If you would consider volunteering your company or space for future meetings, contact the board at VILS -a-t- VILS -d-0-t-c-a.
In November 2022 and March 2023 we ran our complimentary introductory seminar on Basics of Intellectual Property, held at the
BioInnovation Hub and which is run regularly upon request.
This is a short, ~2-hour seminar - with tons of Q&A and interaction - that uses as its basis in large part the IP Basics and IP Advanced I
modules of the European Patent Office's IP Teaching Kit
and will also take some flavour and inspiration (but not content) from the introductory offerings of the Licensing Executives Society's teaching, and LES's recommended
texts such as
Rembrandts in the Attic
This seminar is aimed at people who have some academic training in life sciences and/or related technology, or biomedical engineering, but have not
necessarily taken any such courses previously in intellectual property, IP forms, IP licensing, contract law, or IP law. Though, people with some
grounding in IP and patent law should still find it useful/entertaining to participate. We expect many attendees are a biochemistry or biomed eng
student or graduate
who may not have yet taken much in IP-specific training, or any, or would like a refresher.
14 September 2022 saw the Victoria Hand Project birthday party and first charity fundraiser bash on 14 September 2022!
On 31 August 2022 we held the launch celebration for the BioInnovation Hub
thanks to our partner UVic
On Saturday 13 August 2022 we attended Music On The Lake as special guests at Saanich Mayor Fred Haynes's property on Prospect Lake!
On 10 Nov 2021 in a necessarily virtual meeting, we were immensely honoured to enjoy a fireside chat with
Paul Hastings, President and CEO of Nkarta Therapeutics, and since June 2021
Chair of BIO! This honour is a case in point of the advantage of increased openness to
virtual travel (though Paul, as a fan of BC, will visit IRL again, he has promised and we have insisted),
and we thank Paul for his willingness to speak to us transparently and with
candour about regional life science groups, biopharma,
geopolitics, and more. For more insight into Paul's refreshing chairing of BIO, you will enjoy
watch his BIO acceptance speech.
September 2021 saw Becky Hof, Manager of the CAMTEC Biomedical Core shared lab facility open to
companies, entrepreneurs, and community members, and the VILS Board joined Saanich Mayor Fred Haynes to
tour the premises and publicize the burgeoning services and capabilities of the shared lab spaces offered by CAMTEC. Look for a VILS meeting in
the CAMTEC Biomedical Core in the near future as in-person meetings resume!!
25 August 2021 despite the pandemic we enjoyed a responsible and scaled-back version of our annual floating meeting on Prospect Lake thanks to Fred Haynes and his mobile dock. Here's to a potentially much bigger event in 2022!!
Wednesday 24 March 2021 we enjoyed an online VILS community fireside chat with Pieter Cullis being interviewed by VILS Chair Sam Mercer. Pieter is of course best known these days for his foundational role in Acuitas Therapeutics that built the lipid nanoparticle for BioNTech/Pfizer's comirnaty, and we also heard about his path as a scientist-entrepreneur, co-founding 9+(!) companies in the liposomal nanoparticle space, as well as some of his current research in LNPs carrying siRNA for gene silencing.
Our February 2021 meeting on 24 Feb was an online talk by Eyal Barash of Barash Law on undergoing Intellectual Property due diligence. The slides from Eyal's talk can be found here.
Our November 2021 meeting was an online introduction to our meeting's host, Victoria company Origen Air at which we learned about Origen Air's category-defying technology: Is it agritech? Is it cleantech? Is it health and wellness? Does it merge microbiology and plant technology? Is it building science? All the above and more.
On March 11, before the LSBC showcase event below, UVic hosted a seminar from two of UVic's Canada Research Chairs (CRCs) whose research spans applications in genomics and neuroimaging, for talks on a user-friendly language for bioinformatics, and spatial modeling of neuroimaging data. (details).
Life Sciences BC came to Victoria again in March for a Showcase Series event on Wednesday 11 March, 5:30 to 7:30 PM. We heard from some beloved long-standing VILS community members as well as some emerging and exciting new companies forming literally right now: speakers included Dr. Mohsen Akbari from 4M Biotech Inc., Dr. Martin J. Boulanger of Innovakine Therapeutics Inc., Dr. Jennie Christensen of TrichAnalytics Inc., and Dr. Anthony Della Siega of Victoria Heart Institute Foundation.
The VILS Xmas party was Tuesday 17 December, 5:30 PM to 8 PM, at the offices of Semaphore Solutions with their kind sponsorship as well as support from the UVic Coast Capital Savings Innovation Centre.
The Victoria Hand Project and the Centre for Biomedical Research hosted the 13 November 2019 VILS meeting at UVic, where they showcased the 3D printing (including bioprinting) capabilities at the University of Victoria (and we celebrated the $1 million grant recently awarded to Victoria Hand Project!). We also held a minute of silence at the meeting start to acknowledge the impact on the VILS community of the loss of our friend and colleague Jody Haddow. Meeting food and drink was kindly sponsored by Emmes Canada. The meeting took place in the foyer of the Medical Sciences Building at the University of Victoria, which is at the south (i.e. 6 o'clock) of the ring road, inside the ring.
VILS traveled to Seattle to deepen cross-border industry ties in early October 2019, as a pre-conference component of the Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference. We extend massive thanks to all our hosts - Riley Sorensen at Cambia Grove healthcare innovation hub, Uly Rivera at the University of Washington's CoMotion at Fluke Hall, Jen Running Deer, Ayesha Misquith, Chris Barnes, Andy Whittle, and Jonas Thinggaard at Novo Nordisk Seattle, and Natalie Curtis at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch). Looking ahead to an even bigger and better repeat next year, please read up on more details about the trip here.
On Tuesday 24 September 2019 (5 PM to ~8 PM) we had a fireside-chat audience-participation event in the Shaw conference room at Fort Tectoria that covered intellectual property and corporate finance foundations, delivered by expert legal guests from the leading firm Blakes: Joe Garcia and Sunny Handa. Joe and Sunny delivered a great dynamic talk with Q&A and we had a fantastic group dinner afterwards at CHORIZO & CO, with thanks again to Blakes for generously sponsoring the dinner!
Wednesday 14th of August 2019 was another successful floating meeting on Prospect Lake, courtesy of longstanding VILS champion and Mayor of Saanich Fred Haynes—thank you Fred!!
The July 2019 VILS meeting was 10 July at the Summit building rooftop (838 Fort Street). Where we enjoyed a presentation and lively Q&A with Nolan Beise and colleagues of SUVA!
Wednesday 29th of May 2019 (5:30 to 7:30 PM) guests were treated to a high-level talk at StressMarq Biosciences, where our host Dr. Ariel Louwrier gave an illuminating introduction to StressMarq's novel tools for neurodegenerative diseases, and their therapeutic candidate for Parkinson's disease. We also enjoyed our usual robust networking over drinks and food!
Tuesday the 30th of April 2019 was our first meeting at the NEW venue of Trich Analytics hosted by the team including CEO and founder Dr. Jennie Christensen, who gave a talk on Trich Analytics and tour accompanied by our usual networking over drinks and food. Among many examples of Trich's fascinating technology applications we heard how cumbersome and inaccurate/imprecise blood draws can be replaced by a rapid analysis on a single plucked hair through their Occupational analysis .
Our VILS meeting in March 2019 was a networking gathering Tuesday 26 March in the University Club. Fresh off the recent excellent Industry Partnerships and Materials Research day at the University Club on March 19, we got a remarkable turnout and energy, considering Sam's late notice from the VILS committee, so very many thanks to you all for coming.
On Wednesday 13 February 2019 we held ANOTHER hybrid VILS networking event at the UVic Fireplace Lounge, née Faculty Lounge, A.K.A. University Club, for a Digital Supercluster networking event, also joined by our great friends in Biomedical Engineering.
On Wednesday 16 January 2019 from 5-7 PM we joined the island health research community in a special session at historic Begbie Hall, Royal Jubilee Hospital (directions here).
Both the legacy VILS community and the broader Island Health and research community have given rave reviews of the event, and know that we will certainly do another, as has been asked by several attendees!
We explored the public-sector health research landscape on Vancouver Island and in BC through short presentations including, but not limited to, Island Health (Cindy Trytten, Director of Research), UVic (Brent Sternig, Director of Research Partnerships and Knowledge Mobilization) and the BC Ministry of Health (Heather Davidson, Assistant Deputy Minister, Partnerships and Innovation).
Presentations were followed by highly energetic meet-and-greets via hub-style networking in the areas of Clinical Research, Patient-Oriented Research, Research Facilitation and Collaboration, Innovation and Technology, The BC Academic Health Science Network, The University of Victoria, and The Centre for Interprofessional Simulation Learning.
The de facto VILS Christmas Party 2018 was a party kindly shared with VILS members by a close friend and valued supporter of VILS:
UVic's
Centre for Biomedical Research.
Their Health Hackathon Social, with support by NSERC was joined by VILS for one big holiday merrymaking
session at Swan's hotel's penthouse suite.
Thanks to all for making it such a great evening!
The November 2018 meeting was a social/networking gathering Thursday 29th of November, at the UVic Innovation Centre for a super-generous third month running!
The October 2018 meeting on Weds 24 Oct, had us hear from VILS stalwart member company and supporter SISCAPA Assay Technologies. CSO, Director and Founder Dr. Terry Pearson, known and loved in the VILS community since our first meeting, and emeritus professor at UVic, spoke on an overview of clinical laboratory diagnostics to set the stage, followed by Dr. Morty Razavi, Head of Lab Operations, who talked about “Your World in a Drop of Blood” - how SISCAPA's technology will allow big data to inform better disease and wellness monitoring as part of the new era of personalized medicine. Our meeting was hosted again super kindly for the second month in a row by the UVic Innovation Centre.
The September 2018 meeting was Thursday 27th of September, at the UVic Innovation Centre, with our second "annual" visit by FreeMind Consulting to educate us again about the surprising amount of US federal government nondilutive funding available for (yes!) Canadian companies.
The August 2018 meeting was Weds 15th of August, at Derek Ford's studio (directions) thanks to his kind support of VILS. We enjoyed a visit and talk by Andrea Chan, President, and colleagues from the Society for the Advancement of Young Scientists
On 18 July 2018 we had our second annual Prospect Lake mobile dock cruise courtesy of the generosity and hospitality of Fred Haynes (please visit his site to learn more about his candidacy for Mayor of Saanich). The beverages and refreshments for the event were generously sponsored by VILS' own Jody Haddow, as well as food sponsored by your VILS committee.
The May 2018 meeting was Weds 30th of May, at the UVic Innovation Centre. Read their handy FAQ if you are not already familiar. We had a very productive social/networking meeting, an introduction to the Innovation Centre, and most importantly, presentations by some real Innovation Centre client companies, to introduce their work to VILS.
On 11 April 2018 at a spectacular private venue atop the Strait at 10 Mile Point, Julien Bahain, Olympic medalist, trans-Atlantic rower, and Athlete Mentor in PyeongChang, related some of his amazing stories and approaches to performance in business and life. The event was generously sponsored by Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals, as well as John McLeod of Reed Pope, and food and drink by Premier Research. Our venue was courtesy of Ian Johnston, founder and CEO of FightReg.
The March 2018 meeting was Weds 21 March at UVic's Centre for Advanced Materials and Related Technology, hosted graciously by Jeremy Wulff, Alex Brolo, and drinks generously sponsored by Stephen Wolfe of JLT Canada. We enjoyed pizza, wine, beer, and were impressed via guided tour by the wealth of multidisciplinary advanced science and technology activity on site.
The Feb 2018 meeting was Weds 21 Feb at Starfish Medical - despite the unusual snow, we enjoyed Scott Phillips, beloved founder and CEO, giving a great talk and tour of the impressive facility... and pizza and beer and wine thanks to Starfish's generous full sponsorship of the meeting.
With apologies in January 2018 we didn't manage to hold a monthly meeting, but this was the first such time since 2016!
XMAS PARTY: On Weds 20 December 2017 we were pleased to have the support of Semaphore Solutions in hosting our annual holiday gathering. Many VILS folks were struck down by this very bad cold and flu season, your webmaster (Sam) included. However a great time was had by all those who could attend - thank you to the VILS committee remaining members for coming together to pull it off, and thanks again to Semaphore for hosting and for providing beer!
On Friday 17 November 2017 we networked over beer and pizza at Industrial Plankton - thank you Robert and team for the tour and hospitality!
On Weds 01 November 2017 at 5 PM we went to the Vancouver Island Technology Park again for a tour of LifeLabs's main facility. We were hugely impressed by the high-end kit for a myriad of blood, serum and other compartment tests!
29 September breakfast meeting: VILS hosted FreeMind Group for a breakfast presentation on US non-dilutive capital at Fort Tectoria downtown. This broadened our thinking of IRAP/SR&ED (i.e. the Canadian federal taxpayer) as our main potential source of non-dilutive funding and we learned all about the significant funding potential from the USA's NIH, DOD, NSF, FDA, BARDA, etc.
The Weds 27 September 2017 event was at Immunoprecise Antibodies at the Vancouver Island Technology Park, in Unit 3204, 4464 Markham Street, where we had a great introduction to the antibody engineering work done by Immunoprecise.
The 16 August 2017, meeting was graciously hosted by Saanich Councillor and VILS supporter and member Fred Haynes, at his dock on Prospect Lake - it was a spectacular evening, as the photos prove!
The 19 July 2017 meeting was at LlamaZOO's rooftop just above their offices on the top floor of the red Summit building, 838 Fort St downtown. The weather was fine and the company great even if the seagulls at times were unhelpful.
The Weds 21 June 2017 meeting was at Category 12 in central Saanich, 2200 Keating Cross Road. We were kindly hosted by Karen and Michael Kuzyk; many UVic grads recognised Michael, head brewer and founder, as a UVic PhD biochemist and folks enjoyed great beer and also drank in deep insights into current best practices in the microbiology and biochemistry of beer.
The Wednesday, 17 May 2017 meeting was at the Deeley Research Centre on the Royal Jubilee Hospital complex grounds, where we enjoyed a talk by Dr. Brad Nelson on Deeley's in-house Adoptive T-cell Therapy development programme; as well as a fascinating tour of the autologous T-cell treatment production facility (pictured) by Dr. John Webb.
The Wednesday, 26 April 2017 meeting was at UVic at the University Club Fireside Lounge, where we had a well-attended networking event at which we also heard intros from our hosts from the UVic faculty, research, and entrepreneur friends-of-life-sciences community: Stephanie Willerth, Alex Brolo, Lindsay Frehlick, and truly more UVic friends than we can mention. Further we were joined and addressed by Lesley Esford, President of Life Sciences BC. We were very pleased to have Leigh Anderson join us from SISCAPA from Washington DC as a guest of co-founder Terry Pearson; alongside every valued guest who attended.
22 March 2017 meeting at Fort Tectoria (home of VIATEC): at this meeting Dale Gann of Royal Roads University guest-chaired and kindly facilitated a roundtable discussion on our direction as a group, resulting in many great ideas and potential for our community and position in the global community going forward.
February 2017 meeting at UVic-Genome BC Proteomics Centre and MRM Proteomics: graciously hosted by MRM Proteomics and UVic-Genome BC, and including a tour of the impressive facility.
January 2017 meeting at Starfish Medical: kindly facilitated by Scott Phillips and Meredith Campbell-Jess of Starfish, a tour and networking event was greatly enjoyed by all.
December 2016 meeting at Argyle Attic: the merged initial life-sciences groups hold a jolly and casual Christmas social in the pub.
Inaugural November 2016 legacy group meetings: separately but with great minds (we can hope) thinking alike, Paul Stinson and Alan Winter kick off a Victoria Life Sciences Professionals Meeting, and Jody Haddow and Sam Mercer kick off a BioSci/Biotech Roundtable/Society. The two groups meet quickly to agree to merge.