Maurizio Bevilacqua
Mayor, City of Vaughan
Melissa Chee
President & CEO, ventureLAB
The City of Vaughan has become a veritable leader in the health technology and life sciences sectors.
The City of Vaughan has made great strides to develop its medical and life sciences industry and to become a centre of excellence in health care and health innovation. The rapid densification of the city, transformation into an urban community, and expansion of the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) makes Vaughan a prime destination for residential, commercial, and industrial investments. At the same time, the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital and plans for the Vaughan Healthcare Centre Precinct (VHCP) have solidified the city’s reputation as a leading centre for health innovation.
A leader in health technologies
One of these health care-focused investments is a transformative project known as the VHCP. In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the City of Vaughan is leading a collaboration to transform an 82-acre parcel of land at Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive into a health innovation district. Together with partners Mackenzie Health, York University, and ventureLAB, the city is developing the site into a world-class destination for health care excellence. Each member organization’s expertise and physical co-location at the site will provide opportunities to leverage cross-disciplinary knowledge and produce the next generation of health care delivery, health talent, and health technologies.
As a leading medical innovation hub, the VHCP will generate new approaches to acute, integrated, and community care. It will be a destination of choice for research, education, innovation, commercialization, and services in health care and health technologies, focused on enhancing the quality and efficiency of care by enabling a unique “care without walls” approach.
Another transformative project is the expansion of the ventureLAB MedTech Hardware Catalyst Initiative (HCI), a first-of-its-kind initiative in Canada. New funding will expand the HCI’s capacity and build a new MedTech-specific lab in Vaughan, complete with specialized equipment to facilitate the growth of Ontario-based Med- Tech companies.
Vaughan is a destination of choice for the trailblazers shaping the frontier of health and technological innovation.
A partnership-driven city
“Vaughan is a destination of choice for the trailblazers shaping the frontier of health and technological innovation,” says the Honourable Maurizio Bevilacqua, Mayor of the City of Vaughan. “The growth of the VHCP and ventureLAB MedTech HCI, two of our most innovative city-building projects, has solidified Vaughan’s position as a global leader in health technology and life sciences. With significant investments like the relocation of Toronto Research Chemicals to Vaughan, we’re rapidly transforming into a knowledge economy and reaffirming our status as a world-class city.”
“ventureLAB is a proud founding partner of the VHCP and home to the HCI, Canada’s only lab and incubator for hardware and semiconductor founders,” says Melissa Chee, President and CEO of ventureLAB. “Leveraging ventureLAB’s deep commercialization expertise and the success of the HCI, we’re excited to work with our partners and our community of scale-ready tech founders to build a future world-class health innovation cluster in Vaughan.”
Vaughan’s partnership-driven approach to city-building is driving economic opportunity for businesses and talent while improving residents’ quality of life. The city has a number of significant city-building initiatives underway besides its innovative projects in health, including the development of its downtown VMC, major transportation networks, parks, and more.
As one of Canada’s fastest-growing communities, the City of Vaughan is a highly liveable city that has not only become a destination of choice for research, education, innovation, and commercialization in health and health technology, but also an amazing place to live and grow for its 300,000-plus residents.
