Hamilton’s Life Science Cluster Hamilton is one of the most vibrant midsized life science clusters in North America. Bringing together world class research and academic institutions, leading hospital networks, sophisticated private companies, and supporting organizations, the Hamilton life science cluster links innovative research with the business acumen required to get it to market. Hamilton’s life science cluster is the largest in the city, home to 203 organizations who collectively employ 36,649 individuals. This cluster in Hamilton is flourishing, seeing the formation of 43 new life science companies since 2016, who can draw upon 7,170 STEM students who graduates each years from two of the nation’s top academic institutions. The combination of new company formation and talent generation has put Hamilton on the map as a leading life science cluster in Canada. Notable organizations within Hamilton’s cluster include Stryker, Fusion Pharmaceuticals and the McMaster Innovation Park. Stryker, one of the top-ten largest medical device companies in the world, recently invested $100 million to build their Canadian headquarters in Hamilton. Fusion Pharmaceuticals, while still in the clinical phase, demonstrated the promising potential of using targeted alpha therapeutics to improve the safety of radiopharmaceuticals by launching the 2nd largest biotech IPO in Canadian history. In Hamilton, start-up and scaling companies are increasingly successful in accessing public- and private-sector funding to grow and scale their businesses. More than $620 million was raised by Hamilton companies during the past five years. 6
Hamilton is home to investors with specialized knowledge in life sciences, as well as network of organizations that enable investment. For example, Bay Area Health Trust (BAHT) has invested millions of dollars to support growthoriented life science companies. Recent direct investments in Hamilton-based companies include VoxNeuro and Mariner Endosurgery. McMaster Innovation Park, situated on 55 acres in the heart of Hamilton’s Innovation District, is the fulcrum of a life sciences mega-hub stretching from Toronto to Hamilton. MIP has embarked on a $1.75 billion buildout that will grow its footprint by an additional 2.8 million sq ft of mixed-use facilities focused on life sciences (including 1.3 million sq ft of wet lab space for scaling companies), advanced materials and manufacturing, and ICT. This new space will create an innovation continuum from fundamental research labs to start-up spaces, to early-stage production facilities and full-scale biomanufacturing. This ambitious project will deliver the kind of space and resources that scaling organizations require to succeed, building on MIP’s well-earned reputation as a place of discovery, commercialization, and entrepreneurship. Hamilton’s success as a life science cluster is truly one-of-a-kind, possessing similar capabilities, capacity, and resources of much larger cities, coupled with a strong spirit of collaboration that comes from being a midsized city. As a result, Hamilton’s ecosystem can move quickly to develop public-private relationships, moving forward on projects at the rapid and demanding speed of business.
