In 2023, the Canadian biotech landscape showed stability, largely maintaining the financing levels of the previous year (USD 451 million in 2023 vs. USD 460 million in 2022), but falling short of the record year of 2021.
Ontario once again proved to be Canada’s most active province, with the highest number of biotech companies and the most assets available for out-licensing of any province. The top key activity for Canadian biotech – therapeutics and diagnostics companies is small molecule drugs, accounting for 18% of all key activities. The top therapeutic asset is oncology, followed by infectiology/parasitology and neurology.
2023 saw two initial public offerings of Canadian life science companies (enGene Holdings and Lucy Scientific Discovery) and significant M&A activity with notable deals involving Canadian company BELLUS Health (acquired by GSK) and Inversago Pharma (acquired by Novo Nordisk).
Many thanks to our partners Montréal InVivo, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization and BioAlberta, with whom this year’s report was produced.