November 22, 2024: Made-at-Mac impact
The Globe and Mail | Content from: Excellence in Research and Innovation Report |
Published November 22, 2024
Updated December 10, 2024
Translating ideas into societal benefits at McMaster University
With a long history of innovation in fields ranging from automotive research to nuclear science and vaccine development, McMaster University is one of the world’s top institutions of higher education for industry impact.
Today, an expanding focus on entrepreneurship and commercialization is driving the university in Hamilton, Ont., to build on its strengths, increase collaboration and empower its innovators to turn their cutting-edge discoveries into real-world solutions.
“We open doors,” says Leyla Soleymani, a professor of engineering physics who is associate vice president of research, entrepreneurship and commercialization, a new position at McMaster, noting that supporting the entrepreneurs among students and faculty is now a university-wide priority. “We want our innovators to be successful at every level.”
An example of success came earlier this year when Fusion Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company founded in 2016 by John Valliant, a chemistry professor at McMaster, was acquired for US$2-billion by AstraZeneca, a global leader in biopharmaceuticals.
“Taking our made-at-Mac ideas and growing them into substantial companies at [McMaster Innovation Park] benefits our city and region as a whole.
Andy Knights, Vice-President of Research (acting), McMaster University
The acquisition of Fusion, located at McMaster Innovation Park (MIP), is one of the largest deals of its kind in Canadian university history.
Andy Knights, McMaster’s vice-president of research (acting), says MIP is a hub for innovation and economic development in the region. It is central to the university’s recently launched five-year strategic research plan, as well as its efforts to support McMaster’s entrepreneurial talent and incubate its startups.
Dr. Knights says his office supports the research mission of the university, from helping researchers secure funding, develop international partnerships and connect with industry to supporting startups and encouraging commercialization of discoveries. This happens across all disciplines, including research around health, engineering, science, social sciences, humanities and business, he says. “We stress the whole development life cycle, from fundamental science right up to mission-driven applied work.”
MIP is home to a number of McMaster spinoffs including Enedym, a transportation electrification company that designs and builds electric motors more efficiently and economically. Its founder, Dr. Ali Emadi, professor of mechanical and electrical & computer engineering, also heads up the MIP-based McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC), one of the world’s leading academic research programs in transportation electrification and smart mobility.
“Taking our made-at-Mac ideas and growing them into substantial companies at MIP benefits our city and region as a whole,” says Dr. Knights. “It’s the direction we’re going and will ensure that we build out our research and capture its social and economic impact in the area and beyond.”
Collaborations with industry are critical to McMaster, “and we’ve earned a reputation as a trusted and reliable partner, ranking as one of the top universities in corporate research income,” he says. “It’s a way to ensure knowledge transfer happens and that we deliver on the mandate of the impact of our research.”
Dr. Knights says support for startups is a “complete change” from when he created a company a decade ago that makes photonic chips, which move information with light. “There was encouragement, but now there’s a whole ecosystem for how we nurture and fund startups coming out of McMaster.”
This includes the McMaster Entrepreneurship Academy, which offers a Professor Entrepreneurship Fellowship and an Innovation Matchmaking program. University-backed incubators include The Forge, The Clinic and MACcelerate, and there are programs like the Master of Biomedical Innovation, the first graduate health-care entrepreneurship program in Canada.
Encouraging students and faculty to follow their discoveries to become products is eye-opening, Dr. Soleymani comments. “When you get into technology translation, you’re not just working in a basement lab, you’re collaborating with others from different sectors. It really broadens your horizons.”
She was one of the founders of a company in 2021 called FendX Technologies Inc. that is commercializing antimicrobial plastics for high-touch surfaces, which are currently being tested.
Now publicly traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange and headquartered in Oakville, Ont., the company’s intellectual property licence was developed in the labs of Dr. Soleymani and Tohid Didar at McMaster, and much of its research and development continues to happen there, in collaboration with FendX. Dr. Soleymani has also had important collaborations with institutions around Hamilton, such as a virology lab there, in order to push the technology forward, she notes.
McMaster’s goal is to increase the impact of its research and education by being “more purposeful” about rewarding entrepreneurship, Dr. Soleymani says. “How do we get more of these companies like Fusion started, and when they get started, how do we support them more systematically?”
Dr. Knights points out that funding is typically available for an entrepreneur’s early stages, like building a prototype, and once a company is established “there’s venture capital to go after,” but there’s often a gap in the middle. “We fill that,” he says, for example, through the McMaster Seed Fund (MSF), which helps companies through their first two years.
Since its inception three years ago, the MSF has invested some $3-million in 10 companies founded by researchers at McMaster and its hospital partners Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, which have in turn raised more than $7-million in follow-on financing and have created 45 high-quality jobs.
McMaster fosters research along what Dr. Knights calls the “innovation taper,” starting with fundamental discovery, where faculty are encouraged to explore entrepreneurial ideas. They are provided with suitable lab space and flexibility around their work so they can build a company while delivering on their requirements as professors. He says that in the past, for an academic like him to be an innovator meant “you plowed your own furrow. Now we try and support the folks who want to do this.”
Students are especially important in entrepreneurship, Dr. Knights says, with courses that range “from the fundamentals of how you file intellectual property to how you would manage a small company.”
He notes that the title of McMaster’s new strategic research plan is “Transforming our Region, Impacting our World,” with a goal of “driving this corner of Ontario as a technological powerhouse. We have significant strengths and a wealth of talent, and we’ve got to build on it.”
The success of Dr. Valliant and Fusion Pharmaceuticals is an inspiration for others as an example of what’s possible, Dr. Knights adds. “There are plenty of great ideas at McMaster that could grow into companies, and he’s shown us how to do it.”
