Brazilian pharma company to build international R&D centre in GTA

Toronto, ON – Brazilian-owned pharmaceutical company Biolab Farmacêutica has announced plans to open a research and development centre in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The company says the project will cost approximately $8 million in equipment, facilities and technical staff.

The centre is part of global expansion plans for the company. In the initial stage, it says 20 specialized professionals will work in the new facility. The 1,000 sq m R&D centre will be an extension of Biolab’s Itapecerica da Serra R&D centre in Brazil, and the two operations will be fully integrated.

“When we started planning our R&D centre abroad, we wanted to set it up in an innovative region with incentives and openness to partnerships and business. We found these features in Ontario, which has the ideal conditions for us to move forward in our pursuit of cutting edge innovation,” says Cleiton de Castro Marques, Biolab’s CEO.

When making the decision to open a Canadian R&D Centre, Biolab received guidance from the commercial section at Canada’s Consulate General in São Paulo, the Commercial Consul of Ontario in Brazil, the City of Mississauga, and Invest Toronto.  The company says this was an effective partnership among all three levels of government, and the collaborative support was crucial to securing this important investment in the life sciences sector for the Greater Toronto Area. 

Biolab is among Brazil’s largest pharmaceutical investors in research, development and innovation, with one of the most modern R&D centres in Brazil. It says it invests ten percent of net revenue every year and has a team of approximately 100 professionals dedicated exclusively to this area, among them Masters, PhDs, and specialists. Currently, the company is working on more than 150 radical and incremental innovation projects and has 220 patent applications filed.