Varian establishes R&D centre in Montreal

MONTREAL – Varian, a global leader in developing and delivering multidisciplinary cancer care solutions headquartered in Palo Alto, California, announced the creation of a Montréal Centre of Innovation.

The Centre will focus on research and development of new health informatics technologies to expand Varian’s cancer care capabilities. Varian’s acquisition earlier this year of Evinance Innovation Inc., a Montréal-based clinical decision support software company, established the foundation for this new centre.

“The Evinance acquisition gave us an excellent core team in Montréal and, based on its success, we decided this was the ideal location to further develop decision support and intelligent patient treatment workflows for our 360 Oncology platform,” said Dow Wilson (pictured), president and chief executive officer of Varian.

“The platform is the first software system designed to integrate and coordinate key elements of cancer care so patients and their cancer teams can collaborate on achieving the best outcomes. Moving toward a more integrated approach to care is key to achieving our vision of a world without fear of cancer.”

With this new Centre of Innovation, Varian expects to triple the size of the Montréal team this year alone and is targeting continued growth over the next three years.

“In addition, we will actively collaborate with local universities on research, hire local graduates and interns, and partner with Montréal-based technology experts to achieve our goal of delivering a comprehensive cancer-care operating system that helps clinicians make more informed decisions at the point of care,” said Mr. Wilson.

“We are excited about leveraging Montréal’s large talent base to develop new knowledge-based solutions and equip the world with new tools to fight cancer.”

Hubert Bolduc, president and CEO of Montréal International, said Varian’s decision to expand its presence in Greater Montréal further reaffirms the region’s emerging position as a global leader in life sciences and health technologies (LSHT).

“We are proud to host this new centre of innovation,” Mr. Bolduc said. “Greater Montréal boasts complementary strengths in biopharma, medtech, digital health and artificial intelligence, making it a diversified and interconnected hub well-equipped to address the industry’s future needs.

“What’s more,” he added, “we are a vibrant and creative city with well-known academic and healthcare institutions and are delighted to have dynamic companies such as Varian come on board.”

Montréal Mayor Valérie Plante said, “Varian’s new innovation centre reinforces Montréal’s position as a world leader in life sciences and health technologies. Montréal offers great quality of life, attracting and retaining top talent from all over the world. The city’s pool of skilled workers and prominent researchers will be a tremendous asset to Varian.”

The LSHT industry includes 56,000 jobs in Québec, with 80% concentrated in the Greater Montréal area, 10,000 students graduating every year in health-related programs, and more than 650 companies.

To learn more about Varian, visit www.varian.com.
To learn more about Montréal International, visit www.montrealinternational.com.
To learn more about Investissement Québec, visit www.investquebec.com.