What We Do

Industry-wide, for every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds that enter preclinical testing, only one is eventually approved for marketing. In fact, developing a new drug can take 10-15 years and cost over $2 billion. This creates even more barriers for discovery in rarer diseases.

The CMC is changing the landscape of pharmaceutical innovation by taking a different approach from traditional drug discovery in three main ways:

1. Design with purpose - a compound is designed from scratch to do a specific job rather than mass screening compounds hoping for a hit.
2. Focused expertise - neglected diseases are a primary focus along with several forms of cancer.
3. Accelerating academic drug discovery – using an integrated approach the CMC can save 31 weeks in drug discovery processes and within six (6) weeks get a molecule to preclinical trials in mice.

Led by Professor Patrick Gunning, the CMC has already achieved notable scientific breakthroughs, has attracted significant investments to advance its work, and has resulted in the creation of several companies and numerous job opportunities. In just a short time, it has become a top-tier player within the Greater Toronto region’s burgeoning life sciences sector.

The CMC will provide academics and affiliated researchers with:

• Training programs to develop future drug discovery scientists and entrepreneurs
• World class infrastructure to conduct rapid interdisciplinary drug discovery
• Animal facilities and other cutting-edge capabilities to evaluate candidate molecules rapidly, and effectively in preclinical trials
• Technical and project management support to plan and conduct critical go/no-go experiments
• An entrepreneurial network to foster translation and commercialization of basic research including connection to pharma and venture capital
• Incubation space and support for affiliated new company start-ups
• One of the most energy-efficient biological and chemical laboratory facilities in North America