Biotechnology / Health / Life Science

Learn more about a few featured businesses in this sector that call Burnaby home:

Amgen
Amgen believes in the transformative power of science to bring the benefits of biotechnology to patients. Today, scientists at Amgen’s Canadian research facility in Burnaby work on the cutting edge between the traditional disciplines of chemistry, cellular and molecular biology in an effort to discover and develop pioneering medical treatments, helping patients in their fight against cancer, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, bone health and other serious illnesses. Amgen BC’s research centre is a custom-built, state-of-the-art laboratory, incorporating novel, proprietary technologies. Many of Amgen BC’s proprietary research innovations were developed or invented in BC – a testament to the tremendous scientific talent pool in the province. The Burnaby facility represents a robust and ongoing investment in the BC life sciences industry.

Life Labs
LifeLabs is a Canadian-owned company and is the country’s largest provider of community laboratory services. In communities across British Columbia and Ontario, LifeLabs delivers cost-effective, convenient access to laboratory testing services which are essential for optimal outcomes in health care. LifeLabs employs approximately 5,400 professionally trained staff and delivers over 100 million laboratory tests, supporting 19 million patient visits annually. For information, visit www.lifelabs.com.

Sorin Group
Sorin is a global, medical device company and a leader in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Sorin develops, manufactures, and markets medical technologies for cardiac surgery and for the treatment of cardiac rhythm disorders. With approximately 3,900 employees worldwide, Sorin focuses on two major therapeutic areas: Cardiac Surgery (cardiopulmonary products for open heart surgery and heart valve repair or replacement products) and Cardiac Rhythm Management (pacemakers, defibrillators and non invasive monitoring to diagnose and deliver anti-arrhythmia therapies as well as cardiac resynchronization devices for heart failure treatment).   At our Burnaby, BC facility we employ more than 350 highly dedicated individuals who design and manufacture stented, stentless and sutureless tissue heart valves that are distributed around the world.  For more information, visit www.sorin.com.

Tekmira
Tekmira is a publicly-traded (NASDAQ:TKMR, TSX:TKM) biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel therapies based on RNA interference (RNAi), a Nobel Prize winning discovery which harnesses the body’s natural mechanisms to treat serious diseases. Tekmira’s heritage lies within its world class lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology, which underpins the potential for RNAi to become a new class of therapeutics. Tekmira’s LNP is considered the industry gold standard and most widely used technology in RNAi delivery, enabling eight clinical trials and administered to well over 220 patients to date. Backed by best-in-class delivery, Tekmira has a diverse pipeline of three clinical stage assets, several pre-clinical programs and six partnered programs. Located in Metro Vancouver with a second office in Seattle Washington, the Company employs approximately 95 employees. For more information, visit www.tekmira.com.

Xenon Pharmaceuticals
We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing a pipeline of differentiated therapeutics for orphan indications that we intend to commercialize on our own, and for larger market indications that we intend to partner with global pharmaceutical industry leaders. We have built a core platform, which we call Extreme Genetics®, enabling the discovery of validated drug targets by studying rare human diseases with extreme traits, including diseases caused by mutations in ion channels, known as channelopathies. Our integrated platform has a full complement of in-house capabilities for human genetics and small molecule drug discovery, and for pre-clinical and clinical development.

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