Montreal precision medicine giant CellCarta and real estate company Jadco announced on Thursday a $350 million investment to transform the former Montreal Chest Institute into an international research center specializing in life sciences and life technologies. health.
The investment will span approximately five years and transform the buildings located just south of Avenue des Pins on Saint-Urbain Street in the Plateau-Mont-Royal district, which previously comprised the Chest Institute, affiliated with the McGill University Health Center (MUHC). At the borough’s request, certain facades and certain architectural elements will be kept, but the objective is to raise the final building to a height similar to that of the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), located just facing Saint-Urbain.
This entirely private investment is a delight for the borough mayor, Luc Rabouin. “It was important for me to have this new center in my borough, in a somewhat neglected neighborhood. It is an economically important sector of activity for Montreal. »
According to him, the arrival of hundreds of high-level professionals will revitalize the Milton-Parc district, just next door, and a stretch of Saint-Laurent Boulevard. Luc Rabouin is not afraid of a gentrification effect similar to that produced by the creation of an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in Parc-Extension. “The Milton-Parc district has the highest concentration of housing cooperatives in Canada, a large part of the buildings is protected, we will ensure that there are still affordable housing units in the area. »
Inspire organic innovations
The project, officially called Inspire bio innovations, will be carried out in two phases. The first is to renovate the premises to accommodate CellCarta’s head office, currently located in the Complexe des sciences Pierre-Dansereau at UQAM. The second phase will begin later this year and will stretch until 2025. It aims to bring together researchers, start-ups and companies specializing in health technologies and cutting-edge medical research.
Normand Rivard, Associate Director of Jadco Real Estate Corporation, is delighted with the location of his new complex. It responds to a repeated request from the Quebec health sector to be closer to the city center, its hospitals and its universities. The project is inspired by what has made Boston famous, in particular.
“Researchers and investors all want labs in the city, which didn’t exist,” says the Duty Norman Rivard. It’s a chance to develop a center like there are in Toronto and Boston. »
“We already have an anchor partner in CellCarta, who can support start-ups in developing new solutions. Alongside the IRCM, we are at the heart of medical research, with the Center hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal and the MUHC, we think we can attract innovative projects within our walls and create an accelerator for innovation that will be truly unique. »
CellCarta refocuses
Little known to the general public, CellCarta is a multinational company with 1,050 employees — including 350 in Montreal — which specializes in precision medicine. Formerly known as Caprion, the company, whose main investor is the New York firm Arsenal Capital Partners, has eleven laboratories on four continents. Since its main leaders are located in Montreal, it was essential for it to have a major head office.
“It was important to consolidate our activities in Montreal, explains the co-founder and CEO of CellCarta, Martin LeBlanc. We started here. We continue to believe that Montreal is a favorable place for the kind of research that is carried out in immunology, proteomics, and others. Montreal’s institutional expertise is hard to find elsewhere. »
Precision medicine is an area of health sciences that is experiencing strong growth today. CellCarta, whose annual turnover exceeds 100 million, has moreover doubled in size in four years. Precision medicine takes the form of specialized and personalized care that makes it possible to better treat patients suffering from serious diseases, such as cancers. This touches on fields such as oncology, infectious diseases and neuroscience.
One of the reasons for the rise of this type of medicine is the increasingly important use of big data and artificial intelligence. The geographical proximity between its new premises and Mila, a research center specializing in AI located a few intersections away, does not escape the big boss of CellCarta.
“With the advanced complexity of new drugs and the discovery of biomarkers, data processing is more demanding and more multidisciplinary, says Martin LeBlanc. It takes AI and all kinds of new analytical techniques. We cannot not be interested in it, especially since we are leaders in AI in Montreal. »