New partnership ensures vaccine makers now have an option to manufacture their products domestically
Vaccine makers, medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies now have a new full-service option to get their products manufactured in Canada, thanks to a partnership announced this week. The U of A’s Alberta Cell Therapy Manufacturing (ACTM) facility has signed a memorandum of understanding with The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre (BMC) and BioCanRx, a Canada-wide research network to develop…
On average, drug approvals take three months longer in Canada than in the U.S. and one month longer than in Europe
By Maria Lily Shaw and Krystle Wittevrongel Montreal Economic Institute The past year has shown us beyond the shadow of a doubt that human ingenuity is a match for the greatest of challenges. The rapid development and mass production of several COVID-19 vaccines are proof of our remarkable capacity for innovation. Pharmaceutical innovation, one of…
It will be interesting to see how the market evolves and how Canadians will (or won’t) embrace cannabis in a post-pandemic economy
In 2019, the cannabis sector in Canada had its bubble burst. But its comeback appears promising. Players in the field are slowly getting their footing back and settling into a North American market that’s different from its pre-pandemic predecessor. More mergers and acquisitions are pointing to a more mature marketplace. But with cannabis, Canada and…
Increased visits play a role in a decrease in overdose deaths
Researchers have found a link between increased visits to supervised consumption sites in Alberta and decreased fentanyl-related overdose deaths. Using publicly available opioid-response reports from the province of Alberta, the University of Alberta researchers looked at the number of fentanyl-related overdose deaths by quarter from 2017 to 2020, as well as the number of visits…
Alberta-based 48Hour Discovery works with some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to streamline the process
With the cost of drug development beginning to skyrocket in the 1990s, pharmaceutical giants thought the path to better economics lay in high-throughput screening facilities that would test libraries that ranged in size from a few thousand up to million compounds at a time. “Separate shelves, many rooms, with the emphasis on robotics and automation…
New U of A research has implications for prenatal development in humans
Zebrafish exposed to the leading cannabinoids found in cannabis in the earliest stages of development suffer a significant drop in neural activity later in life, according to a University of Alberta study that has implications for prenatal development in humans. Richard Kanyo, the lead author on the study and post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Medicine…
U of A researchers find SARS-CoV-2 infects immature red blood cells, reducing oxygen in the blood and impairing immune response
A new study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports by University of Alberta researchers sheds light on why many COVID-19 patients, even those not in hospital, are suffering from hypoxia – a potentially dangerous condition in which there’s decreased oxygenation in the body’s tissues. The study also shows why the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone has been…
A cure should never be worse than the disease and when regulators don’t do due diligence, that’s the very thing that can happen
Can we trust our government and medical establishment? Not entirely. Some glimpses of Health Canada’s approach to prescription drug safety are less than assuring. Public policy should be guided towards more drug safety, not less. Health Canada was solely funded by taxpayers until 1994 when it began to issue user fees to companies that wanted…
U of A pharmacy researcher looks for ways to correct a common but often hidden type of diabetes-related heart failure
A University of Alberta laboratory has uncovered a new approach to preventing heart failure in people with Type 2 diabetes, according to research findings published recently in the journal Cell Reports. “We know people with diabetes take drugs for years to control their blood sugars, but the drugs don’t cure their diabetes,” said lead author John Ussher, associate…
Researchers are now looking to develop a drug that will boost existing statin drugs to prevent heart disease
A team of researchers at the University of Alberta has uncovered a long-sought link in the battle to control cholesterol and heart disease. The protein that interferes with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that clear ‘bad’ cholesterol from the blood was identified in findings recently published in Nature Communications by Dawei Zhang, associate professor of pediatrics in the Faculty…
Vaccine makers, medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies now have a new full-service option to get their products manufactured in Canada, thanks to a partnership announced this week. The U of A’s Alberta Cell Therapy Manufacturing (ACTM) facility has signed a memorandum of understanding with The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre (BMC) and BioCanRx, a Canada-wide research network to develop…
