Oncopole is proud to announce, as part of its first EMC2 competition, an investment of close to $12M to support seven oncology projects in Quebec. This investment is made possible thanks to an unprecedented collaboration with leading funders, notably the Cancer Research Society, the CQDM and IRICoR. Together, the partners managed to double Oncopole’s initial budget, an initiative supported by Merck.
A first investment of $1.5M by the Cancer Research Society was announced in February. The CQDM brings $760,704 to co-fund a project through SynergiQc, its program aimed at stimulating industrial research in a university setting in the biopharmaceutical field. The CQDM’s contribution is made possible by the Ministère de l’Économie, de la Science et de l’Innovation du gouvernement du Québec (MESI) through the PSVT 2c program. Finally, IRICoR is supporting two drug discovery projects with a $600,000 contribution and Genome Quebec invested 2 M$ in projects with “omics” components.
“The EMC2 competition is an innovative and winning formula for discovering cancer treatments. Carrying out these seven promising projects will result in major breakthroughs in oncology, which will provide additional tools for healthcare professionals, and especially for patients and their family”, points out Gaétan Barrette, Minister of Health and Social Services.
The Oncopole’s EMC2 competition brings together the expertise and strengths from the Quebec oncology research community and fosters collaboration between disciplines and institutions. Through this initiative, Oncopole and its partners accelerate the mobilization of Quebec’s key players in order to tackle the public health challenge that cancer represents.
Following a competitive process and a thorough assessment of the 36 applications by an independent international peer review committee, seven projects were selected for funding. The teams made up of 61 investigators from 12 Quebec institutions will benefit from considerable financial support to continue their cutting-edge oncology research work.