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RBC Thought Leadership AI, Technology and Innovation Canada’s Biotech Challenge
AI, Technology and Innovation
AI, Technology and Innovation

Canada's Biotech Challenge

Canadian medical research has produced breakthrough after breakthrough. But too often, the companies behind the science scale elsewhere.

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Canadian medical research has produced breakthrough after breakthrough. But too often, the companies behind the science scale elsewhere, and the talent, revenue and ownership goes, too.

On the latest episode of Disruptors, Clarissa Desjardins, co-founder and CEO of Montreal’s Congruence Therapeutics, talks with host John Stackhouse about what it will take to change that, all while AI and China reshape drug discovery.

FAQs

Clarissa Desjardins is a Montreal-based scientist and serial biotech entrepreneur, and co-founder and CEO of Congruence Therapeutics. Congruence is her fourth company. She previously founded Clementia Pharmaceuticals, co-founded Caprion Pharmaceuticals, and started her first company while completing a Ph.D. at the Montreal Neurological Institute. 

Congruence Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that uses computational tools, including machine learning and protein-structure simulation, to discover small-molecule drugs. Its approach aims to reduce the trial and error of early drug discovery. Its first drug candidate is in clinical trials, with further programs expected to follow.

The episode examines the state of the global biotech industry—which has seen China rapidly industrialize drug discovery and AI transform how drugs are found—and Canada’s place in it. Clarissa Desjardins and John Stackhouse discuss why Canada’s strong scientific expertise has not translated into a burgeoning domestic industry, and what the country should do now.

The biotech industry provides economic growth and national resilience. As China becomes a major source of new drugs, Canada’s ability to discover, develop and produce its own medicines is increasingly a question of sovereignty.

There are two shifts dominating: AI and computational tools are shortening early drug discovery, while China has built state-backed, round-the-clock drug discovery operations producing clinic-ready candidates efficiently. That changes the economics for North American biotech firms, and is pushing them toward novel technologies and harder-to-treat diseases.

Desjardins argues Canada should mobilize more domestic capital, take more “shots on goal” with new companies, and improve R&D tax credits and talent attraction. She wants Canadian investors to back companies through to global scale. John Stackhouse adds that biotech belongs in Canada’s sovereignty agenda, supported by policy, capital and education.

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