Funding life sciences development in Canada
Investment maven Brian Bloom talks about value creation for investments in Canadian healthcare (400 words, 2.5 min)
NPC Healthbiz Weekly is presented to you in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions
Trends really do matter in the investment world. In healthcare investing, according to Brian Bloom, Chairman and CEO of Bloom Burton, a healthcare-focused investment banking firm, “It’s been an era of the researchers and of biotech.”
“We’re all looking for the same thing,” Bloom (photo below) explained on the latest episode of the NPC Podcast, hosted by Peter Brenders, “a company that can create value for its investors.”
For commercial-stage companies, value creation is as straightforward as “growing your market share,” according to Bloom. But value creation “if you’re an R&D stage company, means actually doing research and development and creating data, clinical evidence, and other things that suggest the value of your intellectual property, even if it’s years from market,” Bloom said.
“Most investment value has been created over the past five years through research,” Bloom said. “R&D stage companies are taking this enormous amount of genomic and biologic and disease biology data that has been learned since the genome was sequenced,” and using powerful modern discovery tools, are “translating that into precision medicine products and orphan disease products that can be commercialized without Big Pharma.”
Research from small companies lets them use groundbreaking data and clinical evidence to differentiate themselves and “create value for patients, doctors, payers, and others in the ecosystem.”
“Being able to tap the capital markets,” Bloom said, can then allow these small companies to “raise hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to continue that research and maybe even commercialize themselves.”
Bloom said that the challenge in Canada is that “the more you go on the biotech and R&D side of things, the more you require investors who understand the risks and rewards and intricacies of that kind of work. And that’s the kind of investor that doesn’t exist in Canada—or if it does, you can count them on one hand.”
But while “there’s lots of things that we don’t control,” Bloom said, “fundamentally, we are in a great place as a healthcare industry.”
“We’re leveraging all that has been learned about many diseases, using precise tools to understand how diseases are and how we can attack them and solve them. And we have these modern modalities like oligonucleotide therapy and gene editing, and gene therapy. These are the tools we have, and they are more precise than small molecules or the chemistries from the 1950s or 1980s,” Bloom said.
“I think we’re in the middle of the Golden Age of medicine right now.”
Further reading: A 2021 article from McKinsey has the statistics. Investments in biotech and health innovation are performing well despite a challenging market, and the outlook only continues to improve.
LISTEN NOW
Hear the whole story: In this week’s episode of the NPC Podcast, our host, Peter Brenders, talks “what’s hot and not” in Canadian healthcare investing with Brian Bloom, Chairman & CEO of Bloom Burton. The NPC Podcast features a series of conversations with pharma industry leaders for their takes on current events.
WEEK 08/03/21
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CANADIAN HEALTHCARE MARKETING HALL OF FAME
The Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame awards were established in 2002 to honour healthcare marketers who have contributed to our vocation and inspire others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the selection committee's view, they stand for a representative cross-section of the qualities that make our business unique and fulfilling. Each week, NPC Healthbiz Weekly will acknowledge one past Hall of Fame Honouree.
2017 Inductee
Pamela Minden
Toronto
Editor’s Note: Pamela Minden currently provides consulting services to biotech and pharmaceutical organizations through Minden Bioscience.
Pamela Minden, Senior Director of Strategy, Planning, Communication, and Implementation at Aspen Pharmacare Canada Inc., said she has been fortunate to work in diverse roles in a wide variety of therapeutic areas.
“One of the things I love about the [healthcare] business is the constant change. Ever-evolving patient needs, new treatment approaches and products, new systemic challenges. That is partly what helps to make it interesting and one of the reasons I find it so engaging,” said Minden.
Minden completed a Bachelor of Science in pharmacology at the University of Toronto and then a Master of Business Administration at McMaster University, Hamilton. Between 1990 and 2006, she took on increasingly senior positions in sales, marketing, new product development and business unit leadership at Eli Lilly Canada Inc. and Janssen Inc.
In 2007, Minden established her biotech and pharmaceutical consulting practice, Minden Bioscience Inc., specializing in marketing and strategic business planning, opportunity assessments and commercialization planning. It is Minden’s belief that “launch success is tied to well-planned and executed pre-launch product and market development, and thorough organizational planning.”
In 2016, Minden assumed her role at Aspen Pharmacare Canada Inc.
Aspen Pharmacare Canada, a branch of Aspen Holdings based in South Africa, was founded in 2014. Aspen’s line includes products in anesthesia, thrombosis, women’s health, endocrinology and oncology.
“[Aspen] took on portfolios from organizations that were shifting their focus elsewhere,” said Minden. “These products still have a runway and provide value to patients in Canada and the healthcare system in general.”
“Aspen has a large presence globally, but in Canada, we are, in effect, in start-up mode,” said Minden. “We challenge everyone in the organization to be creative and innovative so that our impact will be beyond what might initially appear possible.”
The opportunity to help patients has always been and remains Minden’s primary focus. “I am proud to be part of an industry committed to ensuring that patient needs are met,” she said.
Minden is an avid long-distance runner with lifelong interests in music and cooking. She has stacks of novels and other works of fiction on and under her night table. Priority number one? “No doubt about it—my family.”
STILL LISTENING? TRY ANOTHER PODCAST
And now for something completely different. As part of an educational series on dermatologic concerns in Black skin, Dr. Neil Shear, former Head of Dermatology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and founder of its Drug Safety Clinic, and Dr. Brian Carleton, Senior Clinician Scientist at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, discuss Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), also known as toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). SJS/TEN is a drug-induced disease involving extensive blistering of the skin and a high risk of death—but genetic markers can help predict which patients it may occur. Tune in for a discussion of genetic screening and rare drug reactions.
NEXT WEEK
In the 08/17 edition of NPC Healthbiz Weekly, get Dr. Blake Pearson’s take on emerging research in the medical cannabis space. It’s easy to get your no-charge subscription and have the issue sent to your phone or inbox each Tuesday at 6:00 a.m. sharp.
Stay safe, stay sure, and stay on your game. We’ll see you again next week.