The Vancouver-based Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) has signed an affiliation agreement with the Univ of Manitoba, building on a previous collaboration with the St Boniface Hospital Research centre. The agreement expands CDRD's active collaborations to eight provinces for commercializing small molecule and biologic therapeutics. It will assist U of M faculty members with moving research into practice by providing access to commercialization experts and specialized platforms. Since 2008, CDRD has evaluated 825 health research projects and carried out development on 125. That resulted in moving 47 through multiple scientific milestones and value-creation points, with 10 commercial transactions. CDRD estimates that its activities have supported the creation of 2165 direct and indirect jobs and returned $119 million back to the GDP….