Xenon Pharmaceuticals CEO Interview on Canadian Funding Decreases Part 1

Part 1:  Simon Pimstone, President & CEO of Xenon Pharmaceuticals Interview

Canadian government’s announcement on reduction of future funding for Genome Canada affects life sciences companies in British Columbia, including larger start ups such as Xenon Pharmaceuticals.

Affects of this including having fewer jobs and hindering the ability of companies to commercialize their intellectual property they have created in Canada because of the cost to do this, hence the need for Canadian life sciences companies needing to partner up with large American and European pharmaceutical companies in order to get these discoveries to market.

For start-up companies Genome Canada has provided bio-tech companies with the ability to do research and keep our science graduates from our universities to bolt to the United States & Europe with the so called brain drain.

A current Xenon Genome BC project has 10 to 15 scientists working on the project currently, which if Genome Canada funding wasn’t available, these high paying jobs would not exist in British Columbia.

Because Canada has such a tiny venture capital pool for life sciences,  life sciences funding is largely dependent on foreign venture capital funding as the primary source of funding as well as Canadian federal and provincial funding.

While in the United States the National Health Institute (NIH) funding will be increasing by $3 billion announced by President Obama whereas the funding from the Canadian government has decreased.  The government is doing exactly the opposite and sending a statement on the importance or lack of it on science and technology in British Columbia.

President Obama has announced already funding for green energy grids, health and innovation, whereas in Canada we are still focused on the old school infrastructure is an opinion in the life sciences community.

Simon Pimstone commented that if you’re putting money into infrastructure which will build a knowledge based economy, such as technology parks for Pharma companies.  Companies like GlaxoSmithKline or Johnson & Johnson will be enticed to build manufacturing vaccine facilities which provides high paying opportunities for science students for years to come.

Continued in Part 2 of Interview with President & CEO Simon Pimstone