In 2017, the Government of Canada launched its Innovation Superclusters Initiative, inviting organizations from start-ups to tech leaders and educational institutions to work together to solve the biggest challenges facing Canada and the world today, while spurring economic growth and job creation.
Over the next five years, more than $950 million will be invested in five innovation hubs known as “superclusters” in the areas of advanced manufacturing, agri-food, clean technology, clean resources and digital technology.
Digital technology initiatives to leverage Canada’s big data pool
One of the first to be launched is Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster. “Leveraging the capability of Canada’s world-leading broadband telecommunications networks, our BC-led Supercluster will use advanced data collection, analytics and visualization to produce innovations that have tremendous local and global impact, including enabling advanced healthcare treatments and cures via precision health analytics,” says Josh Blair, Group President and Chief Corporate Officer at TELUS. “As a founding member, TELUS is keen to contribute to the breakthroughs our Supercluster will deliver for the benefit of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.”
Advancing the study of pharmacogenetics for better health outcomes
The Digital Technology Supercluster’s seven projects bring together a broad, industry-led innovation consortium of partners collaborating to tackle ambitious technology challenges in the natural resources, industrial and healthcare sectors. What unites this group is unlocking big data’s full potential.
TELUS Health is proud to be a major player in the Pharmacogenetics project. Pharmacogenetics combines pharmacology (the science of drugs) and genomics (the study of genes and their functions) to develop effective, safe medications and doses that will be tailored to a person’s genetic makeup. This helps to decrease adverse drug reactions, improve the efficacy of drug therapies and improve quality of life, in particular for patients taking multiple medications.
“Receiving a test result can be life-changing for some Canadians,” said Ohad Arazi, Chief Strategy Officer, TELUS Health. “This revolutionary new project will enable advanced digital technology to seamlessly integrate testing into the primary care and pharmacy ecosystems. By making clinical decision support tools and pharmacogenomic data available at the point of care, we are improving the flow of information from doctor to patient for better health outcomes.”
