Every year, thousands of Canadians receive life-saving organ transplants, while thousands still wait, and hundreds die because not enough organs are available.
The Government of Canada recognizes that too many people in Canada are on organ waitlists and that Canada lags in organ donation when compared to other high-performing countries. In 2020, over 4,400 people in Canada were waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant, and of those, 286 individuals died while on the waitlist.
Today, to close out National Organ Transplantation and Donation Awareness Week, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, announced funding for two new projects through Innovative Solutions Canada that will focus on cutting-edge research in the area of organ and tissue donation in the hopes of improving those statistics.
BI Expertise, based in Quebec City, Quebec, and Ortho BioMed, based in Toronto, Ontario, will each receive $1 million, over two years, from Health Canada to develop and test their prototype tools that use artificial intelligence to more accurately match organ donors with recipients.
Donated organs are a lifesaver for thousands of people in Canada, but available donors are scarce. Post-transplantation organ failure and other complications are also common, wasting precious resources and further straining the healthcare system. Increasing the donor pool and matching individual recipients with organs predicted to last the longest can result in:
- More successful donations
- Shorter wait times for potential organ recipients
- Better life quality and reduced cost of care for patients awaiting transplantation
- Fewer deaths and organ rejections post-transplantation
Innovative Solutions Canada helps Canadian innovators who want to start, grow, and get to market, by funding research and development and testing prototypes in real-life settings. By investing in this exciting new research, Health Canada is preparing a pathway for new solutions to challenges in our health system.
