Ontario Stakes its Claim to Expand Province’s Innovation Ecosystem with New Life Sciences Strategy

Province invests in state-of-the-art cell and gene therapy facility in Hamilton to take life sciences sector to the next level.

A new cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility being built in Hamilton will anchor the future of life sciences jobs and innovation in Ontario while advancing pioneering medicine with the potential to cure many forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, welcomed the $580 million investment in the OmniaBio Inc. facility as he unveiled the government’s new innovative life sciences strategy. Through Invest Ontario, the province’s investment attraction agency, subject to reaching a definitive agreement, the province will invest up to $40 million to help create the OmniaBio manufacturing facility, which will be spun out of Toronto’s Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM).

The facility builds on almost $2 billion in recent transformational investments in Ontario by leading pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi, Resilience and Roche. It will increase the province’s biomanufacturing capacity, strengthen domestic supply chains and boost Ontario-made innovation. It is scheduled to begin operations in early 2024.

Provincial support for the OmniaBio project is part of Taking Life Sciences to the Next Level, the province’s plan to grow Ontario’s life sciences sector and secure new investments in next-generation health technologies, medicines and vaccine manufacturing.

The strategy sets out ambitious goals over the next decade. One major objective is to grow Ontario’s biomanufacturing and life sciences sector to employ 85,000 Ontarians in high-value jobs by 2030, a 25 per cent increase from 2020.