Four UBC companies are to receive over $7m from the federal government through the Western Innovation (WINN) Initiative.
On November 13, 2018, the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville and Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada, announced close to $20 million to help 17 innovative businesses get their products to market faster. The Western Innovation (WINN) Initiative announcement took place in Vancouver at Precision Nanosystems.
Precision Nanosystems received $1 million to develop and commercialize the next generation of instruments to manufacture nanomedicines. Since 2010, Precision Nanosystems has been revolutionizing healthcare treatments through innovation in nanotechnology. Nanomedicine has ushered a new era for medicine by enabling new treatment options for patients. Precision Nanosystem’s new instrument, named the NanoAssemblr is a cost effective and flexible solution that will help bring these innovative nanomedicine treatments to market sooner.
The WINN Initiative is a federal initiative that offers repayable contributions to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with operations in Western Canada to help move their new and innovative technologies from the later stages of research and development to the marketplace.
WINN promotes the development and diversification of the western Canadian economy by providing financial support to qualified SMEs to help them bring innovative products, processes, and services to market in Western Canada and by stimulating greater private sector investment in western Canadian commercialization activities.
The four UBC spin-off companies and their projects are:
Acuva Technologies Inc.
Commercialize UV-LED drinking water purification systems
$2,100,000
Aspect Biosystems Ltd.
Commercialize an innovative 3D bio printing platform
$2,717,694
Precision Nanosystems Inc.
Accelerate commercialization of a GMP microfluidics system for nanomedicine manufacture
$1,002,053
Tasktop Technologies Incorporated
Commercialize enhancements to the Tasktop Integration Hub
$1,353,750