The Acacdemy of Translational Medicine (ATM) and ATM Director Dr. Poul Sorensen have been highlighted in an article by The Globe and Mail.
The article, B.C. biotech boom: Vancouver looks to join the global big leagues of modern medicine, highlights, provides a inside look at Vancouver’s role in the global biotech industry. At the forefront of this conversation are the key players and spin-off companies that have created a dynamic landscape over the years, many of whom have UBC affiliations. For example, Dr. Pieter Cullis’ role in COVID-19 vaccines, and companies such as AbCellera and Aspect Biosystems. Both the ATM and Dr. Sorensen were mentioned in the article, with reference to how the ATM fits within the local ecosystem and how Dr. Sorensen has himself contributed to cutting-edge research with real-world impact.
‘Enabling UBC academics to think commercially is the goal of UBC’s Academy of Translational Medicine, created at Dr. Kelleher’s behest in 2019. His choice to lead it was intentional: celebrated UBC researcher Poul Sorensen, who discovered a gene mutation in 1998 linked to cancer.’
When Dr. Sorensen was interviewed for the article, he admitted that “When we made the discovery we weren’t thinking about intellectual property” and “If I had thought about it earlier I would have staked a claim. I thought, ‘Next time I do this, I’ll be smart.”
‘He only realized it when Bayer AG offered to fly him business class to give talks about his discoveries in the 2010s. At the time, the company was co-developing a drug to target the gene defect and shrink a range of tumours, which it expects will generate €750-million in yearly peak sales.’
However, author Sean Silcoff also addresses the the unique challenges that biotech faces in Vancouver, where there is a plethora of talent and is growing quickly, but it hasn’t quite been leveraged its full potential. One of Dr. Sorensen’s quotes in the article summed this up succinctly “We’re really good at discovery science in Vancouver. All the pieces are in place. Now, how do we up the game?”. Dr. Sorensen points out that “We’ve realized a lot of academics aren’t clear on when something will be of interest” (to the market), leading to the development of courses that aim to give academics the tools to file their new drug applications with regulators.