Toronto Opens MaRS Center to Boost Life Sciences



With a stageful of dignitaries, Ontario provincial premier Dalton McGinty hailed Toronto’s new MaRS Discovery District research center last week.

The Canadian government hopes that Toronto’s MaRS compound will help more basic scientific discoveries survive the difficult path to commercial status. “MaRS will bring together all the ingredients for science and research under one roof,” McGinty told a packed auditorium in the MaRS complex late in September. “Our government is committed to research and innovation.”

Roughly 700,000 square feet are now open for business, with a comparable amount in the planning stage. The facility already has modern office and lab spaces leased to a mix of industrial and nonprofit medical and related science (the origin of “MaRS”) concerns that either do research or assist with it.

Local research universities and hospitals are stakeholders; MDS Sciex, NPS Pharmaceuticals, Merck Frosst Canada, RBC Technology Ventures, and PricewaterhouseCoopers have also taken leases. There are even small office spaces for lawyers and other peripheral professional desiring to assist the life sciences. A small hotel could be part of the future expansion.

John Evans, the scientist who chairs the MaRS discovery district, noted that the adjacent two square miles encompassed seven hospitals, one medical school and thirty research centers in Toronto’s immaculate downtown. Evans clearly hopes to incubate prosperous companies at MaRS. “Ontario has all of the ingredients to be an outstanding competitor,” he said. “Success will flow to those regions able to attract a critical mass of talented people.”

Indeed, Ontario’s provincial government has invested $51 million Canadian in MaRS; the rest of the final $450 million cost will be raised from investors. Four new or renovated buildings are planned for MaRS; three are already built and mostly leased to new tenants.

A former biologist, McGinty has named himself head of a new Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. “You want to set up a new ministry, you can appoint yourself,” McGinty said. “Who would object?” After a tour of the facility, McGinty said, “My inner scientist wanted to get a lab coat and get busy.”

His inner politician may have been feeling other emotions: pride and fear. In 1922, the MaRS site was Toronto General Hospital, which pioneered the first use of insulin in diabetes. Just days before his speech at the MaRS complex, two Canadians won the Lasker Prize. James Till and Ernest McCulloch were given what amounts to a pre-Nobel for a 1961 stem cell paper.

But earlier in 2005, Canada nearly lost a young stem cell scientist, Mick Bhatia, who had nearly been lured away to the large, fundamentalist superpower to the south of Canada. There were several American suitors. One of them, the University of California-Davis, offered Bhatia a $500,000 U.S. salary and a $2 million research budget.

In the Toronto newspapers, Bhatia wondered if the  recruiters had confused him with some other scientist. But the potential loss was no joke: Canada quickly assembled a $18 million Canadian package worthy of Wayne Gretzky. In the end, Bhatia moved his lab from the University of Western Ontario to McMaster University; $3 to $4 million Canadian of the $18 million was earmarked for laboratory equipment.

McGinty is a gifted orator, as befits the son of an English professor, and quotes Churchill, Browning, and Eliot with natural grace. In the current political climate, no U.S. politician could utter anything approximating McGinty’s firm and sincere appreciation of science, which in Canada is unencumbered by any political maneuvering or personal spiritual views.

McGinty believes that the life sciences could be a major source of jobs for Canada in general and Ontario in particular. For that reason, he’s trying to increase the budgets for education. But he still clearly feels more funds and attention will be needed. “For too long, we’ve lacked a clear plan, long-term goals,” McGinty said. “We can and must do better because the competition demands it.”

Citing researchers in South Korea, McGinty also noted the productivity of Chinese universities, which churn out 300,000 engineers annually. “Places like India and China are not just nipping at our heels,” he said. “In many cases, they are pulling ahead. Slow and steady just won’t cut it.”

In the U.S., McGinty said, the $450 spent per capita investment on research is roughly double the same figure allocated in Canada. Said McGinty: “I want to support the process of innovation. I want to support the culture of innovation. Innovation is social and cultural. It’s not enough to invent the next big thing. Creativity needs to be sustained. It needs to be engrained.”

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