Formed in 2007, Boreal Genomics is among a cohort of UBC spin-off companies that helped grow the momentum of biomedical innovation in British Columbia. The company developed innovative research tools and diagnostic tests for early detection and monitoring of cancer patients, attracting more than $20 million in investment and at its peak, employing 50 staff. Closing its UBC-based office in 2023 following a very successful exit and quiet sale to a large clinical testing firm in 2021, Boreal’s legacy continues both for those benefitting from the technology it developed, and through the talented employees and colleagues it nurtured — many of whom are now advancing a next wave of companies that are at the heart of Canada’s fastest-growing life sciences sector.
The Science: a pure discovery
Boreal was founded and led by Dr. Andre Marziali Professor, UBC Department of Physics and Astronomy; Director, UBC Engineering Physics [since 2005]; and founder, GenomeBC Technology Development platform. At its core was a method to purify nucleic acids, known as Scodaphoresis (SCODA), co-invented by Marziali and Dr. Lorne Whitehead (Professor, UBC Physics and Astronomy). Building on research discoveries around how to concentrate RNA/DNA, SCODA uses rotating fields to extract DNA sequences from contaminants.
If you were conducting environmental studies at a mining site, for example, SCODA could separate the DNA from contaminants and other superfluous matter to discover what kind of microorganisms lived in the soil, in order to help frame solutions around how to use those to naturally break down offset wastes. First patented by UBC in 2004, a total of more than 20 patents were issued around the technology.
Building a Company: from science to spinoff
The initial team brought together to commercialize the technology following the formation of Boreal as a spinoff company drew on the potential of six ambitiously entrepreneurial UBC Engineering Physics graduates. Marziali, a graduate of the program himself (BASC ENPH ’89) was joined by David Broemeling (ENPH ’04); Peter Eugster (ENPH ’07); Dylan Gunn (ENPH ’06); Joel Pel (ENPH ’09) and Jason Thompson (ENPH ’02), initially performing their research in UBC lab space, and assembling instruments for commercial sale out of a team member’s basement suite.
“Andre first disclosed the technology to UBC in 2003,” says J.P. Heale, Managing Director, Innovation UBC, whose office helped orchestrate the patenting and licencing for the technology in order to create the spinoff company. “I recognized that his drive and capabilities, along with the technology, was going to make this company very successful. So, when around the time of the 2010 Olympics UBC was arranging a ‘show and tell’ of UBC spinoffs to some significant US venture capital companies, I was a strong advocate for Boreal to be included in that presentation. As expected, Andre hit it out of the park. His presentation really resonated, and resulted in a Series A funding raise of USD $6.9 million.” In 2013, a second round raised US $18 million, led by some of the same investors, Arch Venture Partners, and including Digital Sky, an investment firm known in part for its early investment in Facebook. The initial UBC support, through patenting and obtaining that investor exposure,, Marziali notes, was critical to Boreal’s future success, “UBC took a chance on us and provided the first risk money into the company, made a lot of good judgement calls and gave solid advice.”
Andy Talbot, Managing Partner of Aqua Mergers and Acquisitions, was another key influencer in Boreal’s early evolution. Initially supporting as a mentor and board member, Talbot engaged with Boreal on and off over its lifespan, guiding the company through multiple sales of its technology and ultimately, the company itself. “They are an outstanding bunch of incredibly smart people that came together with a very pure mission to solve a problem, and I really wanted to help them succeed. UBC breeds unbelievable technology, incredible capability and very smart professors with great spin-off potential, and Boreal is a perfect example of that. Pure scientists, straight out of university and their first jobs, I recognized an incredibly capable team and a technology that needed a home.” He worked with them around the nuts and bolts of how to build a company, validate their business model and define their priorities. “Andy kicked our butts (particularly mine)” says Dylan Gunn, who is now Director of the UBC Engineering Physics Project Lab, “and we learned a lot of stuff the hard way, but the insights were invaluable.”
At that time, UBC research-based spinoff companies (Boreal included) seeking mentorship and guidance for venture-based thinking and leadership skills were generally required to look outside the university. Over the last decade, however, UBC has developed a whole suite of supports to support entrepreneurially-minded researchers. These include entrepreneurship@UBC (which Talbot fittingly became the inaugural executive director of, from 2013 to 2016), and an ecosystem of partnerships it has helped to develop across the university, such as HATCH Venture Builder.
A Progressive Vision: evolving at UBC
Boreal operated out of an office space on UBC’s Point Grey campus for the duration of its lifespan (15 years). “This was critical to our success.” says Marziali of how these logistics afforded him to concurrently run both engineering physics and Boreal on campus. “The co-location also provided a lot of opportunities to inspire current and prospective students: through frequent open houses and tours, showcasing first hand what can be achieved with a degree in engineering physics.”
Gunn led Boreal’s engineering team through seven major iterations and three product launches. He attributes much of the success of Boreal, and indeed the engineering physics program in general, to Marziali’s progressive vision for collaborative lab work. Lead engineer at the Stanford DNA Sequencing and Technology Center before he returned to UBC as an assistant professor 1998, Marziali channeled a lot of what he learned there into establishing the Applied Biophysics Lab — a new-to-UBC laboratory structure that would create an ideal environment for shaping the foundations for Boreal, as well as training the next generation of BC’s biotech talent. A critical aspect of the lab’s innovative nature was that it overcame the issue of research staff (aka students) turning over each term. Here, staff stayed on for two or more years, allowing these researchers, the research and the tech to really evolve.
When Gunn graduated from the engineering physics program, he immediately joined the lab. “For the first time at UBC” says Gunn, “we had a lab that focussed on actually building the tools that were needed to do the work. You can't sequence DNA or read the human genome unless you have a tool to do that, and if those tools don't exist, someone has to build them. Andre was saying: Why not here? Why not us?” A culture of team-based biotech engineering evolved, fostering a unique environment in which research and tech-based teams collaborated to build tools that could facilitate solutions and create positive impacts on the medical industry. The talent that thrived in this lab experience includes Robin Coope and Jared Slobodan, who played lead roles at Coastal Genomics (and other companies), with Coope going on to lead the Genome BC/BCCancer Agency Technology Development group, and co-inventing the technology for CurvaFix (another UBC spin-off company). The lab also trained Vincent Tabard-Cossa, who founded Northern Nanopore, and Carl Hansen, who founded AbCellera, yet another UBC spin-off company.
By 2013, Boreal had developed tremendous accuracy of DNA sequencing for tumour detection. Essentially a blood test for cancer, the technology could detect 96 common mutations seen in at least eight cancer types including: lung; breast; colorectal; ovarian; pancreatic; skin; bladder and endometrial cancers. To grasp the essence of the technology and why it was so remarkable, imagine the largest book you’ve ever read — James Joyce’s Ulysses (265,000 words) or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (257,045 words) — and imagine that it has a typo, just one (a cancer cell). While other technologies were scanning those “texts” and flagging a lot of potential typos (false positives), which would then have to be manually inspected and verified, Boreal could sift through the entire text and filter down to the exact error, providing a definitive sample assessment. As for the “books” being scanned (blood plasma), a single drop of blood contains billions of strands of DNA, so in actuality, it would be more like scanning 8000 Harry Potter-sized volumes to find a single typo. And Boreal could do it.
BC Biomedical Sector: Boreal’s tech and talent legacy
With the technology at a pivot point of requiring significant scaling, Boreal was acquired in 2021, with an exit valuation that greatly exceeded anyone's expectations. Talbot, through the newly established Aqua Mergers and Acquisitions, helped facilitate the sale. “Boreal had a scarce asset and the technology is complex and hard for people to get their heads around, but Andre was extremely well-connected in the industry and had a massive amount of credibility” says Talbot. “Aqua was more than happy to work with them again, and fortunate to be able to create tension and a competitive dynamic around the sale. They moved quickly and decisively and did everything they could do to protect the technology, which is a real testament to them.”
“I have no doubt that it will go on to be transformative with this company that has the infrastructure and ability to scale it; they've protected the tech and will roll it out en masse” says Talbot. “This technology is going to make a massive difference in people's lives, which is what the team always wanted for it.”
Boreal’s legacy is also in its talent incubation of biomedical research engineers. Boreal employees have gone on to take executive roles in BC companies, including Carlyn Loncaric (who went on to found and become CEO of VodaSafe) and Taylor Cooper (CEO at MistyWest). Led by Gunn, Boreal’s engineering team also played a role in supporting Vancouver’s tech ecosystem and other emerging UBC spin-offs, including Aspect Biosystems and Precision Nanosystems, Coastal Genomics and the Genome Science Centre, through an informal peer-mentoring network that allowed the opportunity for collaborative problem solving of shared technical and manufacturing struggles.
This continuum of connections, Marziali (who is now an advisor at Aqua Mergers and Acquisitions) points out, shows the collaborative and generous nature of the UBC and Vancouver technology community, "I’m lucky to be part of this community that is so ready to give time and mentoring to new entrepreneurs. I am delighted knowing that young entrepreneurs coming out of UBC, and start-ups like Boreal, will benefit from the same exceptional experience."