Our health care system is struggling with challenges in funding, staffing and the deep scars left by the coronavirus pandemic. But Canada is also leading the world in research for the chronic diseases that put the most pressure on our health care system.

Canada has the ability and talent to launch the moon shots that lead to next-generation treatments utilizing stem cell and gene therapy or regenerative medicine. We just need the ambition to do it. The reality today is Canada lags behind other nations in translating research success into health innovation, as was acknowledged recently by the federal governments Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System. Its time to address the obstacles in the way.

Advanced medical research in Canada is making dramatic progress with discoveries that have the potential to heal damaged organs, reverse the effects of chronic conditions and create economic growth. Policymakers and government officials should support and fund life-science innovations so the benefits of our discoveries are realized here and take pressure off our health care system. This means following through on targeted medical research until advanced therapies are ready to benefit patients in large numbers.

For example, Canadian researchers have discovery projects underway with the potential to cure Type 1 diabetes, which requires patients to regularly inject insulin. A broad network of research and innovation experts are working to improve the function of insulin-producing stem cells that can be transplanted into diabetes patients in a project led by the University of Torontos Medicine by Design and UHNs McEwen Stem Cell Institute. Its a transformative therapy that could make certain types of diabetes curable rather than a lifelong condition. Once realized, these new therapies can free up health care resources for other ailments.

This project, among others at Medicine by Design, is made possible by the federal governments $114-million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund in 2016. It has produced positive results toward the goal of ending diabetes, but its funding is based on a date on the calendar and its due to end this year.

Our goal for a diabetes cure should be on par with other big societal challenges like climate change. But there is a lack of funding and policy support to take our best research discoveries and provide them with the resources to get homegrown treatments into the clinic faster.

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Projects on track to be successful are often stymied when their funding expires. When that happens, these projects and the research talent behind them may relocate to other countries. So Canada starts the research with heavy taxpayer investment, but often loses out on the economic benefits flowing from the breakthroughs.

We must provide a complete path for promising discoveries. That means providing resources for taking projects all the way to scaleup, regulatory approval and the clinic. As outlined by the advisory panel, increased investment in world-leading discovery research is essential to ensure a pipeline of new opportunities. But we also need a strategic approach to support promising scientific discoveries based on reaching ambitious targets.

What does success look like? New made-in-Canada advances will keep more people out of hospital. Patients whose treatment options are now limited will have a much higher quality of life. And long-term economic growth and high-paying career opportunities in life science and biomanufacturing, two important sectors of the global innovation economy.

Regenerative medicine can help reinvent a health-care system where common diseases and chronic treatments are a thing of the past, or require much less medical care. Canada can be a world leader in exporting these advances.

The missing ingredients are a strategic framework, research funding that targets innovation goals and the ambition to launch medical research moon shots.

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Canadian scientists discovered stem cells now give them the tools to end diabetes - Toronto Star