Combining commercial and academic life on MaRS

The invasion of the deadly SARS virus, originating in China in 2002-2003, spurred a Toronto doctor and academic to think about how to track the movement of people and disease in real time and put that knowledge promptly into the hands of public health officials.

Photo: Dr. Kamran Khan

Today, Kamran Khan’s idea is at the heart of Bio.Diaspora, a program based in Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, which works with the Public Health Agency of Canada, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Taking ideas from hospitals and universities to the marketplace remains a big challenge for the country’s scientists and researchers, says Khan, a clinician scientist with St. Mike’s infectious diseases division, and an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s department of medicine.

Bio.Diaspora is not yet a company. To overcome this challenge, it has turned for advice and support to one of Canada’s leading innovation hubs, the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto, created by a partnership of industry, government, academia and entrepreneurs. Khan, 41, did his initial medical training at the University of Toronto, but it was during his post-graduate work at Cornell, Columbia and Harvard that he witnessed a deeply entrepreneurial culture.

How did your experience at Harvard and elsewhere in the U.S. influence you?

I saw a very different type of culture there—of fostering innovation and trying to spin off ideas into companies.

What is the culture here?

The processes are not as well laid out for scientists like myself. It’s a maze you have to go through to figure out exactly how to come out on the other side. How do you move from idea to creation of a technology and sale of that technology? This is really where the role of MaRS comes in.

Can you describe MaRS?

It’s a commercialization centre for academic institutions across Ontario. It has people in the legal field who deal with intellectual property. It has people in marketing and business planning. It would almost be like the tech transfer office at an academic institution; however, most academic institutions don’t have very large tech transfer offices.

What are the key challenges ahead in commercializing your idea?

To identify new clients, and to establish contracts and relationships that aren’t possible in an academic environment alone.

What have you learned in business with the help of MaRS?

I’ve learned an enormous amount about the importance of protecting intellectual property. Without it, others could come in and take some of the ideas that you’ve developed and commercialize them, perhaps reverse-engineer some of the stuff that you’ve created. In terms of finding potential investors, it’s a very important currency to have intellectual property protected.

What’s the next step?

To come up with a solid business plan.

Is there something you can say about the business model?

We have a web-based system that is operating around the clock. It’s fully operational today. I think we see ourselves largely in the space of licensing our technology and offering our consultation services to generate revenues. So many industries—for example, insurance companies—have very limited knowledge and expertise on how to deal with emerging infectious disease.

From a marketing standpoint, how do you make those contacts?

We’ve been very successful in reaching organizations through two mechanisms entirely related to traditional academic channels. The first has been publishing in peer-reviewed journals. We have publications in high-impact journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, and that has created an enormous amount of visibility in groups that happen to read those types of journals. We have been successful in engaging the media and creating stories around these publications. We don’t really have a marketing team at this point to actively pursue opportunities that might exist. And there are probably enormous opportunities that are just untapped.

What piqued your interest in this area?

When we publish information in medical literature and it reaches decision makers, the time for that decision has passed. My interest is to “operationalize” the science in real time so that decision makers, when they face an issue, have the appropriate information to make those decisions.

How does a doctor go about transforming himself into a businessperson?

The issue isn’t so much about transforming myself as recognizing where my strengths are and where the limitations of my expertise are. And working with people who can help fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.