OBIO Think Tank Economic Vision Document on Ontario’s Human Health Technology and Biosciences Industry

Introduction

The governments of Ontario and Canada are examining the ways in which they have a role to play in fostering innovation. In 2010, the Canadian government commissioned a panel charged with assessing the state of programs designed to support business and commercially oriented research and development. The resultant Jenkins Report contains recommendations impacting the human health technology and bioscience industries.

This paper will discuss the Jenkins, Drummond and other reports and will make the case for a call to action led by the private sector. In addition it will both look at and question some of the “Conventional Wisdom” about the health-sciences industry that has helped shape both action and inaction across Government and Government funded agencies. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address all economic influences. Instead we will review macro level information then focus on the human health technologies and biosciences sector to make a case for change.

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