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Dr. Tyler Wish credits the Genesis Centre with his early entrepreneurial success.
By Sharon Gray
Even before he completed his PhD, Dr. Tyler Wish was on his way to becoming an entrepreneur. His doctoral research, carried out from 2005 to 2012 at Memorial under the guidance of Dr. Patrick Parfrey, was in the field of the clinical and molecular epidemiology of colorectal cancer. During that time, Dr. Wish did a lot of consulting work, so it was only natural to leverage his expertise to build a niche company for clinical trials. The company Dr. Wish eventually formed is Research Avenue Inc. and it is currently housed in Memorial’s Genesis Centre. Early in 2012, the company was accepted as a Genesis client. “We had great resources and a clear foundation,” explained the 33-yearold company president. “Our first project was with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, developing a business case to support the implementation of optimal stroke care in the province.” Research Avenue recently landed a large clinical development project with a pharmaceutical company that will include three clinical studies involving 600 patients over two and a
half years. “It is a major opportunity for Research Avenue and it also benefits the province by attracting significant R&D investment from the pharmaceutical industry,” said Dr. Wish. Dr. Wish credits the Genesis Centre with invaluable help. “They put together an advisory board of business leaders for the company and they are providing office space and equipment. For example, when our new client came to visit for three days, the Genesis Centre made its entire facility available. The other great thing is the synergy that comes from being located with other startup companies.” (Another project, focusing on colorectal cancer and molecular risk predictors, is also in the works.) Dr. Wish said the health outcomes research business is a quickly growing segment of the contract research organization industry. “A combination of industry demand and outstanding local infrastructure made it possible to establish Research Avenue,” he said. “There’s been a tremendous investment in health care and medical research infrastructure in Newfoundland and Labrador over the past decade, which has created the ideal environment for our company to provide exceptional solutions for our clients and to be
competitive in the marketplace.” Dr. Wish points to three major factors that influenced his decision to start Research Avenue. “The Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information is one of the most advanced electronic health records systems in Canada —this resource is a valuable asset for conducting real-world health economic and observational research.” He added that Memorial University is also playing an integral part of provincial development. “The Faculty of Medicine expansion will include a state-of-the-art genomics research facility in the Craig L. Dobbin Genetics Research Centre.” Finally, unique genetic research opportunities are associated with the Newfoundland founder population. “Viewed as a world-renowned resource for investigating medical genomics and developing applications for personalized medicine, the province’s population is one of the world’s few genetic isolate founder populations and has been shown to have the greatest generalizability to Caucasian populations compared to all other founder populations.”
PHOTO: Chris Hammond
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