“You can’t grow without money. You can’t proceed without money,” says Robb Stoddard, president and CEO of BioAlberta.
You also need leaders who understand the ecosystems they’ll be walking into.
In conversation at Inventures 2025, Stoddard isn’t making a pitch. He’s delivering a reality check for anyone who assumes biotech can follow the same playbook as tech. In Alberta’s health innovation sector, the stakes are higher, the timelines longer, and the transformation slower, but no less critical.
Alberta’s biotech and health innovation ecosystem is maturing. Stoddard reveals the strategic gaps that remain, especially when moving from startup to scaleup, and why sector-specific knowledge is critical when allocating funding or designing support programs. As Alberta pushes to position itself as a national leader in life sciences, conversations like this shape the direction of investment and collaboration across Canada.
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
A different kind of runway
Unlike software startups that might move from prototype to product within two years, life sciences companies typically face a far lengthier timeline before commercialization. Stoddard says this longer cycle changes everything, from the type of investor needed to the composition of founding teams.
“A typical software development will take somewhere between 18 to 24 months,” he says. “When you’re dealing with creating molecules or creating medical technology, you’re looking at somewhere between eight to 14 years of regulatory approvals, multiple levels of clinical trials.”
Of course, this isn’t appealing to just any investor.
This complexity can discourage traditional investors who are used to shorter exits and lean startup playbooks. Instead, the sector requires what Stoddard calls a “more patient investor” and an entrepreneurial mindset that anticipates regulatory hurdles from the start.
“Although it’s still very research and lab-based, they’re in it for the long haul.”
Still, even in a longer cycle, the principle of testing assumptions quickly holds value. Stoddard points to work by Alberta Innovates and the Institute of Health Economics that supports early-stage technology validation. This effort, he says, helps determine whether a company has a viable commercial path before deeper investment.
“It does allow those companies to pivot or actually pause and move in a completely different direction,” he says. “Although we might modify ‘fast’ a little bit, it is still an important part of the idea phase of the sector.”
Bridging the scaleup gap
Alberta’s innovation infrastructure is heavily geared toward startups, but Stoddard highlights the growing need for targeted support at the scaleup stage. The challenge isn’t just capital, but the magnitude of capital required and the experience needed to navigate the business side of science.
“The difference between a seed to Series A company in the tech sector looking for $500,000 and a seed to Series A company in the life sciences who’s going into a first-round clinical trial? They’re looking for checks adding a zero,” he says. “You’re looking at two to five to eight million dollars for that same round.”
This funding gap is compounded by common pitfalls among life sciences entrepreneurs. Many are academic researchers with deep technical expertise but limited business experience. According to Stoddard, they often lack both executive leadership and a clear understanding of investor expectations.
“My advice to them is usually to find or surround themselves with people who are as brilliant and inexperienced in the business world,” he explains.
The solution, he suggests, lies in pairing scientific talent with commercial experience early, and in building networks of mentors who’ve already navigated this path.
Aligning investment with sector realities
Strategic investment decisions also require a nuanced understanding of the sector’s timelines and regulatory challenges. Stoddard cautions that public funders and governments are often ill-equipped to “pick winners,” and should instead partner with industry experts and investor networks to guide allocation.
“When it comes to being more strategic [with] your choices, it comes around having proper teams manage the investments,” he says. “Governments typically have not been good at picking winners and losers.”
“I think that’s a role where they can rely on experts and the external environment to be able to provide that.”
At the federal level, Stoddard’s top request is sector-specific investor support and regulatory reform. Current approval processes through Health Canada, he says, are often prohibitively expensive, especially for natural health products and early-stage ventures.
“We would want a reduction in the red tape and the timeline and the cost our companies incur when it comes to Health Canada regulations.”
At the provincial level, he sees strength in Edmonton’s biotech and pharma sector, and complementary potential in Calgary’s digital health capabilities. The real opportunity, he believes, is in deeper ecosystem alignment across Canada, especially in clinical trials and distributed assessments.
“Alberta’s number one objective as those pieces continue to evolve, is to continue to grow that foundation here for clinical trial excellence, for startup and scaleup investment strength,” he says. “That will attract talent. That will attract further money. And that’s what will grow the sector.”
Building the next chapter
As Alberta stakes its place in the national innovation landscape, its life sciences sector faces a dual challenge: scale its existing strengths while rethinking how commercialization is supported. For BioAlberta, that means staying focused on business leadership, investor alignment, and regulatory clarity.
“There’s great examples and legacies in both Edmonton and Calgary,” says Stoddard. “The importance is just being able to tap into that ecosystem, be part of something broader, and actually be able to have the confidence in what you’re doing, academically and clinically, in order to translate that to commercial.”
With federal funding currently in flux and new private capital exploring the sector, Alberta’s next chapter in biotech will depend on that confidence, and the infrastructure to match it.
Watch the interview:
