Painful, debilitating chronic ulcers to the legs and feet are a common condition among the world’s 300 million diabetics. Because diabetics have poor oxygen delivery to their tissues, wounds result and may never heal or may take years to do so, resulting in tissue and nerve damage and, in worst cases, amputation. Diabetics have a 15 percent higher risk of amputation than the general population, a risk that is on the rise.
MaRS Innovation (MI) exists to derisk the revolutionary technologies of its member institutions, so that these advances can be developed for the marketplace through the costly pre-clinical stages of patent filing, proof of principle (POP) and prototyping. This is precisely what MI is now doing with its partner, the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, in leading the commercialization of a dramatic therapeutic advance, with first application in diabetic wound healing.
Sunnybrook molecular and cellular biologist Dr. Daniel Dumont, Canada Research Chair in Angiogenic and Lymphangiogenic Signalling, and his team have discovered a compound, Vasculotide, which recruits new blood vessels and cells to increase oxygen and nutrient flow for complete wound healing.
“Since accepting this technology in March 2010,” says MI President and CEO Rafi Hofstein, “MaRS Innovation is already working with the inventors to expand the potential medical applications for Vasculotide, and to develop a patent strategy to expand the current intellectual property coverage. In tandem, we are leading discussions with pharmaceutical partners on collaboration and commercialization agreements.”
