Facit facilitates $750m in funding

Fight Against Cancer Innovation Trust (Facit), the seed-stage commercialisation unit allied to Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), yesterday declared that its portfolio business have secured a total of $750m through follow-on commitments and commercial partnerships.
The milestone was announced at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s International Convention in Philadelphia, during a Facit keynote presentation entitled “Ontario, Canada: A premier destination for discovery-to-commercialisation of cancer breakthroughs.”
Founded in 2014, Facit combines seed-stage investments with business accelerator services to advance oncology-driven businesses anchored in the Canadian province of Ontario, with many of the companies based on OICR’s research.
In providing early-stage funding, Facit aims to prevent intellectual property migrating to biotech hubs overseas and support local development to a level where healthy competition from VC investors and industry partners can drive greater market value.
Facit is funded by a $3m to $4m annual operating grant that has grown into $100m in assets now under its stewardship.
The $750m headline figure does not include milestone payments that could yet be realised from commercial partnerships, for instance potential forthcoming fees from the up to $1bn deal between Facit majority-owned cancer treatment company Triphase Accelerator and pharmaceutical firm Celgene announced in January 2019.
Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, said: “Today’s announcement underscores the importance of capitalising on the province’s investments in research and education, and our capacity to translate novel ideas into local biotech opportunities and R&D jobs for our emerging entrepreneurs and trainees.”