenges.
• Together, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), Ontario Genomics Institute (OG), Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) and Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) have been instrumental in the creation of nearly 60 start-ups or spinoffs. The SGC alone has attracted 10 global pharmaceutical companies to invest $50 million in blue sky open innovation research in Ontario, and accounts for 15% of the global output in structural biology.
• The Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine (OIRM) is the product of a partnership between the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) and the Ontario Stem Cell Institute (OSCI) and builds on the strengths of their respective networks of industry and scientific leaders.
• The federally funded Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) are not-for-profit corporations created by universities, colleges, not-for-profit research organizations, firms, or other interested non-government parties. Clusters of research expertise are matched with the business community, and each Centre shares knowledge, expertise and resources to bring new pharma products to market faster. Among them:
  • Canada’s Tech Network – the Network
  • Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM)
  • Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization (CPDC)
  • Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN)

Learn more about other incentive programs and services offered by Ontario.

An R&D powerhouse

Ontario is keenly interested in the growth and prosperity of pharma firms here—so it initiates and feeds programs designed to increase success, including tax credits, research funding and expertise.

A reputation for excellence

Ontario is known for its contributions in key research areas like cancer, neuroscience, stem cells, gene therapy and clinical trials. Major advances in potential treatments for diseases ranging from diabetes to cystic fibrosis to leukemia and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease have all originated here thanks to a combination of private and public investment in innovation. Some of Canada’s biggest life sciences R&D spenders have their Canadian headquarters in Ontario, including Sanofi, GSK, and AstraZeneca Canada.

R&D return on investment

Ontario’s comprehensive support for research and development builds capacity.

• Talent—Our research-intensive hospitals and institutions employ 22,000 researchers and invest $1.73 billion in research and development.
• Room to grow—The MaRS Discovery District alone offers 1.5 million square feet of innovation space at the heart of the country’s largest research cluster in Toronto. And, Ontario is making site selection even easier with its Investment Ready: Certified Site program.

Keeping business costs low

Lower business costs are better for business

And what’s good for business is good for Ontario. We know that lower costs mean:

• more businesses are establishing themselves or expanding here
• increasingly dynamic and collaborative industry clusters
• more revenue to support your firm’s growth and reinvest in R&D
• a stable and thriving pharma sector that attracts successful newcomers

That’s why Canada offers low pharmaceutical production, biomedical R&D and clinical trials administration costs.

Also worth noting for their impact on the bottom line: health care costs in Ontario can be half what they are in the U.S.