INOVAIT projects receive $10.7M in funding

TORONTO – INOVAIT and the Government of Canada have announced a $10.7 million investment in seven commercialization-focused R&D projects under the second iteration of INOVAIT’s Focus Fund program. Founded by the Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) and supported by the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), INOVAIT is Canada’s network focused on advancing image-guided therapy (IGT) through the integration of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and machine learning.

IGT is the practice of using medical imaging to plan, perform, and evaluate medical interventions. The INOVAIT network supports Canadian innovators who are unleashing the power of AI through IGT’s precision therapy and treatment to streamline healthcare and improve healthcare outcomes.

“Canada has tremendous strength in the research and development of medical imaging and AI technologies. We need to capitalize on this opportunity and leverage both these strengths to advance technologies that can improve clinical outcomes and healthcare efficiencies,” said Kullervo Hynynen (pictured), co-executive director of INOVAIT and vice-president of Research and Innovation at SRI.

Through this iteration of the Focus Fund program, the seven selected high potential projects will integrate machine learning capabilities into IGT technologies. Selected Focus Fund projects were evaluated based on their potential impact to innovation, healthcare, and economic development.

Focus Fund project members will invest an additional $21.3 million into these projects for a total influx of $32 million into the Canadian IGT sector. The Focus Fund contributions will help attract investments into these Canadian technology companies, create jobs for highly skilled professionals, and cement Canada’s status as a global leader in IGT and AI innovation.

Selected Focus Fund projects include:

• MIMOSA Diagnostics: MIMOSA’s Focus Fund project will deploy a handheld multispectral imaging tool for nurses in long-term care homes to assess and treat residents at-risk of developing or have active pressure injuries (PI). With the support of their project partners, they will train advanced machine learning models to prognosticate tissue at risk of PI to identify patients and prioritize intervention.
• Profound Medical: Profound Medical’s Focus Fund project will improve outcomes for men undergoing MRI-guided transurethral ultrasound ablation (TULSA) by leveraging AI across the three stages of their prostate cancer journey.

The INOVAIT 2024 Focus Fund announcement took place at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Pam Damoff, Parliamentary Secretary to the minister of Foreign Affairs attended and spoke at the event.

“Today, I was pleased to meet leaders in health care and to learn about new projects that will benefit Canadians,” said Damoff. “By providing a platform to connect, educate and invest in the most promising ventures, INOVAIT is pushing boundaries and working to improve health outcomes.”

As of December 2023, INOVAIT has launched 75 IGT-AI projects, committed over $29 million to projects and continues to support its 97 project members across Canada in advancing IGT innovation, economic development, and job creation in Canada.

For more information about INOVAIT, please visit www.inovait.ca.

About INOVAIT
Established in 2020, INOVAIT invests strategically in collaborative partnerships that build upon Canada’s strength in digital innovation and health science research to create a critical mass of world-leading image-guided therapy (IGT) companies. Led by the Sunnybrook Research Institute and supported by the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund, the network brings together small, medium-sized, and large companies, research organizations, post-secondary institutions, and not-for-profit organizations. Its objective is to build a truly integrated IGT ecosystem by fuelling continuous innovation that revolutionizes healthcare globally.

About Sunnybrook Research Institute
Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) is the research arm of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, an internationally recognized academic health sciences centre fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. With well-established programs in basic and applied sciences which span across three scientific platforms and ten clinical programs, SRI is developing innovations in care for the more than 1.3 million patient visits the hospital sees annually. Recognized as a Centre of Excellence in focused ultrasound, SRI has one of the most comprehensive and successful focused ultrasound research programs in the world, with technical, scientific, and clinical experts accelerating progress in the field.