In BC 77,000 people will suffer from cancer this year. Precision medicine, which seeks to provide the patient with the right dose of the right treatment at the right time, represents a significant opportunity to improve outcomes for these patients. These breakthrough advances in cancer care create significant economic opportunities. Precision oncology requires diagnostics, testing pipelines, drugs, data solutions, decision making support systems and many more elements that are all developed and supplied by innovative biotech companies.

British Columbia’s strength of competitive expertise in molecular medicine that spans across academic, public health and industry uniquely positions us to be a leader in precision medicine for cancer treatment. We propose harnessing these BC-based strengths to form a cohesive ecosystem that will foster opportunities to accelerate the development of cancer diagnostics and treatment. This Precision Oncology Cluster (POC) will ultimately support a dynamic and healthy innovation ecosystem, where researchers, therapeutics and diagnostic industry, peripheral industries, investors, clinicians and patients will have the opportunity to collaborate to tackle common challenges and pursue shared opportunities.

Genome BC will coordinate engagement activities for the establishment of a Precision Oncology Cluster (POC) capitalizing on BC's oncology strength. Activities of the project include: consulting with stakeholders (industries, academia institutions, research and not-for-profit organizations) with the aim of seeking commitment to providing on-going support to cluster development, creating a governance board with members from industry, academia and government, organizing a virtual POC ignition summit to bring stakeholders together and developing and sharing a POC development plan with recommendations on how to accelerate POC growth and sustainability.

Notes: Appendix B, Section 1 b) indicates that Genome BC must maintain the confidentiality of the Agreement between PacifiCan and Genome BC until PacifiCan announces it publicly, which did not occur.