Video of Zymeworks President and CEO Dr. Ali Tehrani announcing the collaboration with NRC to develop a pipeline of bi-specific antibodies against cancer and other diseases.
Video transcript
On screen:
BioTransfert 2014 - Toronto - March 18th, 2014
Presented by: National Research Council of Canada and FMB
Video provided by: Ontario Brain Institute
On screen: Presentation Slide - Ali Tehrani: Co-founder, President and CEO Zymeworks
It is a pleasure to be here, and it is a pleasure to co-announce this collaboration with the NRC.
On screen: Presentation Slide - Azymetric™ bi-specific antibody - engineered to target two cancer targets at once
(image of a molecule)
Molecule designed using Zymeworks' ZymeCAD™ in silico modeling platform
As Roman mentioned, even though we are officially announcing this collaboration now, this is something that we have been doing together for a very very long time and on behalf of the entire Zymeworks team, we are delighted to let everybody know what a fantastic group exists at the NRC and what a world class group of researchers and infrastructure exists at the NRC.
Part of what I wanted to highlight today is the fact that this collaboration with the NRC should serve as a template for pan-Canadian initiatives. When I was listening to the talks this morning, I noticed that as Julie was showing the graph of where all the collaborations are, there's very little in the West Coast, and we need to as a country show that we don't need to just be provinces, but we work as a national entity.
I'm a big believer that we can think it in Canada, we can create it in Canada, and we can commercialize it in Canada. We have wonderful researchers. We have wonderful institutions, and it is time that we keep it here as opposed to ship it down south.
This starts here. This starts in the 100 B2B meetings. This starts with listening to the great technology platforms that were presented this morning and taking that risk, taking that initiative, believing that here in Canada we have everything we need to do it.
I can confidently say that we have tremendously benefited from what NRC has to offer, and I am extremely confident about what we are about to do together, and that is the development of best in class biologics to treat cancer patients, not only here in Canada but also globally.
All the knowledge is available. All the innovation is available. What it takes is collaboration. There's a lot of wonderful organizations that are represented here today. The NRC is a fantastic trendsetter. They're open for business as they like to say, and I heavily encourage everybody to get involved with them, if not directly, indirectly. Pass the word on. This is the place to be.
This is the group to do your research with.
We are very very excited, and I look forward to the next three to five years and the products that will enter the clinic and eventually the market.
So thank you again and hopefully we'll be making new announcements here in the years to come together. Thank you.
On screen: National Research Council Canada. © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by National Research Council of Canada, 2014. Canada Wordmark.