December 5, 2019 – FACIT congratulates Dr. Trevor Pugh, OICR’s Director of Genomics and Senior Principal Investigator, on being one of ten winners of the 2019 TD Ready Challenge. The TD Ready Challenge is a North American initiative that annually awards up to ten $1 million (CAD) grants to catalyze innovative solutions for a changing world; this year’s theme was helping to improve access to early detection and intervention for diseases.

The $1M award will support Dr. Pugh’s development work towards advancing a blood-based diagnostic for early cancer detection, in collaboration with Dr. Raymond Kim of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. The initial indication for the test will be those with hereditary cancer syndromes, including individuals with Lynch Syndrome and people that carry BRCA1/2 mutations.

This award highlights the globally competitive research enabled by OICR, further vetted by TD’s philanthropy initiative. As OICR’s commercialization venture partner, FACIT welcomes more private sector partners and venture philanthropy to the fight against cancer. For oncology patients to realize the benefits of philanthropy, exciting new technologies need to be fueled by novel public private ventures to spur innovation from the lab to the healthcare marketplace. OICR and FACIT support the development of breakthrough cancer diagnostics and look forward to the outcomes of this important research and translating its impact to patients with cancer.

Read further details here.

Contact:

Connie Chen, PhD | Senior Director, Strategy & Corporate Development, FACIT connie.chen@facit.ca