The Canadian Alliance for Training and Skills Development in the Life Sciences (CASTL) will open a biomanufacturing training center at Technopôle Angus in the fall. An important milestone for the east of Montreal, whose objective is to become an innovation zone based on personalized health.
It’s an open secret that this sector of the city is seeking to create an innovation zone on the same footing as Sherbrooke (quantum sciences), Bromont (intelligent electronic systems) and Saguenay (aluminum).
In this case, thanks to the presence, among others, of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, the Montreal Heart Institute and the integrated university health and social services center of Est-de-l’ Île-de-Montréal (CIUSS-EMTL), it was decided to bet on personalized health care, that is to say, tailor-made and no longer generic.
The arrival of CASTL is therefore part of this logic, argues Hugues Beaulieu, biochemist and project manager for the Personalized Health zone.
It is one of the pieces of the puzzle that we need. We need a manpower training center that is agile. This is what CASTL offers, which chose the site based on the future innovation zone.
Hugues Beaulieu, biochemist and project manager for the personalized health zone
500 students
CASTL’s Montreal facilities will occupy 600 square meters in a Technopôle Angus building, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2023. The location will be equipped with laboratories, state-of-the-art equipment and classrooms designed to offer training in in biomanufacturing processes, including vaccine manufacturing and cell culture.
Eventually, 20 people will work there. CASTL Montreal aims to welcome 500 students per year. The project will require an investment of around 10 million dollars, according to Paul-Xavier Etter, technical director of CASTL.
“Yes, it will be for theory, but above all for practice,” he explains. And the Montreal touch will be artificial intelligence. Our equipment will be connected to computers. We are going to do 4.0 and we are going to help companies that want to take this turn. »
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, THE PRESS
Paul-Xavier Etter, technical director of CASTL
And who will benefit from CASTL’s laminar flow hoods, cell expansion bioreactors and other continuous centrifuges? “From employees to senior executives of private companies to post-secondary students,” says Etter. We will also welcome people who do not work directly in biomanufacturing, including researchers, purchasing managers, etc. »
Global reach
East of Montreal is not yet officially recognized by the government as an innovation zone. But everything seems to indicate that an announcement could be made to this effect by the end of 2023, believes Hugues Beaulieu, also an employee of the Montreal Heart Institute.
Thanks to cellular, gene and precision therapy, sectors where the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital excels, personalized health care will take on more and more space, maintains Mr. Beaulieu.
In our opinion, as soon as our innovation zone is recognized, there will be a snowball effect.
Hugues Beaulieu, biochemist and project manager for the personalized health zone
New researchers and new companies will come to settle in Montreal, he adds.
The resulting ecosystem will probably have to be housed in a new innovation center that could be built at the Technopôle Angus, hopes the project manager, who prefers not to announce anything for the moment.
CASTL was born in 2019 in Prince Edward Island (PEI), where the life sciences sector has exploded in recent years. The organization is already working with other Canadian provinces on training. But this will be the first time it has opened facilities outside of PEI.