{"id":6664,"date":"2025-06-20T13:40:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T17:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/?p=6664"},"modified":"2025-06-23T09:43:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T13:43:53","slug":"6664","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/news-and-events\/6664\/","title":{"rendered":"Merck Digital Sciences Studio Opens in Canada to Accelerate Biopharmaceutical Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We\u2019ve officially launched <strong>the first-ever Canadian cohort of the Merck Digital Sciences Studio (MDSS)<\/strong>, right here in Qu\u00e9bec \u2014 with the presence of <strong>Mr. Christopher Skeete<\/strong>, Minister for the Economy at Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy. His participation highlights the province\u2019s commitment to digital health innovation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This global program is locally powered by our team at Collision Lab, at Centech , a key milestone in the Canadian expansion of MDSS.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Led by <strong>Merck, in collaboration with CQDM<\/strong> and the <strong>Merck Global Health Innovation Fund<\/strong>, the program offers selected startups:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Access to Merck\u2019s global expertise&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mentorship from our in-residence experts at Centech&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Strategic and investment support from CQDM and Merck GHI&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cloud credits&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Direct exposure to international networks in health tech&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>\ud83c\udf89 Congratulations to the 7 selected startups:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/nanofacile\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nanofacile<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Accelerating RNA therapy development for biotech, CROs and pharma, by offering a first-in-class, intuitive and easy-to-use \u201cNanomedicine in a Box\u201d technology platform kit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/simmunome\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Simmunome<\/strong> <\/a>\u2013 Building AI validation infrastructure for robust, safe and equitable healthcare AI algorithms that help enhance the predictability of clinical drug development to prevent late-stage failures.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/miso-chip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Misochip<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Reducing cancer clinical trial failure rates due to poor efficacy using functional precision medicine for preclinical solutions that allow ex vivo testing on human-relevant tumor models to identify potent drivers of efficacy or resistance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/9bio\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">9Bio<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Unlocking the full potential of targeted therapies by guiding antibodies to the right location and accelerating the discovery of conditionally active targeted therapeutics with an integrated methodology.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rime Therapeutics<\/strong> &#8211; Driving precision therapies powered by deep understanding of inflammation biology through a proprietary function-first target and hit discovery platform unlocks protein-protein interactions (PPIs).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/stereo-biotherapeutics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stereo Bio<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Addressing cellular heterogeneity in disease with purpose-built multi-specific pMHC-targeting therapeutics, starting with solid tumors.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>PCare+<\/strong> \u2013 Transforming complex medical guidelines into actionable digital formats using AI by combining large language models (LLMs) with expert systems to extract screening recommendations, scoring systems, and decision logic from guidelines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This launch reinforces Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s leadership in AI-powered health innovation. And we\u2019re just getting started.&nbsp;CQDM is very proud of this major new program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\ud83d\udc49<a href=\"https:\/\/www.merck.ca\/en\/newsroom\/merck-digital-sciences-studio-opens-in-canada-to-accelerate-biopharmaceutical-innovation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Read the press release<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750441628765-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6678\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750441628765-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cqdm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750441628765-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cqdm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750441628765-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cqdm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750441628765-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cqdm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750441628765.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve officially launched the first-ever Canadian cohort of the Merck Digital Sciences Studio (MDSS), right here in Qu\u00e9bec \u2014 with the presence of Mr. Christopher Skeete, Minister for the Economy at Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy. His participation highlights the province\u2019s commitment to digital health innovation.&nbsp; This global program is locally powered by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6664"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6681,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664\/revisions\/6681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}