The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

Biotechnology, Health and Business in Canada, the United States and Worldwide

Tag Archives: Canada Budget 2009

Has NRC-IRAP Run Out of 2009 Grant Money?

NRC-IRAP, which got $170 million in the 2009 Federal budget (spread over 2 years) for company funding, has been very active lately, including in biotech. Maybe too active?  I heard rumo(u)rs (plural!) this week that IRAP may be out of funds for this cycle.  Are they? Drop us a line.

Canada’s Clean Energy Fund Gets Some Details Detailed

The new Canadian federal $1-billion Clean Energy Fund announced in January’s budget will be spent over five years, according to Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt who spoke about the Fund on Tuesday: $650 million will be for carbon capture and storage projects; $200 million will be for smaller renewable and alternative energy demonstration projects; and [...]

Brain Drain and Ontario Genomics Funding: Globe and Mail Prefers to Hear the Bad News First

On the front page of the Globe and Mail this morning: Top AIDS researcher lured away, urges Harper ‘soul-searching’, citing $148 million in cuts to the Canadian funding agencies. Buried several links down below the fold in the National section: Ontario to provide major new research funding – in fact, $100 million to retain researchers, which [...]

A Familiar Refrain From the UK

This story in Nature about the UK budget may sound familiar to Canadians: “Britain’s government has unveiled an economic stimulus package designed to harness what it calls a ‘world-class science base’ — at the same time as it cuts funds for undirected basic research.”

Canadian Science Funding Update — Open Letter From Canadian Scientists Generates Equal, Opposite Open Letter from Gary Goodyear

Canadian scientists, dismayed by cuts of $113 million to the three primary granting agencies in this year’s federal budget, sent an open letter of protest to PM Harper last week that collected 2,000 signatures. The response, from Minister of Industry Tony Clement, was certainly better pitched than the response at budget time from the government’s [...]

Trend Update — Electronic Medical Records: View From HIMSS

The 2009 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference was in Chicago this week, and was obviously energized by the stimulus money in the U.S. and the budget allocation in Canada, which have greatly increased the available funding for Electronic Medical Records. There’s a great overview of trends at HIMSS from Dr. John D. [...]

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Super Provincial Genomics Funding!!

You may remember Genome Canada’s reaction to the 2009 Canadian Federal budget.  Here’s one bit from ScienceInsider at the time: Researchers funded by Genome Canada … are reacting with shock to news that the Canadian government is withdrawing funding from the 9-year-old organization. Not true! Cried the Canadian government. Well, this week Genome Canada’s Board [...]

Canadian Budget Reaction Boils Over

A meeting this week between the Canadian Association of University Teachers and Gary Goodyear, Canada’s Minister of Science and Technology descended into a shouting match over cuts to research funding announced in Canada’s 2009 federal budget. Interestingly, the Minister focused on a point I made last week – that the Canadian approach lately has centered on commercialization: [...]

Allocating Spending to Support R&D: UK, U.S. and Canadian Approaches

The U.S., Canada and the UK have all acknowledged the central importance of R&D even in these recessionary times.  However, the three national governments have decided to focus their spending on different steps of the R&D equation: Education: UK Takes the Long View British PM Gordon Brown, in a speech this week, identified three priorities: research, education and training, [...]

Bright Spot for Canada in NIH Gains?

You may not know this, but Canadian researchers can compete for NIH extramural funds, and they do so quite successfully.  I reviewed the 2008 data from the NIH budget site, which shows that Canadian researchers were awarded $47.4 million in 2008 (out of a total of $212.4 million total awarded outside the U.S.).  Hopefully this [...]

The Edison Awards: An Opportunity for Ontario?

In the context of some discussion about the Canadian federal budget, I had blogged about the idea of “an Ontario-based commercialization award of international scope, like the Gairdner Awards, that would seek out and reward internationally outstanding achievement in entrepreneurship.” A press release from Nuvo Research Inc.(TSX: NRI), a Canadian drug development company focused on topical and [...]

Friday Science Review: February 13, 2009

More Info on Canadian Electronic Medical Records Implementation

In our Trends in 2009 series, we noted that Electronic Medical Records are poised to make significant inroads this year in Canada and the U.S. Yesterday, Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s Minister of Health, confirmed that: Funding of $500 million announced today is in addition to $400 million in support provided to Canada Health Infoway in Budget [...]

Wednesday Brain Dump: February 11, 2009

Deep Appreciation:for Phillip Terrence Ragon, founder and sole proprietor of database-software provider InterSystems who donated $100 million to establish a research institute that focuses on expediting the development of an AIDS vaccine, and to Pfizer Canada which contributed a further $2 million to British Columbia’s Center for Drug Research and Development (CDRD); and The State [...]

Could Have Been Worse

It doesn’t look like the budget announcement in Canada was quite as bad as the one in Austria, but here’s one Government Relations strategy we haven’t tried yet…  And if that fails, we could always throw shoes.

Trends in 2009: Electronic Medical Records

EMR got a boost in Canada’s budget, and is getting traction in the U.S. as well.  In Canada, EMR initiatives are likely to be implemented by the Provincial health plans directly, with back-end services from a variety of vendors.  In the U.S., the ultimate structure is less clear.  Google has tried to get ahead of [...]

Canada’s Budget: An Innovation Shortfall

A good piece by David Crane in the Toronto Star today that touches on the BIOTECanada and Genome Canada issues, as well as a broader indictment: There are some initiatives in the budget that will help. But overall it falls far short of what is required for an innovative economy, one that will deliver the [...]

Dare We Compare?

A summary of the increases for research funding in the U.S. Stimulus.

Canada Budget Reax Update

Genome Canada is causing quite a stir this morning, picked up by ScienceInsider this afternoon.  That, plus more budget reaction from a Research Canada press release and a thumbs-down from the CVCA below… The CBC story on Genome Canada funding has some reaction from Tony Clement: Minister of Industry Tony Clement, speaking to CBC Newsworld on Thursday morning, [...]

Canada Budget Reax

A collection of reactions to yesterday’s budget

Canadian Budget

Watch Live at CTV Also see the Globe and Mail special coverage page.

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