Interview: Gail Garland CEO, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization, Canada

The CEO of OBIO discusses Ontario’s challenges and opportunities in life sciences, highlighting some of the key initiatives that the organization is taking to help local companies bridge the gap between research and commercialization. What was your main objective in founding OBIO back in 2009?

The main motivation for founding OBIO was the impetus provided by a group of CEOs in Ontario’s bioscience industry who saw the need for the development of an organization that focused on policy and advocacy. It also needed to represent the needs of the industry in order to grow Ontario’s bioscience ecosystem and advocate for the types of policy that would allow that growth to happen. This was in the middle of 2009, in the depths of a recession. Companies were operating with little cash on hand, and there was no path out without having some policy and advocacy support to help them complete their development cycles.

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