The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

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

Tag Archives: Ontario

Ontario H1N1 Swine Flu Update: November 10, 2009. 212 Hospitalized, Seven Dead.

This week’s Ontario Ministry of Health Influenza Bulletin shows continuing increases across all metrics. Clinic hours have expanded, and the definition of “high risk” groups entitled to be vaccinated has expanded.  Also this week, the CDC reported a cumulative total of 4,000 swine flu deaths. The Ontario numbers continue to look grim: Nine new institutional [...]

Trends Update — Electronic Medical Records: Ontario’s New EMR Adoption Program

Ontario is providing up to $29,800 per physician over 3 years for new adopters of electronic medical records.  In the few weeks since the program has been implemented, the OMA has gotten over 650 inquiries and over 150 applicants.  There’s a local option and a cloud option, which runs off the eHealth Ontario servers.  Interestingly, up [...]

Ontario H1N1 Swine Flu Update October 31: All Indicators Still Increasing. 2 New Deaths, 10 Toronto Clinics

Checking out this week’s Influenza Bulletin, indications are that the Fall’s Swine Flu outbreak in Ontario is going to get worse before it gets better.  Unfortunately, the vaccine is just starting to become available.  This coming week, there will be 10 public clinics open in the greater Toronto area, but still only for those among the [...]

Ontario H1N1 Swine Flu Update October 27: Vaccine is on the Way

The latest actual figures on Ontario Swine Flu are in Ontario’s weekly “Influenza Bulletin”. See below for some interesting data from last Friday’s edition. While you’re perusing those, note that vaccine is on the way.  The message from Deb Matthews, Ontario’s Minister of Health and Long-Term Care is: “Get vaccinated when it’s your turn.”   First in [...]

Québec’s $122 million New Biopharmaceutical Strategy Includes $30 million for Genomics, May Include SR&ED Tax Credit Financing

The Province of Québec rolled out a new “biopharmaceutical strategy” Thursday that they say aims to provide “development support for biotech and biopharmaceutical firms.” The Roll-Out: The announcement was beautifully coordinated with the relevant constituencies, as illustrated by the near-immediate chorus of support: Génome Québec said thank-you for the $30 million, we’ll get right to work. Merck Frosst [...]

Friday Science Review: September 25, 2009

A quiet week for journal publications but there were a few significant research related activities… Canadian Stem Cell Charter: At the recent World Stem Cell Summit in Baltimore, Canada stepped up and demonstrated why we are one of the leaders in stem cell research.  This time it was not a lab discovery but the Canadian [...]

TBI Mentorship Program Announced

I’ve been working on the committee developing a new mentorship program for life sciences professionals in Ontario.  The formal launch will coincide with National Biotechnology Week in September.  Here’s the blurb: The TBI Mentorship program is designed for science and business professionals at any stage in their career. It provides ongoing opportunities for career and [...]

Trends in 2009: Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests Come to Canada

This week saw the introduction of what I believe is Canada’s first personal genomics service offering.  Toronto’s Medcan Clinic paired up with California-based Navigenics to scan individuals’ genomes for a variety of disease markers. Personal genomics is a burgeoning trend this year, which according to a special report in April’s Economist, will only be further boosted by [...]

Ontario H1N1 Swine Flu Update June 11: 1,562 Total Cases, 10 in Hospital. Oh, and It’s a Pandemic.

Ontario’s update yesterday brought the total number of cases in the province to 1,562 with two deaths, both fatalities having been people with underlying medical conditions.  The number of people hospitalized has increased from 6 to 10 since our last update (no word on the turn-over in that number), some of whom do and some of whom do not [...]

Ontario H1N1 Swine Flu Update June 3: Two Deaths, 894 Total Cases

Coverage of Swine Flu has declined, but incidence of Swine Flu has not.  Yesterday, we got the report of a second swine flu-related death in Ontario.  Although the press release goes out of it’s way to emphasize that almost all the cases are considered mild, there is an interesting tidbit here: Six people who have [...]

Ontario Swine Flu Update May 26: First Death, 352 Total Cases

Ontario reported yesterday that: A 44-year old Toronto man with a chronic pre-existing medical condition passed away on May 23rd. On May 24th laboratory testing confirmed a positive test for H1N1 in this individual. It is not clear what role the H1N1 virus played in the fatality which is now under investigation by the Office [...]

BIO 2009: Ontario Premier’s Breakfast

The speeches (s-peach-es?) just finished this morning at the Ontario Premier’s breakfast. Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson announced that Ontario has recently completed 2 new BIP investments: a Pfizer collaboration with the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR); and GSK Canada for manufacturing in Mississauga. Ontario’s Premier — Dalton McGuinty, winner of BIO’s [...]

Human Swine Flu Ontario Update May 14: Tracking the Ontario Numbers Plus Vaccine Updates

Ontario reported 36 new cases of Swine Flu today.  All cases are still considered mild, although one patient was hospitalized for unrelated reasons.  I thought this would be a good time to look back at the Ontario press releases and plot the number of new cases reported since Ontario started releasing numbers on April 28th.  [...]

Swine Flu Update Monday May 11: Ontario, Canada and Colbert Nation

Ontario has reached a total of 110 confirmed human swine flu cases, all still considered mild.  The age range is between 1 and 62.  Canada reported its first swine flu fatality, an Alberta woman with asthma. ScienceInsider has had outstanding coverage, and I’m adding their swine flu RSS feed to the sidebar on the right [...]

H1N1 Human Swine Flu Wednesday Update: Ontario, Genetics and Sanofi News

Ontario confirms 13 new cases as of Wednesday afternoon, bringing the total to 49 in the province, all considered mild.  A lot of the public health messaging over the last 48 hours has been advising people not to relax too much. Today also saw an interesting Canadian development on the scientific front.  Although commentary around [...]

Human Swine Flu: Ontario Update and Other New Info

There are five new confirmed cases in Ontario today, according to the press release following the 3pm call, bringing the total to 36. Nature has a good scientific update, including the latest thinking on the basic reproductive rate, R0, “which is the number of new cases that an infected individual will give rise to,” and [...]

Confirmed Human Swine Flu Cases in Ontario Double

As testing capacity ramps up in Ontario, suspect cases are becoming confirmed cases at a rapid rate — 17 new confirmations from yesterday (and  two being re-assessed) brings the total number of confirmed cases in Ontario to 31.  The geographic and age range are both expanding, but all cases are reportedly still considered mild.  Here’s [...]

Trends Update — Electronic Medical Records: Health IT and EMR Have an Advocate in New OMA President Suzanne Strasberg

Dr. Suzanne Strasberg took over as the incoming president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) Saturday night at their annual gala.  The OMA press release headlines Dr. Strasberg’s call for access to family physicians, but health IT also figures prominently. Dr. Strasberg indicated that she would focus on a number of initiatives, including “expansion of the [...]

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 [...]

Ontario Human Swine Flu Update: 16 Confrimed, All Mild

UPDATED Sunday: A press release from Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health, confirms 2 new cases of Human Swine Flu (aka H1N1 Influenza, aka Grippe Porcine) in Ontario today Sunday, bringing the total confirmed so far to 1416, with all reporting mild symptoms and recovering at home. More from the press [...]

New OHA Site for Ontario Hospital Performance Data

The Ontario Hospital Association has put up a new website at myhospitalcare.ca that compiles some publicly available hospital data and puts it in a user-friendly, layman-accessible format. The OHA site can provide data sorted by type of care (Acute, Maternity/Pediatric, Emergency, Rehab, Chronic and Mental Health) or by indicator (Clinical Outcome, Family Satisfaction, Patient Safety, [...]

Bailout Updates: Results May Vary

We’re beginning to see a round of adjustments in government budgets.  On the one hand, some programs are facing further cuts as aspirational commitments meet fiscal reality.  For example, state legislators in Washington are proposing cuts of betwen 50 and 90 percent to spending on the state’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund over the next two years.  Similarly, the government [...]

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