World Class Company

Edmonton organizations don’t shy away from the limelight. We are a hotbed of innovation in scientific and medical research. Along with cutting-edge advanced technologies sectors, we have the largest, highest-rated health region in Canada.

Here is one of the many Edmonton companies winning world recognition right now:

BioMS Medical

Canadians have one of the highest rates of Multiple Sclerosis in the world. It strikes without warning, affecting vision, hearing, memory, balance, and mobility. There is no cure – but thanks to an organization right here in Edmonton, the world is on the verge of receiving a breakthrough treatment.

The University of Alberta recruited Dr. Ken Warren, a neurologist with a special interest in MS, in 1978. By 1981 his partner, Ingrid Catz, began working with him on the slow, but ultimately revolutionary project that became BioMS. The pair decided to study secondary progressive MS, which has much more debilitating symptoms and had been studied very little at that time.

Warren and Catz hypothesized that a particular antibody was attacking nerves and creating the short circuits MS patients suffer from. If they could slow or stop the body from making the antibody, they could potentially put patients in remission and perhaps avoid the side effects of other MS drugs. In 1986 they successfully isolated the antibody and the exact portion of the myelin protein it was attached to.

For 20 years the pair traveled Alberta, taking spinal fluid samples from MS patients in their homes and working with an extremely limited budget. In the mid-1990s they met Cliff Giese whose wife, Robin, suffered from MS. One morning Giese learned that the lab freezers had broken down and he had them replaced by that afternoon. He passionately rallied a group of investors behind BioMS, and to this day he is still chair of the board.

In clinical trials, the BioMS drug, dirucotide, has successfully delayed progression in MS patients. Today this is the only novel therapy in phase 3 trials for secondary MS in the world. Giese’s wife, Robin, has been successfully treated for her MS.

2008 was a monumental year for BioMS. The largest licensing agreement for an un-marketed product was made between BioMS and the American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company, BioMS went on to win a Licensing Deal of the Year Award at the Scrip Awards in London, England.

All this international attention isn’t beyond BioMS. Ryan Giese, VP of Corporate Communications, says, "The recognition has been huge for the company. The research started at one site in Edmonton at the University, and BioMS now has trials globally, with 140 trial sites in 17 countries with over 1300 patients."

Giese says Edmonton played a very important role in the success of BioMS. "The technology was discovered at the University of Alberta and the University is recognized as a leader in North America for their research."

So what’s next for BioMS? They are expecting data from the MAESTRO-01 trial, taking place in Canada and Europe, in the second half of 2009. Pending the results and FDA approval dirucotide could be made available to potentially 2.5 million MS sufferers world-wide.