P.E.I. BioAlliance to get $5M over next five years

The P.E.I government has announced some new money for the bioscience industry, with close to $5 million invested over the next five years.

The P.E.I. BioAlliance is one of 15 selected from across Canada for more funding through a new program to accelerate business development.

The bioscience sector on P.E.I. is a growing one with 40 companies, employing 1,200 people and more than $150 million in annual sales.

The goal for the next five years is to attract 30 to 40 new companies to the province.

Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said the BioAlliance is the exact type of business the program was designed to support.

"The P.E.I. bioscience cluster exemplifies the kind of outstanding business incubator that the Canada accelerator incubator program was designed to support,” she said.

The funding is close to $5 million in total over five years, including money from Ottawa, ACOA and the province. The BioAlliance must match the contribution with funds from private or other public sector sources for a total of $7.6 million in incubation services.

Innovation Minister Allen Roach says the investment will benefit the province as a whole.

“They're terrific employers, we're talking about jobs,” he said. “It will certainly keep lots of brain power that's coming out of our college and university in that industry."

The businesses could be in human, animal and fish health, and also cosmetics and natural health products according to Rory Francis with the BioAlliance.

“We should be able to attract 30 to 40 new companies to Prince Edward Island in the biospace industry and this includes some food companies as well, in terms of revenue, we're now around $125 million a year in 2012, we should be able to get over $200 million over five years,” he said.

Shea says the education infrastructure is in place and the goals can be reached.

“They are very sophisticated jobs, but as I say we have the educational institutions here in Holland College and UPEI,” she said.