Medical technologies discovered at UHN fuel the foundational platform of nearly 20 financed life science companies and have catalyzed the formation of the companies listed below.
Many of our recently formed companies present later-stage investment and partnership opportunities.
As stated within our values and strategic priorities above, UHN’s commercialization approach seeks to elevate Canada as a world destination for life science commercialization. We also follow technology sector best practices for research commercialization regarding the commercialization of IP generated at UHN. Since 2014, our approach has been to focus on supporting internal capacity to create well-financed start-ups ourselves, in order to steward UHN IP to its greatest inflection point of success, maximizing benefit to the hospital, local economy, and our position on the national commercialization stage.
UHN Commercialization and our expert team of business development/legal professionals work closely with our ecosystem to guide, co-promote and encourage the success of home-grown IP initiatives through numerous collaborative activities and committee leadership/participation.
Founded on ground-breaking research from UHN’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Adela is a precision medicine company developing novel liquid biopsies for the diagnosis of cancer. Adela’s platform is based on UHN’s proprietary, ultra-sensitive, cell-free DNA methylation pattern detection technology (CfMeDIP-seq). Powered by AI, CfMeDIP-seq is transforming the cancer diagnosis and disease management landscape. For more information, visit: https://www.adelabio.com/
Paradox Immunotherapeutics is a biotechnology company in the protein misfolding therapeutics space, currently developing front-line monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatment for protein misfolding diseases, with a focus on amyloidosis (AL). Based on UHN discovery, Paradox's lead program consists of antibodies for the treatment of immunoglobulin light chain AL and chronic and fatal diseases that affect the kidney, liver, and heart. Paradox aims to overcome challenges that previously made these diseases incurable. For more information visit: https://www.paradoximmuno.com and https://youtu.be/2tCpe28Ok9Q (YouTube)
AvroBio was founded as a gene therapy company aiming to halt or reverse disease with a single dose of gene therapy. Originally incubated at UHN, AvroBio was founded on discoveries by Drs. Christopher Paige and Jeffrey Medin. In 2018, it became a publicly traded company and was listed on NASDAQ. It recently completed a merger with Tectoninc Therapeutic; the combined company operates under the name Tectonic Therapeutic, Inc.
Treadwell Therapeutics is a clinical stage, multi-modality oncology company with a pipeline of cancer therapeutics based on discoveries first made at UHN’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. The company has an operational base at the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Tower (PMCRT), and a development facility in Toronto. Treadwell was founded in part by Dr. Tak Mak, whose discovery of the T-cell receptor changed the face of cancer therapy. For more information, visit: https://treadwelltx.com/
Founded on ground-breaking stem cell discoveries at UHN, BlueRock Therapeutics, a wholly-owned and independently operated subsidiary of Bayer AG, is a leading engineered cell therapy company developing cell-based therapies designed to alter the course of degenerative diseases, including neurological, cardiovascular and immunological conditions. The launch of BlueRock in 2016 was made possible by Bayer AG and Versant Ventures, who provided a US$225 million series A investment - one of the largest biotechnology investments of its kind in Canada at the time. BlueRock Therapeutics, which operates out of the Princess Margaret Tower at UHN, was fully acquired by Bayer in 2019. For more information, visit https://bluerocktx.com/
Founded on a UHN neuronal stem cell technology, Inteligex is a regenerative medicine company currently developing novel stem cell and drug-based therapies for the treatment of traumatic spinal cord injuries (SCIs) and other diseases of the Central Nervous System (CNS). Inteligex’s proprietary regenerative stem cell therapies address both acute and chronic forms of SCI and are the culmination of over 15 years of work on stem cells for SCI in the academic laboratory of Dr. Michael Fehlings at the Krembil Research Institute (KRI) of the University Health Network (UHN). For more information, visit: https://www.inteligex.ca/
MyndTec Inc., is a CSE-listed neurotechnology company revolutionizing care for stroke and spinal cord injury patients thanks to the innovative MyndMove device. MyndTec Inc. researches, develops and distributes innovative therapies designed to improve function, maximize independence and enhance the quality of life for individuals with upper limb paralysis due to stroke, spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury. MyndMove™ is MyndTec’s first product to market. The technology was developed based on the research conducted at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and the University of Toronto.
For more information, visit: https://www.myndtec.com/
Watch the discovery story behind MyndTec
Founded on proprietary imaging technology (injectable imaging agent) discovered at UHN, Nanovista is an oncology company working in the image-guided intervention space. Its platform works to illuminate tumours both at the planning stage and inside the operating room, helping surgeons better target them while preserving healthy tissue. Nanovisa’s imaging agents are showing substantial improvement over alternative agents that last just hours and that require continual injections. Nanovista has now joined JLabs and was named one of the of “Ten Start-ups Changing Healthcare” by Scientific American. For more information visit: https://www.nanovista.ca/
Founded in 2012 based on fluorescent light technology discovered at UHN, Moleculight is a medical device company improving wound care for patients internationally. Moleculight’s hand-held device enables the detection of elevated bacterial levels in wounds right at the point of care, helping detect wound infection not yet visible to the eye. It’s approved for use in markets world-wide. For information , visit: https://moleculight.com/
Point Surgical Inc. (PSI) is a Toronto-based company with a 10-second cancer classification platform. Point specializes in technology for first-in-class, intra-surgical pathology analysis in record time.The company was founded as a joint initiative between Toronto’s University Health Network, Unity Health Toronto and Light Matter Interaction Inc. The technology, first demonstrated by Drs. Arash Zarrine-Afsar (UHN) and Howard Ginsberg (Unity), offers clinicians a new way to measure tissue pathology in real-time—right in the operating room. It also enables the ability to identify tumour types in as little as 10 seconds. For more information, visit: https://pointsurgical.com/
Traferox Technologies Inc. is a Toronto-based medical device company dedicated to turning UHN's world-class Canadian research into the new global standard of care. Founded on transplant innovations discovered at UHN, Traferox is a unique company in the Canadian landscape, combining an executive team with global experience with the research and innovation present at UHN. For more information, visit:
https://www.traferox.com/
Thornhill Medical is a medical device company specializing in acute critical care devices specifically designed for military, field hospital, transport medical and first responder teams. Founded on respiratory care technologies discovered at UHN, Thornhill Medical is now internationally recognized as a leader in the precise control and management of arterial blood gases. For more information visit www.thornhillmedical.com.
Fully owned by Treadwell, Therapeutics, TCRyption is a leader in developing T-cell immunotherapies, based on the groundbreaking work of Dr. Naoto Hirano, winner of UHN’s Inventor of the Year Award in 2019. His innovative TCR-HLA multimer staining technique greatly expanded how immunotherapy targets cancer.
Acumyn was created by UHN, with support from the Techna Institute, to commercialize AQUA, a clinical software platform for use by radiotherapy clinics. The platform consolidates quality assurance tests and calibrations into a single location, helping to increase efficiencies and ensure quality patient care. Acumyn was acquired by Elekta, a global leader in radiotherapy. For more information visit: https://www.elekta.com/company/about-us/
Though not founded on UHN Technology, Animal Health Partners (Companion Healthcare Corporation) was initially formed as a result of a collaboration born out of UHN’s TECHNA Institute. The company is an emergency animal hospital with state-of-the art diagnostics for pets. For more information visit: https://animalhealthpartners.com/
Founded in 2014 in one of the biggest biotech deals at the time, Northern Biologics was the first modern UHN spin-off backed by venture capital (Versant Ventures). Founding scientists Drs. Benjamin Neel, Bradly Wouters and Robert Rottapel and University of Toronto researchers Drs. Sachdev Sidhu and Jason Moffat founded the company to pursue drug leads and a novel antibody generation platform focused on advancing antibody-based treatments for cancer and fibrosis. Northern Biologics was bought by Boehringer Ingelheim, the world’s largest private pharmaceutical company, in 2020. For more information, please visit: https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/science/human-health/fostering-science
QurCan Therapeutics (formerly Nanology Labs Inc) is a biotechnology company using advanced nanoparticle drug-delivery technology to unleash the immense potential of next-generation biological and genetic medicine and deliver life-changing therapeutics. QurCan's next generation nanoparticle platform, TERP, enables tissue-selective delivery of nucleotides and biological therapeutics to extra-hepatic sites, including brain and spleen. TERP technology is a breakthrough technology with the great potential to deliver a new era of disease-modifying genetic medicine that will make a difference to patients with a wide range of unmet medical need Formerly known as Nanology Labs. For more information: https://www.qurcan.com/
Using a new class of drug and device combination platform invented at UHN, Nanogenix is a biotechnology company developing novel photo-immune therapy to change treatment prospects for cancer patients. Honing in on skin and pancreatic cancers initially, the company’s multifunction platform includes direct therapeutic, diagnostic imaging and drug delivery agents and the company is targeting mid-late 2024 to initiate phase I clinical trials of its lead cancer therapeutic.
A recent new venture incubated at UHN, Curait uses AI Power to optimize radiation oncology. Nearly half of all patients receiving treatment for cancer will receive radiation, and planning appropriate radiation treatment can be a long process with a high demand on the clinicians' time. Curait Medical has a patent-protected platform providing automated, quantitative quality review enabling the radiation team to make more informed clinical decisions for each treatment quickly. At the core of this platform is a unique UHN AI technology: a comprehensive AI machine learning engine that has been trained on one of the world’s largest published and curated databases, making treatment decisions possible in minutes, instead of hours or days. For more information: https://www.curaitmedical.com
Founded in 2003 based on scientific discovery at the Krembil Brain Institute, NoNo is developing therapeutics that offer opportunities for a better life following ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other chronic neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. NoNo's lead drug candidate, nerinetide, is a first in class PSD95 inhibitor that promotes cell survival and disrupts toxic cell signals following damage to neurons. NoNO’s core technology and therapeutic targets have been validated in multiple laboratories worldwide and published in leading scientific journals. For more information, please visit: https://www.nonoinc.ca/home/