Specialization Tags
Biography
Dr. Alison Symington provides consultancy services to a variety of industry, academic and government clients in the area of life science strategy particularly in the development of new technologies with a focus on accessing non-dilutive funding. These services include large network applications directly to government or industry bodies as well as industry and or research proposals for funding. Clients have included large academic institutions, not for profit innovation hubs, government, foundations, and SMEs both in Canada and internationally. Alison works across multiple sectors including healthcare, agriculture, natural resources, and the environment. She also provides expert reviews to a variety of government funding agencies on funding allocations. Before starting her own consultancy business, Alison was the Vice President, Research and Corporate Development at Ontario Genomics. In this role, she was responsible for the development and management of large-scale research projects as well as external stakeholder engagement including government relations. Alison was a Professor at Seneca where she also coordinated the post-graduate Regulatory and Quality Assurance program. Before joining Seneca College, she was the Manager of Viral Development Laboratory and a research scientist at Sanofi Pasteur for almost 10 years, where she led several new viral vaccine development processes from bench to clinical trials. She received her Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology in 1991. In addition to these activities, Alison is currently the Chair of the Board of Life Sciences Ontario and a Board Member of the Science and Technology Awareness Network, a not for profit focused on science outreach.
What Companies and What Challenges?
Strategic thinking on non-dilutive funding Connections to larger players in the industry Strategic thinking on the development of academic-industry collaborations Convergent technologies - working across health/vet, agriculture. Expertise in omics, regulatory affairs and proposal development Have worked on fermentation scale up - research to clinical to commercial Have provided QA audits in the past
Network
Large network across the life sciences across Canada. Currently work nationally and some international connections. Deep connections with the academic in omics in Canada including service providers. Currently chair of the Board of Life Science Ontario which is an organization with life science companies and we advocate for strengthening the life science ecosystem in Ontario