Charlottetown, PE – From June 10-11 and 14-18, Atlantic Canadian delegates virtually convened at BIO Digital 2021 alongside more than 6,000 conference participants for 7 days of programming, networking, and BIO One-on-One Partnering, connecting biotech innovators across the globe. Organized by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and typically held as an in-person convention, for the second year, the conference was hosted online with representatives from 16 Atlantic Canadian bioscience companies, who conducted more than 200 partnership meetings. This year’s conference inspired important discussion within its four themes: How Biotech Changed COVID, How COVID changed Biotech, Case Studies in Innovation and Bioeconomy in the Future.

At BIO Digital 2021, the Atlantic Canada Bio-Industries Alliance promoted the growing bioscience sectors of each of the four Atlantic provinces with the aim to increase export sales, get more technologies to market, attract further investments, hire talented employees, and showcase the achievements and capabilities of Atlantic Canada’s sector. Today, Atlantic Canada’s bioscience sector employs more than 3,000 workers and represents $655 million in revenue from upward of 200 companies and at least 50 research organizations.

One of the key highlights was the Coast-to-Coast Competition, a Canadian pitch event hosted by BIOTECanada which featured pre-commercial biotech and life sciences companies who presented to a panel of leaders from the healthcare investment & VC community. New Brunswick-based Soricimed Biopharma, a clinical stage company focused on the development and commercialization of first-in-class drugs for the targeted treatment of cancer, was one of the finalists that pitched in the competition.

“BIO Digital was a great opportunity to present Soricimed to the international biotech community and to initiate discussions with potential collaboration partners. The event was well-organized and also provided a chance for us to engage with a number of groups that could assist us with our planned clinical trials next year,” said Robert Bruce, CEO, Soricimed Biopharma. “It was a real pleasure to participate in the BIOTECanada Coast-to-Coast competition and we were very impressed with the quality of the other presenting companies. It’s incredible to see so much innovative development happening across Canada’s life sciences sector.”

Funding for the mission was provided by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and the four Atlantic provincial governments through the Atlantic Trade and Investment Growth Strategy. The Atlantic Canadian mission was coordinated by the PEI BioAlliance, on behalf of the Atlantic Canada Bio-Industries Alliance. The Atlantic Canada Bio-Industries Alliance is an umbrella organization comprised of BioNB, BioNova, TechNL and the PEI BioAlliance.

The official delegates of the Atlantic Canadian mission at BIO Digital 2020 were:

• Alpha Cognition (PE)
• Appili (NS)
• Ardea Outcomes (NS)
• BioTrace IT (PE)
• BioVectra Inc. (PE)
• Clever Fruit (NS)
• DeCell (NS)
• Nota Bene Bio Matrix Inc. (NB)
• New Brunswick Health Research Foundation (NB)
• PEI BioAlliance (PE)
• Picomole Inc. (NB)
• Sequence BIO (NL)
• Soricimed Biopharma (NB)
• Synapse (PE)
• The Center for Aquaculture Technologies (PE)
• Université de Moncton (NB)