On this page
- Promising treatments enter clinical trials
- Boosting biomanufacturing capabilities for CAR T-cell production
- Success stories
- Further milestones in cancer treatment
- A comprehensive platform for research into brain health and wellness
- Remote biosensing software for more robust telehealth
- New partnerships to promote pandemic preparedness
- Joint funding with the UK for therapeutic manufacturing and product development
- A compact platform for food pathogen detection in remote communities
- A digital approach to heart failure assessment
- Support for next-generation antibody therapies
Improving the health of people in Canada through research and innovation
One of the most important areas of our work is advancing technologies that have the potential to improve health and save lives. We pursued numerous such projects throughout 2024–2025, driving momentum toward lifesaving new cell and gene therapies, stronger domestic biomanufacturing processes, and more.
Promising treatments enter clinical trials
Two novel treatments co-developed by experts in our Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre entered clinical trials in 2024–2025: a vaccine for Haemophilus influenzae type a (Hia) and a new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.
The Hia vaccine, which began in 2012 as a joint development effort between the NRC and the Public Health Agency of Canada, entered clinical trials in 2024–2025, in collaboration with Dalhousie University and McGill University and with the support of our licensee, InventVacc Inc. Hia is a bacterial infection that can lead to pneumonia, lethal meningitis, septic arthritis and bloodstream infections. This milestone brings us closer to a new vaccine that can protect people in Canada and around the world from this dangerous infection.
The other therapy that entered clinical trials in 2024–2025 was the first fully made-in-Canada CAR T-cell therapy, which modifies a specific type of white blood cell, the T-cell, so it can target and destroy cancer cells in the body. Infused with the CAR gene, T-cells can recognize and bind to a specific protein on the surface of cancer cells, killing those cells while sparing healthy ones. The highly targeted nature of this therapy significantly increases efficacy against difficult-to-treat cancers, and CAR T-cell therapies targeting the CD19 protein on leukemia and lymphoma cells have already helped patients worldwide.
Enabled by our Cell and Gene Therapy Challenge program, development of this therapy was a collaboration with the Canadian-led Immunotherapies in Cancer program (which was founded by researchers at The Ottawa Hospital, BC Cancer and BioCanRx) and funded by our Collaborative Science, Technology and Innovation Program (CSTIP). The NRC's key contribution to this CAR T-cell therapy was the development of a nanobody to target the CD22 protein on leukemia and lymphoma cells, along with support for the selection of the lead targeting nanobody.
With subsequent national competitive grant funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, clinical trials are running in multiple sites across Canada, focusing on pediatric and young adult lymphoblastic leukemia. The team also secured funding from CSTIP, Ovarian Cancer Canada and BioCanRx for a Phase I clinical trial with BC Cancer of another novel CAR T-cell therapy construct for ovarian cancer and other solid tumors. If successful in preclinical and clinical trials, these therapies could lead to development of fully made-in-Canada treatments that will greatly benefit cancer patients at home and abroad.
"I am so proud that we have made a major breakthrough in developing these CAR-T products in Canada. From my earliest days in the field of antibody engineering, I've dreamed of developing therapeutic products that could remedy patients with cancers and other diseases and improve lives. It is my dream that, before my retirement, these CAR T-cell therapies and other antibody-based products are ready to treat solid and non-solid cancers in patients across Canada and around the world."
"It is very exciting to work on such innovative projects as novel CAR T-cell therapies, which are, quite literally, life-changing solutions for relapsed and refractory cancer patients. With our NRC colleagues, BC Cancer is thrilled that our CAR T-cell therapy targeting CD22 is now in clinical trials. We are very optimistic that this will pave the way to making other made-in-Canada therapies available and accessible for patients in Canada."
Boosting biomanufacturing capabilities for CAR T-cell production
Cell and gene therapies like CAR T-cell therapy hold a lot of promise in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. But existing approved CAR T-cell therapies are manufactured outside Canada, making them expensive and leading to long wait times to access them—time cancer patients can't afford. This is why we need to enhance the biomanufacturing capacity of Canadian hospitals, many of which currently lack on-site facilities to produce the vectors and cells used in CAR T-cell therapy.
Our Cell and Gene Therapy Challenge program made progress on this issue in 2024–2025, supporting investments for collaborative projects that aim to make cell and gene therapies more accessible and affordable, and contributing to a network of centres with the capacity for on-site CAR T-cell production. By facilitating manufacturing, enabling multi-site trials, and aiding product development and design, the network will help bring down costs and help make these lifesaving therapies accessible to more people in Canada and abroad.
Further milestones in cancer treatment
The efforts of our Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre to find and advance treatments for cancer yielded further milestones in 2024–2025. The NRC's lentivirus vector will help advance cancer research globally. This new vector will serve as a consistent reference for assessing the effectiveness of in-development cancer immunotherapies. Six thousand vials of this lentiviral reference material have been prepared and can be distributed for use to labs across Canada and around the world, ensuring the quality and quantity they report is comparable to that of other studies using the same vector.
Additionally, in November 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the cancer therapy Ziihera®. Used to treat bile-duct and gallbladder cancer, the therapy was developed by the NRC-supported Canadian biotherapeutics company Zymeworks. The approval follows years of research and development, during which we provided the biologics expertise and laboratory resources that helped Zymeworks select and validate its lead candidate and secure strategic partnerships with multinational pharmaceutical companies.
A comprehensive platform for research into brain health and wellness
Developed by our Medical Devices Research Centre, the virtual reality platform for cognitive care, bWell, is evolving into a tool for studying brain health and wellness. By using AI to bring together and analyze cognitive assessments, digital health tracking and biological data analysis, bWell 2.0 provides a comprehensive view of individual health that could help researchers better understand the relationship between behaviour, thinking and biology.
In 2025, the bWell team furthered development of the updated platform with new functionality for emotion detection (through analysis of facial muscles and heart rate) and saliva sample analysis. We also launched a new industrial project with a Montréal-based company looking to apply bWell for stress and sleep management. The new version of bWell even has applications outside the medical clinic, such as for high-performance athlete training.
Remote biosensing software for more robust telehealth
Developed by our Medical Devices Research Centre, the VitalSeer software makes it possible to measure heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation through the camera on a computer or mobile device. Backed by rigorous scientific testing, this remote biosensing capability has the potential to keep patients out of emergency rooms by allowing them to monitor their vital signs from home, making it possible to provide accurate, high-quality data to healthcare providers during phone or virtual consultations.
The team is now working to test and validate VitalSeer to ensure medical-grade performance, as well as investigating the potential for continuous monitoring to assess additional markers such as balance and stability, further supporting the well-being of older adults who wish to age in place.
New partnerships to promote pandemic preparedness
In 2024–2025, the NRC's expertise in rapid screening, bioprocess development and analytics was put forward as part of several successful Canadian Biomedical Research Fund proposals to advance strategies and technologies that will support future pandemic response. Through the funded projects, we will explore rapid diagnostics and surveillance platforms for infectious threats, rapid and scalable vaccine and therapeutics manufacturing, AI-enabled therapeutics and vaccine components, and other initiatives across multiple NRC research centres.
These projects will strengthen Canada's defence against emerging viruses while accelerating innovation in the life sciences sector. In addition, our clinical trial material facility has joined a network of other facilities that are compliant with good manufacturing practices (GMP), supporting partnerships that will help understand and address gaps in the Canadian biomanufacturing ecosystem.
Joint funding with the UK for therapeutic manufacturing and product development
Addressing global challenges in critical sectors like biomanufacturing and pandemic preparedness is the focus of the Canada–UK Biomanufacturing Collaboration, a joint initiative between the NRC and UK Research and Innovation. Since the memorandum of cooperation was signed in June 2023, 2 joint calls for proposals were launched by the organizations.
Through those calls, Canada and the UK have jointly awarded funding to 5 projects in round 1, and an additional 9 projects awarded in early 2025–2026. Each project was proposed by consortiums that include small and medium-sized enterprises in both countries and research institutions including the NRC labs in some cases.
These projects include the development of an AI-driven platform that could accelerate and improve drug discovery, as well as the creation of automated biomanufacturing devices for antibody drug conjugate production that can enhance efficiency and reduce costs. For Canada, this work will help increase readiness for future public health challenges and keep the country at the forefront of biomanufacturing innovation.
A compact platform for food pathogen detection in remote communities
A team of researchers is using the NRC's PowerBlade platform to help Indigenous communities in Canada's North combat the growing threat of food contamination caused by pathogens resulting from climate change and industrial activity. Developed by our Medical Devices Research Centre, PowerBlade is a compact centrifuge that uses lab-on-a-chip technology to rapidly detect pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria. It offers an on-site alternative to conventional methods of testing food safety, which are slow and impractical in remote regions.
This project is a collaboration with Health Canada, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents 26 First Nations in northern Manitoba. Working directly with First Nations communities, the team will co-develop training and support programs to further refine the platform to better meet specific community needs.
A digital approach to heart failure assessment
Each year, more than 100,000 people in Canada are diagnosed with congestive heart failure, which highlights the need for faster, more cost-effective heart failure screening methods. Experts from our Medical Devices Research Centre are working with the Quebec-based HOP Tech to explore digital approaches for assessing patients for signs of heart failure.
The method being studied combines machine learning algorithms with digital biomarkers from wearable devices and smartphone apps—work that could lead to a faster, more accessible way of identifying signs of heart failure compared to blood tests, questionnaires and physical assessments.
Support for next-generation antibody therapies
With support from NRC IRAP and bispecific antibody development expertise from our Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre, Vancouver-based biotech startup Reverb Therapeutics advanced an innovative antibody-based platform called Amplify•R™. The platform is able to redirect naturally produced cytokines (small proteins that trigger the immune system) to target specific tissues, such as cancerous tumours.
Reverb Therapeutics secured $12 million in seed funding to further the development and clinical study of the promising platform, which could one day save lives in Canada and around the world.