Health Innovation Roundup

The Health Innovation Roundup, sponsored by Health Cities, is written and published weekly by Taproot Edmonton to bring you the latest news and events in research, technology, companies and people changing health for the better in Edmonton.

Sign up to get the full edition delivered directly to your inbox. Use the code HEALTHCITY & you’ll get 10% off the first year.

Here are some highlights from this week’s Health Innovation Roundup:

Headlines

• The federal government is investing more than $80 million over five years to support the Canadian Critical Drug Initiative led by Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation (API) in partnership with the University of Alberta. The PrairiesCan funding will enable the construction of a new 40,000-square-foot facility in Edmonton that will be able to produce 70 million doses annually as well as support research and upgrade infrastructure at API’s existing facility.
• Startup TNT released Investing in Life Sciences: Demystifying Drug Development, featuring investors Christian Idicula and Yasmine Al-Hussein in conversation with Jamie Lucien and John Porter of Vesmyr Life Sciences, and Mark Abel of Aurinia. The video explores “the drug development process, patent strategies, business strategies, and regulatory considerations.”
• As part of a $13-million announcement for innovative, community-led projects addressing substance-related harms, the federal government will grant $4 million to the Stony Plain-based Alberta Community Council on HIV (ACCH) to enhance and complement harm reduction services in 10 communities, as well as $957,069 to Covenant Health’s South Asian Network for culturally appropriate care.
• Research conducted on fish suggests that a mild fever helps clear infections faster, says a new study from the University of Alberta. Further research is needed, “but because the mechanisms driving and sustaining fever are shared among animals, it is reasonable to expect similar benefits are going to happen in humans,” immunologist Daniel Barreda told Folio.
• The March 2023 issue of Molecular Oncology published a paper by a team involving researchers from Nanostics on the use of its extracellular vesicle machine learning analysis platform (EVMAP) to improve the prediction of diseases such as prostate cancer.
• The results of diagnostic imaging tests such as X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans can now be made available to Alberta patients through MyHealth Records as soon as they’re available to their physicians.
• Indigenous people need access to anti-smoking programs that are culturally respectful and trauma-informed, physician James Makokis told CBC. Getting people to stop smoking is key not only to health but to culture because it would help more elders live longer and healthier lives, he said.

Events

• March 23, 2pm: TELUS Community Safety & Wellness Accelerator Cohort 3 Showcase at the U of A eHUB Entrepreneurship Centre
• March 23, 5pm: Life Sciences Investment Summit Finale in Calgary
• March 25, 8am: 2023 Inclusive Health Conference at Lister Centre
• March 18, 7pm: Harm Reduction as Community Care with Euan Thomson and Will Cardinal
• March 29, 9:30am: Forging Ahead: Leveraging Tech to Revolutionize Health Care in Canada, presented by CityAge
• March 29, 12pm: Tackling Gender Disparity in Women’s Healthcare: Virtual Panel presented by BPW Edmonton
• March 30, 5pm: NAT Chat: Social Neuroscience online and at the University of Alberta
• March 30, 7pm: What the Health: Let’s Talk about Contraception, presented by the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation
• April 13, 5pm: Health Innovators’ Meetup: Innovation Mixer with Startup TNT at Northern Chicken
• April 26-27: Health Gamechangers: The Impact of Digital Technologies in Research at the University of Alberta

Become a “Roundup Cultivator” and sponsor Taproot Edmonton to help them chronicle health innovation in Edmonton. Learn more