About the Academy
Planning innovation backwards
A discovery takes 15 to 20 years to reach a patient. Most never arrive.
Many stall in one of the two valleys of death. The first sits between discovery and clinical testing, where funding, evidence, regulation, and manufacturing gaps stop promising research. The second sits between regulatory approval and patient access, where products that are proven safe and effective still fail to secure reimbursement or adoption in the health system. Innovations that survive often need costly rework, and many leave Canada to find a path to market elsewhere.
The UBC Academy of Translational Medicine plans innovation backwards. Work starts with the end of the journey: who will pay for an innovation and why, what evidence regulators and payers need, and how trials should be designed to produce it. Innovators who plan this way from day one move through both valleys faster, with fewer setbacks, and are more likely to build their future in Canada.
The Academy works across therapeutic areas and technologies, including drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health.
Our philosophy
A different way to think about health innovation
Regulatory strategy and health economics usually sit in separate organizations with separate timelines. At the Academy, experts in regulatory affairs, evidence, health economics, reimbursement, and implementation work as one team, so an innovation’s evidence plan meets the needs of regulators and payers from the start.
Health Translation
Innovators submit their work and receive coordinated, end-to-end support in translation science. The Academy’s team helps plan the full path to patients: evidence generation, clinical trial design, regulatory strategy, health economics, reimbursement, and implementation.
Regulatory Science
The Academy develops the methods that decision-makers use to assess new health technologies, and applies them across therapeutic areas, from precision oncology to rare diseases and beyond. Its researchers create new approaches to real-world evidence, economic valuation, and regulatory flexibility, evaluate existing policy, and recommend changes that help effective innovations reach patients faster.
Training and Education
Workshops, training, and micro-credential courses build the skills the life sciences sector needs as it changes, for researchers, innovators, clinicians, and policy professionals.
Meet the director
Dr. Dean Regier, PhD
Associate professor, School of Population and Public Health, UBC
Senior Scientist, BC Cancer Research Institute
Director, Academy of Translational Medicine, UBC
An internationally recognized health economist, Dr. Regier specializes in commercialization, regulatory science, and reimbursement policy pathways that help bridge innovation and healthcare delivery. He leads efforts to develop learning healthcare systems that generate real-world evidence and inform policy decisions, with a particular focus on precision medicine, genomic technologies, and equitable access to care. He has served on British Columbia’s Drug Benefit Council, contributing evidence in support of public drug coverage decisions. His work advances policies that accelerate access to safe, effective, and sustainable health technologies while addressing regulatory and reimbursement challenges.
Our people
Team
Karen Long
Regulatory Affairs Lead
Emanuel Krebs
Program Head, Health Economics
Anne Steino
Innovation Strategist
Deidre Weymann
Program Head, RWE
Our partnerships
Partners
Academia
Government
Industry
