McMaster develops Viral Diagnostic

Today's newswire announcement that McMaster's star researcher James Mahoney's diagnostic panel had received FDA approval

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080128165659.htm

was, for me, a bit of a bittersweet piece of news. On the one hand it showed AGAIN how Canadian researchers take their rightful place at the top of the pyramid of creativity and innovation. Viral diagnosis is such a common problem that I would venture to guess that there is not a single reader of this column who has not, at some point or another, had a persistent cold, gone to the doctor, and been told that they cannot easily pinpoint what the cause is (even whether it is viral or bacterial sometimes) and therefore prefer not to precsribe some medication or course of action that can take care of the problem. Diagnosis traditionally took so much time and cost so much that the infection would likely be over before it was diagnosed.

Along comes a researcher from Canada (eh?) and finds a way to do this quickly and inexpensively. How wonderful!! Here's the pinacle of the glory now ... wait for the drumroll! The work is commissioned by a (then) CANADIAN company TM Biosciences.What a great story of how we can make a difference and make money at the same time. Now the "bitter..." part. JUST before this could happen the company - strapped for cash and unable to get its CANADIAN VCs to support it - was sold for pennies on the dollar to a larger US conglomerate Luminex. Today this is Luminex's success story. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy that it got out there and I CERTAINLY congratulate Luminex for its vision in seeing the potential and having the GUTS to back it. I am just sad that such guts don't exist in our country. Canadians can be happy about our inventivness and our innovation bt we should be embarrassed by our VC community.

Your thought s would be most welcome.