OICR

Canada's research institutions should launch a new prostate cancer sequencing project within the International Cancer Genome Consortium, and promote the value of its data to Canadian researchers, a 22-member alliance recommended today in its Pan-Canadian Cancer Research Strategy.

The Toronto-based institute has made investments in a multiplexed biomarker identification tool company and a planned spin-off that is developing a microchip-based rapid diagnostic system.

OICR is completing a new lab for its Medicinal Chemistry Platform, and has moved into a new server room for its Informatics and Bio-Computing Platform that allows the institute to double its data storage capacity from 1.5 to 3 petabytes.

A portion of funding that the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research is providing will go toward genomics and biomarker research programs.

The institute intends to add more than 40 people at its hub in Toronto and step up its Intellectual Property Development and Commercialization program, which awards pre-commercial "valley of death" funding toward commercializing intellectual property based at least partially on research carried out in Ontario.

The company's shares were up 40 percent in mid-morning trade on the Nasdaq exchange.