Investment future forum: innovation place reaps rewards of investment capital through new tenants.

It seems appropriate that Saskatoon's riverside landmark, the Delta Bessborough Hotel was the venue for an event of historic proportions, when the first-ever Investment Future Forum took place April 10-11.

There, 21 investee companies made dynamic presentations to a room full of interested parties, which included investors hailing from every province Quebec and westward, while American investors were in attendance as well. In all, more than 40 investor companies were represented at the Forum.

The intention of such an exercise is to match up these investee companies with venture capitalists. The investees are at start-up or growth stages of their business plan, and their job at the Forum was to convince potential investors that the capital would help the company, and its prospective investors, realize a profit through company operations.

There were two major announcements arising from the Investment Future Forum. One of these came from the transfer of technology, potentially of revolutionary proportions, from a University of Saskatchewan technology transfer company to a new start-up firm at Innovation Place, located on the university campus.

University of Saskatchewan Technologies (UST) Inc., which announced the licensing of a new drug treatment with the potential to reduce the devastating effects of spinal cord and brain injury, licensed the pharmaceutical technology to Triage Therapeutics Inc.

The technology is such that this new drug treatment can prevent paraplegia and associated long-term damage in rats with spinal cord injuries by limiting the secondary damage from inflammation that follows such injuries.

If the technology has a similar effect on humans, the result will be of monumental proportions, both in terms of human health as well an economic impact on Triage Therapeutics and its investors.

"This is an example of how outstanding, curiosity-driven lab research translates into new technology that can potentially benefit both human health and the economy," said Bryan Harvey, UST Inc. board chair and acting vice-president of research at the U of S.

"UST and the university are committed to ensuring that exciting discoveries by our researchers are translated into commercial opportunities that will benefit society, the researchers and the university."

While this home-grown research has far-reaching potential opportunities, the other major announcement made at the Investment Future Forum, was one that brought such opportunity to the provincial economy from the United States.

Pyxis Genomics Inc. announced a strategic growth plan that despite its headquarters being located in the American mid-west, this growth would occur in Saskatoon. Innovation Place is home to Pyxis Genomics Canada Inc., the Canadian subsidiary of the parent U.S. company. The early stage research and development company would see as many as 20 additional researchers added to its Canadian headquarters in Saskatoon.

Pyxis is a three-year-old company which applies functional genomics to animal health, productivity and wellness. This allows the company to solicit clients on the basis of food being traceable from the farm to the fork, a highly desirable characteristic in today's food industry. And given recent events with respect to food safety overseas, this traceability component will become an even greater requirement in the world's food market.

Among its major Canadian clients is Maple Leaf Foods. Subsequent sources of revenue have been planned for through the development of cost-saving, predictive profiling products for the pork, beef and dairy industries.

How Saskatoon came onto the radar screen for Pyxis Genomics is an interesting tale, when considering the company's Chicago-based headquarters. Company president and chief scientific officer Dr. Lawrence Schook infers that a Saskatchewan expatriate had a lot to do with that scenario.

Schook explains that one year into its three-year history, Pyxis, then known as AniGenics Inc., received a round of financing from Foragen, an Ontario-based venture capital company headed by Dr. Murray McLaughlin. McLaughlin is the former head of Ag-West Biotech in Saskatoon and is widely respected for his visionary contributions in establishing the provincial agbiotech sector during its formative stages.

"I have to give a lot of credit to Murray McLaughlin, who has a lot of strong connections with Saskatchewan," said Schook, on why the company chose Saskatoon for its intensive capital investment.

"We also had discussions with Lorne Babiuk and VIDO about interactions just because of their pre-eminence in animal health," he continues.

Therefore, to capitalize on the infrastructure already established in Saskatoon, Schook's board decided to entrench itself in the Canadian research field by helping Babiuk put together a Genome Canada project, a $27-million grant realized by VIDO last year.

As the two organizations continue to define their relationship with one another through the Genome Canada project, other opportunities have presented themselves.

"We've been expanding upon a broader aspect of building a relationship of their infrastructure, their expertise and our ability to commercialize that and create new jobs, additional products and services that fuel the economy," Schook says. "We're pretty excited."

"We feel very comfortable with our mutual expertise, we feel very comfortable with our shared vision. It's been a tremendous experience."

Aside from making the groundbreaking announcement at Investment Future Forum, Pyxis served dual purpose by being one of the 21 investee companies looking for a capital infusion. Indeed their capital requirements of $10 million U.S. was at the upper end of the investments being sought by investees at the conference.

Schook acknowledges the investment is significant, but so too is its potential return, noting that the European market is $3.6 billion Euros annually.

"You have windows of opportunity and our position is that we have an opportunity to put some real products, non-antibiotic feed additives, out there in the marketplace and we've got two to three years."

CONTACT

Dr. Lawrence Schook

President and Chief Scientific Officer

Pyxis Genomics Canada Inc.

[phone].