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.

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

Headlines

• Entos Pharmaceuticals has enrolled 268 participants in Burkina Faso in a Phase 2 clinical trial of its COVID-19 DNA vaccine, called Covigenix. “The continued progress of our Covigenix vaccine clinical development program brings us closer towards providing a potentially effective and safe fridge-stable, single-dose vaccine against COVID-19 to under-vaccinated regions of the world,” Entos founder John Lewis said in a release.
• Bladeflex, which designs, manufactures, and distributes healthcare solutions for musculoskeletal problems, and Kidney-Chek by sn biomedical, which makes a test to easily check a dog or cat’s kidney function, are among the companies presenting at Launch Party 13 during Edmonton Startup Week.
• DrugBank is one of 11 startups selected for the second cohort of the health program in Plug and Play Alberta’s accelerator. The company also released Part 1 of its guide to quality drug data.
• Future Fields was named company of the year at BioAlberta’s 2022 Achievement Awards, presented in Calgary on Sept. 27. The company was hailed for its EntoEngine platform, “the first to harness the genetic prowess of fruit flies to produce Earth’s most environmentally and economically sustainable biomolecules.” Also recognized for scientific achievement and innovation were two University of Alberta professors: Dr. Toshima Yokota, whose work in medical genetics has led to a treatment for a type of muscular dystrophy, and Dr. Hasan Uludag, whose research on bone-seeking drug carriers has accelerated novel therapies for bone diseases.
• Myrna Bittner of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, Izabella Roth of Infinity Healthcare, and Dornoosh Zonoobi of Exo Imaging (which bought Medo.Ai) will discuss their entrepreneurial experiences on a panel put on by Health Cities during Edmonton Startup Week.
• Jackie DeCoteau-Gill, founder of Kokums Helper Society is heading to the final round of Pow Wow Pitch after winning the non-profit semi-finals in the pitch competition for Indigenous entrepreneurs. She’s working on building a $10-million facility in north Edmonton to provide trauma-informed and culturally relevant hospice care for Indigenous people.
• Quest PharmaTech has sold its interest in Bioceltran to that company’s founder, Dr. Sang Ho Jang, for $300,000. Bioceltran is a Korean company developing skin-penetrating active molecules for cosmetic and pharmaceutical use. The deal terminates Bioceltran’s licence for Quest’s Photodynamic Therapy technology.
• The Alberta Clinical Research Consortium (ACRC) has released a new strategic plan to guide clinical health research in Alberta. It sets out five strategic priorities related to streamlining, digital transformation, workforce sustainability, integration of research into care, and commercialization.
• An innovative cardiac procedure has been performed on its 1,000th patient in Edmonton. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation, or TAVI, is used on patients with severe aortic stenosis when traditional open-heart surgery is deemed too risky. It was first performed in Edmonton in 2010 by cardiac experts from the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute and the CK Hui Heart Centre at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
• Dr. Vijay Daniels has been recognized as one of Canada’s top 10 post-secondary teachers by the 3M National Teaching Fellowship Awards. “We don’t control what patients may come into the hospital, so every day it’s a different patient and a different learner,” said Daniels, a professor, assistant dean, and clinical educator in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. “It’s exciting that you’re never really teaching the same thing twice — daunting, but exciting.”
• Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation is looking to hire an experienced marketing and communications director.

Events

• Oct. 6, 6pm: Startup TNT Investment Summit VI – Top 20 Pitch Night
• Oct. 13-14: Glycomics Institute of Alberta Inaugural Symposium
• Oct. 17-22: Edmonton Startup Week
• Oct. 19, 3:30pm: Entrepreneurs in Action: The Journey from Startup to Scaleup and Beyond at the TELUS World of Science
• Oct. 20, 4pm: Health Innovators’ Meetup — Funding your Venture: Options, Strategies, and Caveats at Enterprise Square
• Oct. 24, 12pm: Minds that Matter: 2022 Gairdner Symposium at the Edmonton Clinic Academy

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