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TFRI News | October 16, 2019

An Update from our President

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"We continue to move forward with all the necessary plans for the development of the new network."

In our June 2019 issue of Links, we provided a brief update on the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Networks (MOHCCN). We continue to move forward with all the necessary plans for the development of the new network.

We hope you will join us at the Canadian Cancer Research Conference on Monday, November 5th in Ottawa where we will make a brief presentation about the network.  For those who are unable to attend, I am pleased to share the following:

  • On July 11 in Moncton, New Brunswick we were pleased to have the Minister of Health Ginette Petitpas Taylor formally announce the investment of $150M, to be matched, over five years by the Government of Canada to TFRI.  See details about the announcement here.
  • Our discussions with Health Canada continue regarding federal funding of the network, but agreements will only be completed after the federal election next week.
  • Working groups are meeting to address key issues necessary to operationalize the network:  patients, data, platform, technologies, scientific questions the 15K cohort will address, health technology assessment, and agreements/intellectual property.
  • Many of you may already be familiar with the goals of the network, but they are worth articulating here:
  • Goal #1: More lives saved through precision cancer medicine
  • Goal #2: An improved paradigm for cancer research
  • Goal #3: Globally competitive Canadian cancer R&D centres in precision medicine
  • Goal #4: Grow and support the next generation of leaders and skilled personnel for precision cancer research and treatment

On a separate but related topic: We continue to work with representatives at Innovation, Science and Economic Development to finalize the Term Sheet for the Digital Health and Discovery Platform in collaboration with Imagia and our partners in the Artificial Intelligence community.

Finally, we wish to remind you that we have updated our TFRI logo and created new posters and PowerPoint presentations for your use at the CCRC meeting and in the future. These can be found online at  https://www.tfri.ca/funding-opportunities/policies-guideline-templates.

Should you have any questions about the Network, please send your inquiries to our Headquarters via email at info@tfri.ca. We look forward to seeing you in Ottawa.

 

Dr. Victor Ling, PhD, O.C., O.B.C.
TFRI President and Scientific Director