Many researchers start thinking about translation/commercialization at the end of their project and often when it is too late. The goal of this workshop series is to get you thinking about the steps involved in the translation/commercialization of your research at the beginning of your project so that outcomes are better aligned with the target market and the odds of successful translation/commercialization are improved.

Workshops will cover:

• October 4th, 1pm-4pm: Strategies for connecting and communicating with industry to make a critical assessment of one’s research/technology and validate the market opportunity through primary and secondary market research.

• October 11th, 1pm-4pm: Intellectual property (IP) and the role IP plays in research translation/commercialization and how to conduct patentability and freedom-to-operate searches.

• October 18th, 1pm-4pm: Regulatory, quality, and clinical affairs including regulatory pathways (both Canada and US), quality requirements, design of pre-clinical studies and clinical trials.

• October 25th, 1pm-4pm: Commercialization strategies including licensing and start-up formation.

These workshops will equip graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with the skills and knowledge needed to improve the translation/commercialization potential beginning at the earliest stages of their research. The skills learned will be valued by both academia and industry will be helpful in the preparation of grant applications, identifying and building partnerships with industry and/or funding agencies, and in creating a greater awareness of Queen’s University and its research capabilities.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Michael Wells – Partnerships Development Office, Queen’s Partnerships & Innovation

Dr. Wells completed his MBA at Queen’s University and his Ph.D. in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. He has over 20 years’ experience in life science commercialization bridging early-stage company formation to country-level sales and marketing at a global pharmaceutical company, to his role technology transfer role at Queen’s.

Mr. Jason Hendry – Partnerships Development Office, Queen’s Partnerships & Innovation

Jason has over 20 years’ experience in early-stage technology development and commercialization. He started his career with Millenium Biologix (now Octane Medical) where he led the development and commercialization of the company’s artificial bone technology, a class II medical device that was in clinical use in the US, Canada, and Europe. Since 2007, Jason has been working at Queen’s in a technology transfer role, assessing the commercialization potential of technologies developed by Queen’s researchers, helping to secure intellectual property rights, and licensing those rights to industry partners.

Dr. Shoma Sinha – Partnerships Development Office, Queen’s Partnerships & Innovation

With a PhD in nanotechnology and an MBA in innovation an entrepreneurship, Shoma is passionate about supporting technology commercialization and the advanced technology ecosystem at large. Her experiences include: founding and growing non-profit organizations; developing and commercializing advanced materials technologies with startup/scaleup Quantiam Technologies; as well as supporting the growth of the provincial technology ecosystem with the Government of Alberta. As part of the later role, she developed and led a deep-tech accelerator program for recent advanced degree STEM graduates. Shoma joined QPI in February 2021.

Dr. Michael Jamieson – Regulatory, quality, and translational affairs advisor, Queen’s Partnerships & Innovation

After spending twenty-five years in the pharmaceutical, biologics and medical device industries Dr. Jamieson joined the Department of Regulatory and Quality Sciences at the University of Southern California in 2008 where he was the Associate Director of the International Center for Regulatory Science (ICRS) and an Assistant Professor. From 2019-2021, Dr. Jamieson was the Director for Clinical Translation at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Dr. Jamieson has just recently joined the Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation team as an advisor providing regulatory/translational/quality support to Queen’s researchers and local companies.