with
David Dolphin, The University of British Columbia
Dr. David Dolphin will share his unique insight
into the discovery and commercial development of Visudyne,
a drug that has prevented blindness in more than half a
million patients with advanced age related macular degeneration.
The drug, which has already had sales of US$2 billion (with
$60 million in royalties for UBC), was an outcome of a remarkable,
long-term collaboration between Dolphin, a chemist renowned
internationally for his fundamental studies on light-activated
molecules called porphyrins, and UBC colleague and medical
researcher Dr. Julia Levy. Together, they melded theoretical
and practical knowledge into an innovative drug concept
and then spent more than a decade moving the drug through
the maze of regulatory requirements to final approvals in
Canada and the US.
For his research and research management contributions,
Dr. Dolphin was recently named the winner of the Gerhard
Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering,
Canada’s top science prize. In addition to the pioneering
drug development work he has carried out at QLT, where he
is VP for Technology Development, Dr. Dolphin is an internationally
recognized scholar and holds an NSERC Industrial Research
Chair. He has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal
Society of Canada and to the Royal Society in London.
Organized by: The Partnership Group for Science
and Engineering (PAGSE)
Sponsored by:
--the Speaker of the Senate
--the Speaker of the House of Commons
--Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
Date: Thursday, May 18, 2006 from 7:30 am
- 9:00 am
Place: Room 200, West Block, Parliament Hill
Cost: No charge to Members of the House of Commons, Senators
and Media. All others $10
Registration: Please register by contacting Donna Boag,
PAGSE Coordinator: 613-991-6369, pagse@rsc.ca
Registration Deadline: May 15th
