Curiosity on stage

Lisa: Good evening everyone. Welcome to another edition of Curiosity on Stage. My name is Lisa LeBlanc and I’m the Director General of the Canada Science and Technology Museum. For those of you attending this evening with visual impairment, I’m a woman with long brown hair
and dark framed glasses and I’m joining you this evening from my home office.

Before we get started I want to turn your attention to some of the accessibility features we have in place this evening and all of this information and the links can be found in the chat function. For English and French captions please visit the website that is in the chat function which will allow you to receive simultaneous translation. If you’d like to listen to simultaneous interpretation of the meeting you also need to follow these steps so you would download the Interactio app from the
Apple Store or Google Play and then you’re able to enter the event code which is COS2021. Also for your information this presentation is being recorded and will be available on our YouTube channel in the coming weeks so if you want to share it with friends or want to see it again it will be available shortly.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank our sponsor the National Research Council that have provided really generous support for us for the Curiosity on Stage adaptive tech series and their support will go to all of these services that we are providing this evening and also uploading everything on YouTube and making sure that we have transcriptions there as well once the event is complete.

So, a little bit about Curiosity on Stage, which is a thought leadership series here at the Science and Tech Museum that looks to promote discussion around two key questions, the first one is what is the future of innovation in science and technology which is a really broad question but then the other is what is its impact on society and so what we’ve done is for the next three years we’ll be focusing these talks on three key thematic areas one is on artificial intelligence and there’ll be some great talks coming this fall around that theme medical innovations which we’ll also be focusing on this fall and really looking at the future of diabetes research and tonight’s theme assistive tech and we’ll be
looking to highlight more talks this time next year around that theme as well.

[French speaking]
Designing for inclusivity not only opens up our products and services to more people but it also reflects how people really are all humans grow and adapt to the world around them and we want our designs to reflect that. Everyone has abilities and limits to those abilities so designing for

Text on screen: The Future of Accessibility.
The Ingenium logo and the Curiosity on Stage Evening Edition logo appear on  screen.

The title screen fades away, leaving the Ingenium logo with Curiosity on Stage Logo on both sides
The moderator (Lisa Leblanc) appears on screen. She sits in a navy blue room wearing a blue
blouse and tortoiseshell glasses. A door and a couple hanging family photos are located behind
her. She remains stationary throughout the video.

people with permanent disabilities actually results in designs that
benefit people universally. Our presenter this evening which we’re
really excited to welcome is the accessibility lead for Microsoft Canada,
Ricardo Wagner. He believes technology elevates the education
employment and living standards for billions of people around the
world especially people with disabilities. Ricardo has made it his
personal mission to play a role in that transformation. He is Microsoft’s
hackathon grand prize winner awarded to the most influential
accessibility advocate worldwide for Microsoft and he’s been
recognized as the Jim Flaherty award for leadership in accessibility and
inclusion and Microsoft platinum club in 2019. So please join me in
welcoming Ricardo.
Ricardo Thank you so much Lisa. I’m going to just share my screen
before I start one second. It isn’t Microsoft without PowerPoint. We
can’t present we can’t have a meeting. So before I start I just want to
check can you see my slide? Brian or Lisa if you can please confirm okay
can you I’m going to just make a brief description about me my name is
Ricardo Wagner, I am talking from Oakville in Ontario. I’m a white
middle-aged man I’m wearing formal clothes. This is so interesting like
interesting to work from home but still dress in formal clothes. I think
it’s a very special event an occasion and I’m super happy to be here
representing my colleagues from Microsoft.
The presenter (Ricardo
Wagner) appears on
screen. He sits in a room
with blue checkered wall
paper wearing a black suit
and blue collared shirt. A
bookshelf, cuckoo clock,
and a framed piece of art
that says ‘Life is good’ is
located behind him. He
remains stationary
throughout the video.
Ricardo’s image shrinks
and moves to the top right
of the screen as his
presentation starts. It
remains there until the end
of his presentation.
Microsoft logo with
presentation title
presenter photo and
presenter name below
Text on screen: Curiosity
on Stage the Future of
Accessibility Ricardo
Wagner Microsoft
Accessibility lead – Canada
Today I’m going to take you through the amazing journey of
accessibility and how we are working to empower persons with
disabilities but everyone in the world. Microsoft mission is to empower
every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more and
we are super happy to be here to share some innovation share some
learnings and insights. Throughout this journey I just want to make sure
A middle aged man holding
a phone with the back
camera facing him
demonstrating the Seeing
AI app.
that you can see the screen if captions are working so I can’t see right
now the chat so Brian or Lisa and if you don’t mind you can unmute
yourself and just tell me if everything is fine from my end.
Lisa: it looks good Ricardo thank you so much.
Ricardo: thank you good.
so I want to start the session by sharing a story a story from a person
with sight loss that shared an email to Microsoft a few months ago
sharing an experience that happened in her life. she was living with her
mother and her mother passed away and as a person with sight loss it
was a bit challenging for her to adapt to the new world without her
mother to help and support in daily activities at home. she then
installed an app called Seeing AI Seeing AI is an app designed and built
by engineers inside Microsoft and this app helps people with sight loss
and blind to navigate the world. With this app you can point your phone
using the camera and the phone will start to give descriptions of the
objects if you point the phone and the camera to a person this is going
to describe the person. If the person is happy, if the person is sad. you
can also point to a paper and if it’s something handwritten or if you
have letters you can have a descriptions the phone can actually take a
picture and start reading it aloud to you so this is an example of the
artificial intelligence cognitive services that is available today which
detects services with images and helps people especially people with
sight loss and blind to better navigate the world.
The subject of the email that she shared with us was “this is the
greatest time in human history to be blind”. this is the greatest time in
human history to be blind and the story that she described she said that
she decided to clean her mother’s bedroom and she start to open some
boxes with pictures and letters and she was using Seeing AI app to
describe the image to read the content and she found a letter that her
mother wrote to her before passing away. Through the technology she
had a chance to connect with her mother again and it just brings to us a
perspective of possibilities that we can all achieve when we bring
technology when we manage to address mismatches by creating
bridges with technology. In this example artificial intelligence
empowering a person with sight loss.
A middle aged woman in a
blue sweater standing at a
podium with text to the
left
Text on screen: The
greatest time in human
history to be blind
so for today I I’m going to bring three topics that I want to cover and I
would love to invite you all for questions if you like for example or if you
have a comment please use the chat well and make a question and by
the end of the session I promise to come back and select some
questions and get back to you. But let’s make this session interactive.
I’m going to first talk about disabilities and then I’m going to cover the
topic of human centric design going a little bit further in inclusive design
and then of course this is the future of accessibility we’re going to talk
about the future. I’m going to share some tech trends in what is going
on in the tech industry that we should all expect in the upcoming future
Laptop sitting closed on a
table with a cell phone
next to it. Text below
Text on screen: Agenda for
today: Disabilities, Human
Centric Design, Tech
Trends
and many things by the way I’m going to share are already available but
unfortunately not many people are aware because innovation goes so
fast but we’re going to make it work.
So the very first thing that I want to invite you for this conversation is
the definition of a person with disability. according to the world health
organization the definition for persons with disabilities is a personal it’s
not a personal health condition is a mismatch human interaction,
environments and tools are disabled not people when you think from
an environment from tools perspective of a of an object or not a person
you start to think about this um this idea more from a solvable design
challenge and if you make it right you end up creating or you end up
innovating right. So stairs make the building inaccessible not the
wheelchair when you start to point your attention to the environment
to the tools and not the person you start to realize that this is a
beautiful opportunity for us to design solutions, products, building, and
software. think about anything that you want to build if you build this
accessible by design if you build a solution that works for everyone you
end up unlocking an opportunity to include people who are about to be
excluded but you also enhance experience and create an environment
where more people can benefit from what you created and there are so
many perspectives we can take from this point of view. One is first is
from market opportunity so if we have business leaders listening to this
conversation. 1 in 5 people in Canada has a disability so if you don’t
design solutions for persons with disabilities or if you don’t design
solutions to include everyone I love the quote from TD bank Bert Floyd
from the assistive tech lab it says “if you don’t design for accessibility
it’s like saying to every fifth person who walks in your door I don’t really
want your business”. We just can’t do this right?
Black and white
photograph of Bert Floyd –
a middle aged man with a
beard.
Text on screen: Disability –
a mismatch in interaction
between the features of a
person’s body and the
features of the
environment in which they
live
Accessibility – the qualities
that make an experience
open to all
“If you don’t design for
accessibility, it’s like saying
to every fifth person who
walks in your door, I don’t
really want your business”
Bert Floyd, Team Lead of
Assistive Technologies, TD
Bank, Canada
And there are 1.3 billion people with disabilities around the world. 1.3
billion People. 6.4 million People in Canada and the number is growing.
By the way sorry I said 6.4, it’s actually 8.2 million the number has
recently changed. imagine as the population is aging, 50% of the
population above 60 years old will develop one or more disabilities also
70 percent of disabilities are invisible you don’t know if a person has a
learning disability, a mental health condition, a sight loss, hearing loss.
Seventy percent of disabilities are invisible. Unemployment rate even
before COVID was two times higher compared to persons without
disabilities and we know that COVID and the pandemic has impacted
the community of persons with disabilities dramatically. so and the
point is only one out of ten people with disabilities have access to
assistive technology and this just give us a sense of the work that we all
need to do to ensure we include a huge population that is not actively
participating in our society because the way we design our society we
exclude those people by design and that’s the invitation for us to think
of what we can do.
Graphic of a person in a
wheelchair working at a
computer.
Text on screen: Over 1
billion people worldwide
live with a disability
Only 1 in 10 have access to
the products or content
needed
70% of disabilities are
invisible and
unemployment is 2x higher
and this topic is fascinating because I don’t know I don’t know how but Graphic of people with
we kind of learn a way of thinking how human beings are maybe you
heard someone saying how is the person uh you met that person how
this person looked like oh it’s a normal person or it’s an it’s an average
person there is no such thing like average or normal people it doesn’t
exist. we are all unique even for all perspectives from the time we’re
born to the time we get older we change over time, we are all unique
we all have abilities, and sometimes we need we require ways to adapt
to the environment that we are in. if I, for example, if I go to another
place and I don’t speak the language that people speak there the
environment is going to be disabled for me and I may require support to
communicate and that’s the piece that it’s fascinating from this topic
because when you design solutions for people with permanent
disabilities it end up empowering persons with permanent disabilities
but also people with temporary disability or even situational. Let me
give an example. if you design a solution for a person without an arm
this is going to work for a person who broke an arm or a person holding
a baby or a laptop or a Tim Horton’s double double. Accessibility, equal
experience is the same so the mentality of designing for the average for
the normal is outdated. It was an idea that got traction during the
industrial revolution but as we are today in the digital era in the digital
era you can and you must design solutions for the extreme. I know it’s
going to be a little bit hard for you to think but uh I’m going to invite
you to think of a dinosaur sleeping I know it’s I know it’s late but just
follow me imagine a dinosaur is sleeping the long tail in the head and
the floor if you ask a business leader say where should I go, where I’m
going to have like more potential for a market I say oh that’s the back of
the dinosaur go to the average where are you going to find the majority
sir what about the tail and the head oh never mind this is a niche
market. This is we’re going to look after. Let’s first explore where we
can capture or we assist most of the people and later when we go to
this to this segment or niche market. This mindset as you can notice is
exclusion, is a decision making process, the way that you are choosing
and decided to include some you are also deciding to exclude many. I
love when we visit the Microsoft lab in Redmond there is a note in on
the wall saying “if you don’t intentionally include you unintentionally
exclude”.
permanent, temporary and
situational disabilities for
four classes of
disability.Touch disability:
person with one arm, arm
injury, person carrying a
baby. Hearing disability:
person who is deaf, person
with ear infection, a
bartender. Speaking
disability: a person who is
non-verbal, a person who
has laryngitis, a person
with a heavy accent.
Seeing disability: a person
who is blind, a person who
has cataracts, a distracted
driver.
And that’s the problem because in many situations people exclude
without knowing that’s why we approach inclusive design and I’m not
sure if you were introduced to this topic but this topic is fascinating.
Graphic of 24 people with
various abilities
Text on screen: Inclusive
Design
Inclusive design and I love the definition from UC Berkeley university
Susan she says inclusive design doesn’t mean you are designing one
thing for all people you are designing a diversity of things so everyone
finds a way to participate.
Text on screen: “Inclusive
design doesn’t mean
you’re designing one thing
for all people. You’re
designing a diversity of
things so everyone finds a
way to participate.”
Susan Goltsman
MIG, Inc. Urban Play
UC Berkeley
So in the inclusive design principle it’s quite simple. There are three
principles to follow and if you follow you are likely to design and create
solutions that are inclusive for everyone the first one is recognize
exclusion. Humans we all have unconscious bias we all have
perspectives that are unique and we tend to analyze and see the world
based on our own experiences, expectations and perspective and of
course the world is big right? There are so many nationalities,
languages, religion, abilities. Some people live in a tropical side some
people live in the cold side of the world right? when you have different
perspectives we tend to create or innovate by approaching solutions
that we think it’s going to work for many people but if you don’t ask
yourself and you think the solution I’m building right now a website, an
app, a product, just think who is not going to be able to experience
what I’m creating. Who is going to be excluded from my experience? by
making this question you invite you and your team to think the people
who are excluded and you’re going to identify a lot and likely if you if
you did discuss this topic from a ability point of view you are likely to
discover that many people with disabilities will be excluded from the
design. From the idea, from the ideation then we invite teams, creators
to move to the second principle of inclusive design which is learn from
diversity. the best way to address this mismatch is to invite people with
disabilities to be part of the design process. we call this nothing about
us without us. instead of people without disabilities pretending that
they know what’s going on and thinking that yeah this solution may not
work for a person with sight loss, let me just do an exercise and do a
blindfold and try. don’t do that. invite a person with sight loss to be part
of the design process. you learn a lot you will learn from different
perspectives and ways that you can perform or address the mismatches
from your product and if you make it work and you will because there
are so many possibilities that you can achieve. you go to the third
principle of inclusive design which is solve for one extend to many. once
you make it work, for the example of the dinosaur is sleeping, if you
make it work for the tail or the head this is going to work for everyone.
so think of a solution that if you make it work for the extreme it end up
helping everyone else and that’s the concept of inclusive design. it’s a
concept that that helps you design solutions that include people who
are excluded before but benefits everyone else in different experiences.
Graphic of 16 people of
different ages and genders
with various physical
limitations.
Text on screen: Recognize
exclusion: exclusion
happens when we solve
problems using our own
biases. As Microsoft
designers, we seek out
those exclusions, and use
them as opportunities to
create new ideas and
inclusive design.
Learn from diversity:
Human beings are the real
experts in adapting to
diversity. Inclusive design
puts people in the centre
from the very start of the
process, and those fresh,
diverse perspectives are
the key to true insight.
Solve for one, extend to
many: Everyone has
abilities, and limits to
those abilities. Designing
for people with permanent
disabilities actually results
in designs that benefit
people universally.
Constraints are a beautiful
thing.
you probably heard the example of the curb cut. So the curb cut was
designed to empower and help people using wheelchair to commute
independently in cities. Guess what? The curb cut is also empowering
parents with strollers, teenagers with skates or a skateboard or a
bicycle. It helps everyone and that’s the concept of when you design a
solution that includes the extreme it ends up creating more scenarios,
more perspectives, more experiences and everybody benefits from the
Graphic of 4 people who
benefit from curb cuts: a
person in a wheelchair, a
person with a stroller, a
person on a bicycle and a
person on a skateboard.
same solution that was created and designed for the extreme. That’s
the simple magic.
Text on screen: We all
experience exclusion
Everyone benefits from
curb cuts
So the idea ends up to be something that you drive inclusion you create
products and ideas that include people but you also unlock so many
perspectives. At Microsoft we recently launched the Xbox adaptive
controller. There are so many interesting stories from Xbox adaptive
controller. we learned that many gamers they were unable to play
because the Xbox controller was not accessible it was not designed for
persons with disabilities, dexterity or a person just with one arm and
the team came together to design a solution with and for gamers with
disabilities and recently we launched the Xbox adaptive controller
which was a very interesting experience and I’m going to play a video a
video that we played during the super bowl just to give the sense of the
experience we went through by designing a solution to include gamers
with disabilities. but there was a question the day that we decided to
ship the product we said okay people are going to buy, how people are
going to unpack the box and it was a question mark that day when I
have a an Xbox adaptive controller with me. that day the team sit
together again with gamers and we start to debate ways that we could
make the package accessible what we learned especially with people
with mobility impairment they tend to use their mouth, teeth to open
boxes, packages and the idea was how can we create a package that
people don’t need to use their teeth and it was a very simple solution.
Just pulling the box you end up opening the entire box with all the
components. So the innovation was not just with the Xbox adaptive
controller the product but also the package. Today we use the same
package or format of package for all other products we ship. So just by
showing that the innovation sometimes we’re thinking very
sophisticated things but the innovation can also come in simple ways
like a package. You probably had the experience of unpacking a tech
product and I’m not going to play competitors because Microsoft would
do the same but it’s beautiful from a package but so hard to open right?
So by doing this with and for persons with disabilities we learn how to
make a solution that benefits everyone.
Animation of accessible
packaging being opened.
The packaging has extralarge
pull tabs with a hole
to make it easy to grab and
pull. The lid to the box, and
the internal divides in the
box have large pull tabs to
facilitate opening for those
with lower dexterity.
On the right of the screen
are three photographs:
Man in blue button down
shirt smiling and sitting
next to a smiling man with
a breathing tube in a
research lab.
Two young men sitting in
wheelchairs facing away
from the camera playing
videogames.
Young man in a wheelchair
playing a video game with
Xbox adaptive controller.
Text on screen: Nothing
about us without us
Ricardo: And as I said, we had a Super Bowl ad and I’m going to play the
video right now for you.
Video:
My name is Grover. Sean. My name is Ian. I’m Taylor. My name is Owen
and I am nine and a half years old.
Parent: So Owen was born with a rare genetic disorder called Escobar
syndrome. He’s had 33 surgeries to date.
I love video games, my friends, my family, and again video games.
Video clip of children with
various physical limitations
using the Xbox adaptive
controller. Pans out to
interview with parents
sitting on a sofa.
It’s his way of interacting with his friends when he can’t physically
otherwise do it.
What I like about the adaptive controller is now everyone can play you
can just say all right that’s that one that’s that button that’s that button
perfect.
one of the biggest fears early on is how will Owen think about the other
kids he’s not different when he plays. No matter how your body is or
how fast you are you can play it’s a really good thing to have in this
world [Music].
Everybody plays we all win and the concept of designing solutions or
adapting the environment to people it’s not a new concept. It actually
there are many studies and books about this topic. One of my favourite is
a book called The End of Average from Todd Rose. He shares an
example from the US army in 1926, they could not explain why
airplanes were crashing and in one day one single day 17 pilots died in
in accidents that they could not explain if it was a human error or if it
was something related to the aircraft. so there was an investigation in
place to understand what happened and they invited many experts and
they suspect that the cockpit was not the right size of the cockpit for
the for the soldiers and for the pilots that were experiencing the aircraft
at that time. so aircrafts for unfortunately for war it was invented by
1918 and 22 and the cockpit was designed during that time and ever
since people were just flying with cockpits that were designed in the
beginning of the century and then they suspect to say hey maybe the
soldiers and the pilots they increased the size and would be better for
us to measure pilots again so they invited 4000 pilots and they measure
everything the size of their fingers the hand the arm head everything
and they got to an ideal cockpit. But they did one more thing they set
10 different tasks that every single pilot should perform when they
were inside the cockpit. So 4000, it was 4063 pilots with all pilots that
they had in this research. Do you know how many pilots were able to
perform all the 10 tasks that they put for this test? 10. There were 10
that every single pilot should perform. Zero. No one, no one could
perform the 10 different tasks inside the cockpit. so with that insight
they learned that instead of creating an ideal cockpit they should create
a cockpit that should adapt to the person so that’s why today when you
go inside your car and you adjust the seat or the steering wheel it was
all the inside that came from the study which is people is different so
you need to adapt so all the adjustments that you have for example for
a helmet or clothes uh equipment it all came from this idea that there is
no average. Every single human being is unique is different.
On the left two World War
II airplanes flying in the
sky. The planes are labelled
FT-143 and TA-799. On the
right the cover of the book
“Then end of Average how
we succeed in a world that
values sameness” by Todd
Rose
so I hope by now with the example of the dinosaur which is one of the
slides I’m sharing right now, it’s not a dinosaur but it’s a chart showing
that innovation is it is at the edge um at the extreme when you design
and make solutions for the extreme you end up creating solutions for
Graph showing a normal
bell curve with extremes
highlighted in purple.
everyone or in the way that I like to say accessibility for few becomes
usability for many. we all benefit for an inclusive experience that is
designed for an extreme. I hope by now this is a concept that you have
in mind.
Text on screen:
Accessibility for few
becomes usability for
many. If we only look at
the average, we miss the
true innovation
opportunity
At Microsoft our mission is to empower every person and every
organization on the planet to achieve more. say every person it does
include persons with disabilities. We are right now in an era of tech
intensity as we are calling here at Microsoft. So everything is digital and
there are so many cloud computing or in tech knowledge for us to uh
explore uh to create and this is a very interesting moment in time that
we are living that we can all benefit from, the digital revolution. and at
Microsoft we have four principles to bring all this technology to life the
first is to ensure that technology is inclusive ensure that it’s trusted that
we respect human rights and we also make it sustainable. These are the
four things at the core every time we create we bring a solution to life.
On the left, spinning earth
On the right, graphics of 3
people, hands shaking, a
scale, and a plant,
representing the four
pillars of Microsoft’s
mission.
Text on screen: Our
mission: Empower every
person and every
organization on the planet
to achieve more
Tech intensity
Inclusive, trusted,
fundamental rights,
sustainable
and one of the quote from our CEO Satya Nadella and I love this quote
it says technology is the only malleable thing humans have created and
we can create economic prosperity and this is so true. Artificial
intelligence and all the capabilities we have today we can create and
innovate, bring solutions that we and solve problems that we were not
thinking it would be possible.
Sataya Nadella, a middle
aged man of colour
wearing black framed
glasses and casually
dressed, Microsoft CEO.
Text on screen: Technology
is the only malleable thing
humans have created, and
we can create economic
prosperity
And of course for us to bring this to life we need to have some
perspective one of the questions we make inside Microsoft is not asking
what computers can do but asking what computers should do. This is so
important because as we design codes as we bring data to this code we
need to ensure that to ask ourselves is this solution that we are creating
now is it going to exclude or include people? Is it going to create
privilege for a certain group or exclude other people in terms of
privileges? Is it going to be reliable safety? What about privacy and
security? How can we ensure that external agents, government, anyone
else can come back to the algorithm and the system we created to
Brad Smith, a middle aged
white male, Microsoft
President formally dressed
and smiling
Text on screen:
Responsible AI: fairness,
inclusiveness, reliability &
safety, privacy & security,
transparency,
understand if something happened to make people accountable to be
transparent? These are ethical questions that we all need to make with
the technology we have today. It is the perspective that like all
technology it can be a tool or a weapon but the issue around
accessibility and digital inclusion is many in many occasions people end
up excluding without knowing.
accountability.
“Ultimately the question is
not only what computers
can do. It’s what
computers should do.”
As you have probably noticed I am presenting using captions. So this is
one of the examples of how artificial intelligence is empowering
speakers to do presentations that are more inclusive. this technology
was designed to empower people hard of hearing to join conference
calls like we are here right now but once we made it work it is now also
empowering not just people hard of hearing but also foreign language
speakers. I could join this presentation speaking Portuguese, my native
language. I could pick and choose up to 72 different languages and you
could follow this presentation in a very inclusive way. So this is a built-in
technology that is available by design. So if you have PowerPoint today,
just turn on captions when you present you’re going to make the
presentation inclusive for people hard of hearing, for foreign language
speakers or someone attending your session in a noisy environment.
Computer monitor
displaying a Microsoft
PowerPoint slide
As Ricardo talks, the
computer monitor has
captions appear on the
bottom, demonstrating the
captioning tool now
available in Microsoft
Powerpoint.
Text on screen: Our
inclusive design principles
a) Recognize exclusion:
exclusion happens when
we solve problems using
our own biases
b) Learn from diversity:
Human beings are the real
experts in adapting to
diversity
c) Solve for one, extend to
many: By focusing on
what’s universally
important to all humans
And with being including more and more languages as part of this
Microsoft translator services and we are so happy to see the evolution
and we are now adding first nation languages. We were so happy to
share recently the announcement of the first Canadian first nation
language that is part of the services. so imagine that the way we are
training we hope that we can capture and store all different languages
across the globe so in the future we can preserve and future
generations can understand meaning stories and connect with their
own and preferred language. so this is one of the examples of the
evolution that is taking place and we are so happy to see uh this
happening.
Collage of 6 images: two
people admiring a
colourful indigenous
painting; a close-up of a
person using their cell
phone; children playing
around a large inuksuk; a
Canadian flag; a stone
sculpture of a bear with a
mountain range in the
background; a young
woman on a laptop and a
man working at a table in
the background.
A table showing the
translation of common
phrases in English, French,
Inuktitut syllabics, and
Inuktitut roman
Text on screen: Microsoft
translator – Inuktitut
The other the other solution is there is a technology embedded in
PowerPoint called rehearsal. So just imagine you have an important
presentation and you want to train the session. So when you do
rehearsal artificial intelligence will tell how fast you speak will tell for
example that you are using a lot of um uh when you transition. It will
tell you avoid to say this uh sensitive words for example. You open a
session say hey how are you guys it’s going to say don’t say you guy’s
right? It will give you suggestions of other words for you to say and it
will also analyze your body language. It can capture the camera and tell
you how you behaving from the camera and at the end you get a report
telling you how many slides you covered, how much time you spent in
each slide, your pace, your pitch, fillers, something that you said that
was not appropriate, so it can help you to be a better speaker. This is
artificial intelligence empowering everyone. Imagine someone anxious
for a presentation. this person can do many dry run sessions leveraging
using artificial intelligence to do great.
Video clip demonstrating a
new feature in PowerPoint
called Presenter Coach
using AI. Tutorial prompts
appear to start recording,
reminds speaker to talk
more slowly, to limit the
number of filler words like
“umm”, to use inclusive
language, adjusting pitch
and reading slides.
Provides a report at the
end.
So recently we launched it as a new service for schools [Music]. so what
it does [Music] [unable to detect speech] [Music] a specific session
Video clip demonstrating a
new feature in Microsoft
Teams called Reading
Progress. Children practice
reading a passage while
being recorded and AI
detects accuracy of their
reading. At the end, the
video shows an example
report showing student
progress and insights.
So this is this is like the point that we want to bring which is showing
how artificial intelligence is addressing mismatching and empowering
everyone especially persons with disabilities. So by seeing what artificial
intelligence can do, we can understand the potential of this topic.
Collage of four images:
Curb cut in sidewalk, digital
rendering of accessible
zipper, a person in a
crowded room with a
hearing aid, and
accessible door handle
Text on screen: AI
addresses mismatches and
empower people to
achieve more
so by now I hope as a final message that you, like me, see this topic as a Hand on top of a laptop
very strategic topic. Disability is a strength and we should welcome
persons with disabilities in the workforce, in the classroom,
everywhere. It is also an engine of innovation when we design solutions
that include everyone we innovate and technology empowers
everyone, especially persons with disabilities.
with iPhone sitting next to
it.
Text on screen: Summary:
Disability is a strength
Disability is an engine of
innovation
Technology empowers
persons with disabilities
I hope you can also enjoy and start your journey as well become an
innovator in accessibility and I look forward to hearing your questions.
Colourful graphic of 9
people of various genders,
abilities and races.
Text on screen: become an
innovator in accessibility
Start your journey
I’m going to please now welcome you for Q & A if you want to learn
more I’m sharing some links microsoft.com/accessibility and also my
LinkedIn profile for additional questions thank you. Merci.
Black and white image of
Ricardo Wagner – middle
aged man.
Graphic of people with
various abilities standing
next to each other.
Text on screen: Thank you!
Ricardo Wagner
Microsoft.com/accessibility
Lisa: thank you Ricardo I’m going to invite everyone to uh take some
time and to use the q and a function in the bottom of your tab and if
you have some questions please post them in there. Ricardo we had an
audio issue when you played the last video and if you’d like to take a
minute maybe to just go over some of the features that you were
talking about.
Ricardo: sorry for that.
Lisa: so I know a few people commented so I just thought while we wait
for the Q & A maybe you could go through that.
Ricardo: easy. so in the video I show an example of an accessibility tool
built in in Microsoft teams that we use for education. It’s called reading
process. So teachers can assign books for students to read and when
the teacher assigns the book kids can read inside the tool and artificial
intelligence can understand the accuracy of the speech, the velocity,
The slide presentation is
minimized, and the
moderator (Lisa Leblanc)
and presenter (Ricardo
Wagner) reappear on the
screen. As each person
speaks, their face
reappears.
misspelled words, and each student receives a personal report and
teacher can also have a view from the main dashboard the performance
of the entire class and if the teacher noticed something that was not
delivered well or a point to explore, the teacher can go targeted to a
specific word or a specific topic. so it’s just showing how artificial
intelligence is not just addressing mismatches but it’s also empowering
every single student. It was recently launched, reading process.
Lisa: Thank you, that is so fascinating and I love the way that it helps um
kind of guide kids through it so in a way that isn’t uh reading out loud
let’s say in front of the class or uh giving them sort of the
empowerment themselves to go through it in a one-on-one basis. that’s
that sounds really great. So there’s quite a few questions that have
come in and so I had a few of my own but I will hold off on mine so that
we can go through the ones here and the first one is around the Xbox
controller and redesigning of the box. Was it simple fixes or did the
packaging have to be completely redesigned from what would it was
originally going to be?
Ricardo: That’s a very good question. so we did this by design from the
very beginning. One of the concepts of accessibility is do accessibility
from the very first start, not as an end point. So accessibility is not a
cosmetic. so the good thing the team decided to build the package from
the beginning so we made it right from the beginning so in this example
uh it was built from the beginning we had other examples that didn’t
work well as you can guess of products and solutions that we try to
include accessibility after the after the launch didn’t work so we learned
throughout the experience so everything we do is accessibility by
design.
Lisa: and this was applied to this special adaptive controller but I can
speak from experience that we recently bought an Xbox for our house
uh earlier this year and it was a delight opening the box and so, has
Microsoft sort of now applied that across all of their products regardless
of whether they’re considered adaptive or not?
Ricardo: Exactly Lisa you got the point is designed for and with persons
with disabilities but we all benefit we all benefit. It’s just easier like uh
this weekend I was cooking and I did a spaghetti uh with a special sauce
it was impossible to open the thing and get the tomato like I was like
how come they built something that is so hard I don’t have this ability
dexterity to open but it I almost ask help so it’s example that we can do
better to create packages that are more accessible and by doing this
everybody can benefit.
Lisa: well yes as a parent I think I can say we’ve probably all suffered
opening up a child’s packaging and gifts on either Christmas morning or
birthdays uh that are impossible so we certainly appreciate it. um
there’s one here from Christina who’s our CEO here at Ingenium and
she’s asking what are some of the common mistakes that organizations
make when they begin their journey to provide more accessible services
or products and buildings?
Ricardo: They assume they know what’s going on. They don’t invite
persons with disabilities to be part of the design they don’t invite
people with disabilities to be part of the decision making. That’s the
very common mistake so if I could lend a message it’s welcome and
appreciate diversity. Welcome persons with disabilities to be part of all
decisions. It’s like ensure that they are at the table not at the menu.
They are the ones who really understand the mismatches and can bring
valuable insights that can be in many occasions simple very simple
things that people can do and that will change that will make it work.
Recently I was working with a new colleague who was hired he has sight
loss and we were debating like what should be the best way. He said
just check accessibility of the content and share the presentation in
advance. no don’t worry it will be fine for me if you present and show
the slides during the meeting but just to ensure that I receive the
content in advance so I can consume the content in the screen reader
and then I go to your meeting I am prepared.
Lisa: That’s great advice yeah and so you know you showed us some of
the Microsoft office innovations here and there’s a question that talks
about um we know that has so many of these great options to improve
accessibility and to give you those tools. Are there other innovations
that are being worked on right now that you could give us a little insight
on or a little sneak peek or that you’re excited about?
Ricardo: Yes the piece that I’m super excited is around the most
common disability uh I invite you in the chat here what is the most
common disability worldwide? Uh blindness? Hearing loss? Mobility?
Mental health? Mental health. Mental health is the number one. So
there are lots of things going on right now to help improve mental
health and wellbeing and there are many researchers now thinking of
the fatigue of technology, like things that we all experienced during the
pandemic as an example. So there are lots of things that taking
knowledge can help us to avoid spending more time with tech, which is
which is weird but it is super important on how can we connect in a
meaningful way, use tech as necessary, not you know end up in
situations that we’re going to keep checking our email inbox or teams
or messaging or all the things all the time so I feel that there are lots of
things that we are learning and I believe that we’re going to see many
things in the future that will help us to better connect and relate to
each other using technology. This is a field to explore. The other one I
would say health. I heard you said uh sessions around health. Lots of
things going on in health.
Lisa: And like you said there’s a physical health there’s mental health
and all of it being certainly quite prevalent in our um horizon at the
moment because we’ve been living through this absolutely mad year of
the pandemic. It seems like it’s heightened our ability to put these
things forward and to talk about them. There’s a question here I think
that relates a little bit to this if I’m understanding the question so
they’re asking can you discuss how Microsoft is addressing the inherent
bias that is duplicated in our society’s value systems and I think there is
some stuff there around mental health. maybe I’m misinterpreting the
question but are there other things that you’re conscious about
whether it be you know social standing or economic health and all of
those things what are some of the things that concern you over at
Microsoft?
Ricardo: So it is a very very very good question. I will get to this question
I’m going to just make a bridge from what you mentioned before about
the pandemic. The pandemic is a great example. The environment
became disabled and we were first forced to accommodate ourselves in
our home. So we went through an accommodation experience we
thought it was temporary. So some people like me I did some MacGyver
things at home to make it work and it didn’t work so I ended up ended
up adapting my environment. So that’s the invitation. It’s not about
accommodation it’s about adaptation. How we adapt the environment,
that we all get a sense of belonging, that’s a very important perspective
in the pandemic helping us to notice the experience that many people
with disabilities they experience daily. Back to the question of bias. I
think we have a lot of work to do. that’s an ongoing initiative inside
Microsoft with lots of trainings inviting and appreciating perspectives,
activating talent acquisition for inclusive hiring and hiring diverse
perspectives to help us to as I mentioned recognizing exclusion. We are
recognizing many exclusions that we have in ways that we offer our
solutions in ways that we assist our customers in ways that we deal
with partners, with suppliers and we are constantly looking to increase
the representation of the population we serve. So as we are here as a
mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet
to achieve more to better reflect the population we serve, we need to
have them as part of our organization. We have more than 150,000
employees in I guess 100 more than 100 countries and this is this is
super interesting because we can share perspectives quickly with
colleagues from very different places remote from different culture so
one of the things that we do is to really bring perspectives ask people
it’s I think the bias is be comfortable to ask don’t assume. Ask. So I just
had an example we had a project that we were working with a team
that we need to assist and support customers with sight loss. We invite
people with sight loss what do you think and they gave the perspective
so it not only made us comfortable but we ensure that what we were
doing was right. so appreciate diversity and welcome different
perspective to the fabric and ask simply ask when in doubt.
Lisa: And I think I’d add on our small scale at the museum we did some
consultations after we reopened the museum in we did a little bit while
we were in development but we realized our mistakes and so I think
that fear sometimes of even trying to take a step forward to change the
way that you work or the environment that you’re offering or the
products that you’re developing makes you reticent to even start on
that path and I think you know for us the learning has been okay we
made mistakes so let’s fix it and let’s figure out what the path forward is
and I don’t think that there’s anything lost in that I think it just gives us
that sense of confidence then moving forward and saying okay let’s try
something else so yeah. Um there’s one I think you mentioned 150,000
employees across the globe and so someone here is asking about what
background are you looking for when building your accessible team? So
you talked a bit about that representation and diversity and asking but
what kind of skill set is there? They’re certainly not all computer
engineers, so what is the environment that renders the mix of
disciplines and expertise and interests that that create that magic at
Microsoft?
Ricardo: We look for abilities we look for skills. That’s the very first thing
we look for. Abilities and skills as humans we all have certain abilities
and sometimes we can call weakness or points that uh if you connect a
person who doesn’t do well certain tasks you should not do this job
right so we look for talents we look for expertise we look for skills that’s
the first thing it is not just technical skills but it’s also human skills. Put it
this way. So we look for humans who knows how to talk to humans
right? and I know it’s sometimes weird to say this but there are many
examples and training that we go inside our own organization of
situations ethical situations that we need to discuss and we expect
people to behave from a human point of view bringing their heart say
this is the right thing to do right. Especially now with artificial
intelligence and coding that you can bring emotion, you can bring
cognitive perspectives and services. This is so crucial and important for
us to make it right from the start right. But in high demand tech skills
around coding developers people with knowledge in AI machine
learning natural language processes but um not limited too because it’s
a big organization. we are also looking for people with hr skills
marketing skills sales skills right. I think it’s a combination of soft and
hard skills but in high demand computer engineers, tech things is we
have like lots of open positions inside Microsoft, in our ecosystem as
well.
Lisa: We talked about this while we were waiting for the webinar to
start tonight so someone’s asking about watching the new feature in
teams in a classroom, how can we ensure that it doesn’t discriminate
reading skills based on pronunciation of kids with accents or with
speech difficulties and you talked a little bit about that of your own
lived experience.
Ricardo: Yes it’s a it is a very very very very interesting question. One of
the things that fascinates me is people tend to work with computers
and interact with computers like they used to interact with typewriters.
you know it’s my generation, I did a course for typewriter maybe we
have millennials here they have no idea what I’m talking about but at
that time it was a skill if you had a diploma in showing how many words
you could type per minute it would be skill. But with computers today
you can use your finger you can touch you can use inking you can use
your voice you can use your eyes. So the magic is to connect abilities to
the environment to tools and we have by design in Windows 10 in office
360 all the possible ways for you to interact either using your voice,
your eyes, touch, inking, as a tablet, as a notebook, with keyboard, USB
for assistive technology. Remember the example of the pilot in the
aircraft? It’s not people adapting to the laptop or Windows or office. It’s
the computer and the technology adapting to you. So back to this
example. Yes there are other ways and the teacher will know that the
student is a foreign language speaker. Guess what? set up in the
preferred first language and if the kid wants to perform that specific
class with the preferred language feel free to switch your language and
AI is going to share the report in the same way. So you can make the
most important point is to educate the children on how to read how to
comprehend that’s the key goal is not to get to the perfection of yeah it
was the highest score that’s like going deep in the objective of helping
kids to learn to study right. There are some very interesting
developments around people don’t call anymore nonverbal they call
alternative communication many ways that you can detect with facial
expression or advances around sign language interpretation. So this
field is fascinating but a very good question and what we do is we apply
other possible languages. Teachers can give more time. Put it this way
teachers can give on their own terms the specifics and design a session
for each student and get the best of each student through technology.
Lisa: so it really does become individualized learning that suits the
person rather than the person trying to suit the learning.
Ricardo: and just thinking like in the past a kid with learning disabilities.
For example kids were invited to find special education like dyslexia is a
common example and today with the right software kids can join, kids
can participate in enjoying classrooms like everyone else. So the
problem is the school, the technology, not the children right? So by
adapting this school we ended up creating inclusive experiences and
Lisa I see also a question from a colleague of mine Pedro Bojicia. He’s in
Seattle right now he’s shared what has been the impact of the
pandemic to people with disabilities and how technology can help. Very
good question. One of the things we learned from the very beginning
was mental health. We all got to a point of a stressful situation fatigue
people joining calls after calls working after hours people in different
time zones with remote learning kids, couples fighting all the time. Like
everybody experienced this right or most of people. So when we got to
this point, many customers reach out to us asking hey Microsoft you’ve
been working remote in hybrid environment for a long time right? What
are some best practices and things you can do? and when we were
discussing this internally at Microsoft to give some guidance and
reference to customers it was a fascinating conversation with the
community of persons with disabilities that jump and said yeah you are
all experiencing something that I’ve been experienced for a long time
since I had my accident. So in one of the stories I heard the person said
the problem was not just the car accident that I became quadriplegic
but was my mental health and my understanding of my new way of
living. understanding that it would be challenging for me to go outside
to commute independently and I need to manage my way to make my
home my workplace my way to interact with my friends and yeah it was
tough but I made it work. So one of the learnings was the community of
people with permanent disabilities they ended up helping many more
people because they went through this experience before and they
could give ideas of for all of us to think on how we could go through the
situation with examples like taking care of what we were eating,
drinking, sleep, time, dressing ourselves with our preferred clothes not
assuming that just because you are at home you’re going to wear
pyjamas. It’s tricky but I’ll give an example for you now I am at my home
right now but I decided to dress myself with clothes that I pretend that I
am just imagining that I am on the stage and you are in front of me this
is important because by doing this you did not just trick your mind but
you connect in a meaningful way as well so thank you.
Lisa: We’ve all learned adaptation whether we realized it or not this
year. I was speaking to a colleague today and we were saying we look
forward to the day where we don’t have to always preplan to do
something whether it’s to say is that place open what are the
requirements? What do I need to do? and I think but people with
disabilities do this all the time and so we’ve had this little glimpse at
sort of the daily adaptation that occurs for anyone who might be in a
wheelchair or has vision loss that need to do the preplanning and so I
guess there’s a kind of a deep learning that we’ve had that maybe we
should talk about a little bit more which could be a whole other
evening. so we are over time Ricardo. I know there’s more questions so
here is what I’m going to say. First of all thank you thank you for your
insights your generosity your time your enthusiasm your passion. It has
been a great talk. I’ve seen you speak before you never disappoint so
thank you very much for sharing what’s going on at Microsoft. Ricardo
has agreed that he will look at the questions with us and we will try to
post something for all the outstanding questions so that if you’ve asked
a question and feel like you’re getting a little bit let down because we’re
running out of time we’re going to send out something that will at least
respond to those questions in the coming weeks. If you have loved this
presentation and would love to see it again or share it we have
someone in the chat asking about sharing it with their class sharing it
with colleagues sharing it as part of awareness building in your own
organizations or in your circle we’re going to have this we’ve been
recording it we’re going to have it on our YouTube channel in the
coming weeks and we are trying to commit as best we can to be fully
accessible so we’re going to make sure that we’ve got transcriptions
and translations and captioning and everything that’s required there
and if there’s anything you need please tell us and we would love to see
how we can provide a greater access. The other thing I’d like to say is
the chat is going to have a link to a survey. The museum would really
love to know what you thought of tonight’s talk. We want to continue
this series this time next year. We will be welcoming some new
speakers around this topic so we’d love to make sure that the next year
sessions meet your interests so if you could take the link to that survey
and you will also probably receive an email from us through your
registration that we will also send the survey to you through our email
after tonight and stay tuned. In the fall we’re looking again to talk about
the future of diabetes, we’re looking to talk about AI and I know there’s
a question in here about autonomous vehicles and we were looking to
bring in somebody from Blackberry QNX to talk about their technology
and all of the advancements around autonomous everything and so
hopefully you’ll be able to join us for that and if you’d love to know
more just write to our info line at ingenium.org and we can add you to
the list and keep you posted on new series for curiosity on stage.
[Speaking in French] So thank you very much.
Ricardo: Thank you.
Lisa and Ricardo’s images
fade away.
A logo of the National
Research Council of
Canada appears.
Text on screen:
This edition of Curiosity on
Stage is supported by the
National Research Council
Canada.
The Canada Science and
Technology Museum logo
appears. It spins on the
screen, then disappears.
The Government of
Canada logo appears.
Text on screen: Canada
Science and Technology
Museum
IngeniumCanada.org

Descriptive Transcript: Driving Innovation for Insulin-Users Living with
Diabetes | Robert Oringer and Claude Piché | Curiosity on Stage
Evening
Audio Video
[Michelle Mekarski]
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Curiosity on Stage. This presentation is part of a series meant to discuss new and emerging technologies making a difference in Canada and also around the world. My name is Michelle Mekarski. I am the science advisor at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, and I am going to be your host this evening. For those of you attending with visual impairments, I am a woman with shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes, and I am joining you this evening from my home office in the city of Ottawa, which is built on unceded Algonquin
Anishinaabe territory.
The Curiosity on Stage Evening Edition
logo, the Canada Science and Technology
Museum logo, and the Ingenium
Foundation logo appear on screen.
Text on screen: @SciTechMuseum
#CuriosityOnStage
In the top right corner of the screen is the
moderator (Michelle Mekarski). She is a
woman with shoulder length brown hair
and brown eyes. She is wearing a blue
sweater and earbuds. In her background is
the Curiosity on Stage logo.
[Michelle]
Before we start, I also want to thank those who are supporting us tonight. I’d like to thank, first and
foremost, the Ingenium Foundation who is generously co-hosting this Curiosity on Stage series focused on the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin. We are truly grateful for the Foundation’s support in amplifying Ingenium’s mission and particularly inspired by their mission towards science for all. In addition to the Ingenium Foundation, I would also like to thank the
National Research Council of Canada for their support in making this series more accessible through translations, captioning and transcriptions. Curiosity on Stage is all about inspiring thought by
bringing together experts to get bringing together experts – I’m sorry – to share relevant, essential and engaging topics that matter. This particular series is significant as it commemorates the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin, a story which has its roots in Canada and has been profoundly transformative to lives all over the world. Tonight, in conjunction with the Ingenium Foundation, I am delighted to introduce the second of three webinars in the thematic series ‘Beyond Text on screen: Driving Innovation for Insulin-Users Living with Diabetes. Robert Oringer & Dr. Claude Piché. Co-Founders of Locemia Solutions

Claude Piché appears in the top right of
the screen. He is wearing a light blue
button down shirt, glasses, and wireless
earbuds. In the background is a large
bookshelf filled with books, bottles, family
photos, and a small abstract sculpture.
Injections. 100 Years of Insulin and the Future of
Diabetes’.
As one of the most common medical conditions
affecting Canadians, an estimated 2 million — or one in
16 people — have been diagnosed with diabetes. A
century ago, this diagnosis would have been a death
sentence. However, with the discovery of insulin,
millions of lives have been saved and improved. Even
though insulin saves millions of lives, it is not without
risk. Insulin is fairly unique among drugs in that it is self-administered
and self-dosed. In other words, it isn’t a…
it isn’t a doctor that calculates your dosage and giving
you your shot of insulin. It’s either the patient or their
caregiver.
Now, a person with diabetes takes insulin to keep their
blood sugars in a normal range. This means deciding
how much insulin they need to dose themselves with
based on a variety of factors, including what time of day
it is, which foods they’ve eaten, how much exercise
they’ve had, if they’re under stress, and also any other
unexpected blood sugar variations that need to be
brought into range with additional insulin.
If they miss, uh, mistime their insulin or accidentally
take too much, or if a whole range of other stuff
happens, their blood sugar can actually drop
dangerously low to the point of being deadly. Our guest
speakers today invented a product that saves the lives
of those that find themselves in this life threatening
situation.
Therefore, today I am delighted to welcome two
innovators who will be discussing their personal
commitment to supporting other startup companies
who are driving technologies that can help prevent
severe low blood sugar before it ever occurs.
Robert Oringer and Claude Piché are the co-founders of
Locemia, the Montreal-based company that developed
an innovative, needle-free, glucagon nasal powder,
which is used for treating severe low blood sugar. What
makes this product so innovative is how easy it is to use,
carry, and teach others. All things that are really
important during an emergency situation.
Locemia’s glucagon nasal powder assets were sold to Eli
Lilly in 2015, and the resulting product is sold around
the world today as Baqsimi glucagon nasal powder.
Now, if you were at our last presentation by Ron Shlien,
you may remember that Eli Lilly was also the first
company to commercially produce insulin in 1923.
Robert Oringer is the chairman of Locemia Solutions and
also currently serves as chairman for AMG Medical, a
Montreal-based health care company that is getting
ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary. He has over 35
years as an entrepreneur, investor and board leader in
health care, primarily in diabetes medical devices and
services. Robert’s focus on innovation in the diabetes
space stems from his experience of raising his two sons,
who both live with type one diabetes.
Dr. Claude Piché is the CEO of Locemia Solutions. He is
also an active investor, board member, and advisor in
numerous private biopharma and medical device
companies, with an emphasis on companies that seek to
prevent episodes of low, severe blood sugar for people
with diabetes who take insulin. Prior to leading the
creation and development of Baqsimi, Claude worked at
private, public, and startup biopharmaceutical
companies where he had his hands in research,
regulatory affairs, marketing, operations, and business
development.
I hope you’re as excited as I am to hear from these two
innovators. Please join me in welcoming Robert and
Claude to Curiosity on Stage.
[Claude Piché]
Merci Michelle! Thank you very much, Michelle. I’ll start
this off with a few words in French. [French speaking]
So on behalf of Robert and I, I’d like to thank Michelle
and the entire team for organizing this evening’s
session, and I especially want to thank all of you who
have tuned in on a on an evening or I guess late
afternoon for some of you in the west to come and
listen to this story.
So as background to our discussion about entrepreneurs
and technologies we’ve been working with these past
few years, we’d like to give you some insights into the
journey that led us to this point.
[Claude] A photograph of two people silhouetted as
So to do so, I’ll be, Robert and I will both be kind of
putting you into a time machine where we’re going to
be bouncing back and forth as much as 20 years or more
to take you through the story that led to the formation
of our company Locemia and eventually to the
development of our product Baqsimi.
Personally, my background: I’m a veterinarian. I went to
vet school in western Canada. I practiced in Calgary for
about six years, at which time I wanted a change and I
was interested in the pharmaceutical industry. So I was
fortunate enough to be hired by Merck Frosst, who
worked with big multinational pharmaceutical company,
in their veterinary pharmaceutical division.
I spent almost ten years with Merck in Calgary for a
couple of years, head office in Montreal for a few years
and then global head office in New Jersey for four years.
Various roles: marketing, clinical research, regulatory
affairs, product development, and I left the company
after about ten years to join a startup in Colorado.
So I went from western Canada to Montreal to New
Jersey, back to the West, this time in Colorado, to a
company that was working on long-acting injectable
drug delivery. So we were working to take drugs that
had to be injected two or three times a day to make it,
for example, a once a day injection. And one of our
projects was an ultra-long-acting basal insulin for people
with diabetes.
We were targeting a once a week basal insulin, and
that’s when I stumbled into diabetes. I became
enamoured with the entire space, the medicine, the
science, the business of diabetes. I found absolutely
fascinating. And so for the last 20 years. But for me, it’s
a it’s an introduction through my profession that I got
into diabetes. So that’s been my space for the last 20 or
so years.
Now, before I move on to this story, I think I need to
give a little bit of background about hypoglycemia and
glucagon in particular.
So for those of us who don’t have diabetes, like me, we
have this incredible organ called the pancreas. And
many of you already know this, but the pancreas
produces many hormones. But two really key hormones
they canoe on a lake at sunset. An adult
man sits at the back of the canoe, a child
sits in the front of the canoe. In the
distance are two islands. The sun is setting
making the sky bright and colourful, with
streaks of orange, gold, black, white, and
blue.
Text on screen: there is never a good time
to have a low. Be prepared,
in glucose control are insulin and glucagon, they’re kind
of like the ying and yang of glucose control.
So when we (people who don’t have diabetes) eat a
meal, the pancreas will detect that our blood glucose
levels are going up. The pancreas will produce insulin.
That insulin goes from the pancreas directly to the liver
and then to the other organs in the body.
On the other hand, if we don’t eat or let’s say we
exercise strenuously and our glucose levels start to
drop, that same organ, the pancreas, will produce
glucagon and that glucagon will go directly to the liver.
And it’ll stimulate the liver to release glucose that has
been stored into circulation and that will bring back our
glucose levels.
So between insulin and glucagon, we have this kind of
gas pedal and break that keeps our glucose levels in a
pretty tight range for those of us who are fortunate
enough to have a highly functional pancreas.
Now, for people who have to take insulin if they’re type
one because they’re not producing insulin, or type two
because they’re no longer responding to their insulin,
controlling the blood glucose levels is really a challenge.
There are so many factors that affect your glucose
levels. It’s almost impossible to do this by ourselves. So
people with diabetes on insulin frequently experience
hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, so it’s often going too
high, often going too low.
[Claude]
Now, with hypoglycemia, we have three categories we
call: level one, level two, level three. Or you can just call
it mild, moderate, severe.
Mild to moderate hypoglycemia, people feel it coming
on. They can self-correct by ingesting, for example, a
glucose tablet or some orange juice, or cola, or candy
bar to bring their blood sugars back up. That probably
happens easily once a week, maybe twice a week. I
don’t want to sound like it’s not a problem. It actually is,
it’s a big disruptor in the lives of people on insulin. With
even a mild or moderate hypoglycemia can kind of mess
up a day. But at least it can be self-treated.
Then we have what we call severe hypoglycemia. Now,
severe hypoglycemia, by definition, simply says it’s a
hypoglycemia that requires the assistance of a third
As Dr Piché talks about glucose tablets he
holds up a plastic purple vial the size of his
thumb.
party to treat it. So the person may be unconscious,
maybe in convulsions, or maybe severely disoriented
and not really in a position to eat. So you need
somebody else to help you with treatment of that
severe hypoglycemia.
And the treatment for severe hypoglycemia is typically
one of two things. Either an intravenous injection of
glucose, which is something that takes place at the
hospital, or a drug called glucagon. Remember, I told
you about the glucagon that comes to the pancreas, to
the liver to release glucose? Well, it can be given until
recently by injection.
[Claude]
So when Robert and I started working on Locemia, we
were looking to address an unmet medical need for an
easy-to-use glucagon.
This is the current or the formulation that was available
at the time. You can see it’s a prefilled syringe with a
pretty large needle and a vial of dry powder. So in order
to use this drug, a person has to take the cap off that
needle, insert it into the vial of dry powder, inject the
liquid, mix it up, draw it back out, get rid of the air
bubbles, and then actually go give an injection with this
pretty big, long needle exposed. So what happens in real
life is that people wouldn’t use it. It’s a scary, scary
procedure.
And so people weren’t carrying it, weren’t using it. And
unfortunately, a really good drug wasn’t being used, and
that’s what we sought to address. Robert will tell you
more about this when he gives you his background as a
parent of two boys with type one diabetes.
Now, before I turn over to Robert, I want to give you a
little bit of his background so he can continue straight
on with the discussion at hand. So Robert is an
American, has a business degree, sold computers in New
York for IBM for about five years before moving to
Montreal to marry Marla in 1987. He bought a small
biosensing company in Montreal that eventually merged
with a company called AMG Medical, for which he is still
the chairman of the company. AMG Medical was
importing and distributing a variety of durable medical
goods.
One day, one of his business partners at AMG Medical,
As Dr Piché talks, he holds up a orange
plastic case about the length of his hand.
Inside is a syringe and a tiny vial.
As he continues to talk, he takes the
needle and vial out of the case to
demonstrate.
Big Al, brought forth a handful of lancets and said to
Robert: “people are starting to use these lancets to prick
their fingers to do home blood glucose monitoring. It’s a
new thing that’s being developed right now. I think
there might be a business here.” Robert ran with the
idea and shortly thereafter created a new company that
was selling private label diabetes supplies to U.S.
pharmacy chain – excuse me – US pharmacy chains.
So what started with lancets ultimately became needles,
syringes, glucometers, testing strips, glucose tablets for
treating mild and moderate hypoglycemia in people
with diabetes who took insulin. So Robert had, in fact
built a very nice business in diabetes, when in 1997, his
world was turned upside down.
And I’ll turn over to Robert.
[Robert Oringer]
Hello, everybody. Thank you Claude.
So I had already been in the diabetes business for seven
years, as Claude had said, and then in 1997, it was
August. In a span of less than a month, our older son
Cory, who was age three at the time, and our younger
son, Justin, who was nine months old, they were
diagnosed with type one diabetes within a month of
each other.
And I’ll tell you that for everyone who is diagnosed with
diabetes and put on insulin — type one or type two —
there’s actually a second diagnosis that I refer to as the
unspoken diagnosis. Nobody even refers to it as a
diagnosis. It’s the risk of hypoglycemia and, of course,
the risk of severe hypoglycemia.
This risk hangs over everyone like a constant dark cloud.
It’s a near term, immediate, potential complication. It’s
not long term. It can happen anywhere at any time. And
I refer to it sometimes as a plague. You know, when
when people are diagnosed and put on insulin, you think
about, and you go to Google, and you read about long
term complications, you read about things, the eyes,
kidneys. And this is immediate. This is this is this is at
any time near term. And I want to emphasize this. And
it’s not just the the the the risk of of the event. It’s not
just when it happens, but it’s the fear and the anxiety of
hypoglycemia that affects all kinds of interactions that
you have.
Robert Oringer appears in the top right of
the screen. He is wearing a blue sweater
and white earbuds. Behind him is a
bookshelf filled with books, small vials,
and glass vases.
As parents, my wife and I were constantly thinking
about who has got our kids backs. And I’d like to take a
couple of minutes to share some insights, including
some of our inner thoughts about how we navigated life
over those first ten years from the time that our boys
were diagnosed and put on insulin.
Importantly, I want you to keep in mind that during the
first ten years that our kids were diagnosed and put on
insulin, the only option for teaching rescue to others
was the complicated needle based glucagon kit that
Claude held up.
So if you would with me, envision that there were
different groups of people who are very important to us
and our boys. I’ll start with teachers, first groups,
teachers, school nurses, babysitters, parents of kids of
our friends and hockey coaches. And then in all of these
cases we had to project ahead based on the personality
of the individual we were going to have to speak with
and teach how they might have to rescue one of our
boys and how they might react to actually being taught
about something so complicated.
We we thought about the timing of doing the teaching
and its impact in every conversation, and I’ll use I’ll use a
hockey coach as an example. My wife, Marla, she taught
so many school nurses, so many babysitters, so many
teachers, and there was anxiety in each example. But
the hockey coach we both had to consider, and that’s a
unique example because we had to actually think about
the timing, you know, whether we would tell the coach
about rescue and their responsibility and role, which
they didn’t sign up for. They were just a hockey coach.
Whether we would tell the coach before our kids made
the team or would we wait until after all the tryouts
were over and then tell the coach? And so there were
subtleties in sharing this responsibility with another, of
what they would need to do and rescue.
The grandparents were a different situation. Our boys
had loving grandparents. They still do. But right or
wrong, my wife and I made a judgment call that it would
be just too much of a burden for them to be trained on
the glucagon kit, and we might have been wrong on
that. But as a result of our judgment and our decision
there, the grandparents, our kids had limited chunks of
time with their grandparents. We were typically always
there at the same time or if they were alone with our
kids, it was a specific short period of time. It wasn’t…
there were no sleepovers. And the idea of training
grandparents on how to use a glucagon kit for a
sleepover and for a severe low blood sugar that could
happen at two in the morning. It was just not something
we wanted to do.
The kind of the one other example of that is I want to
paint a picture for you, if I could, is the college
roommate. You know, as our older son got older, he was
heading towards his freshman year. He had a roommate
that knew he had diabetes and as we drove to school,
we knew that the roommate knew he had diabetes, but
we said to our son, “Do you want to share about rescue,
about glucagon with your roommate or do you want us
to share it? Do you want us to tell him what he would
need to do with the glucagon kit?” And our son actually
said, “You know what? Let me handle it. I’ll handle it.”
And we got to the school and we were moving him in
and day one passed. We asked our son whether he had
had the conversation and he hadn’t had it. Day two
passed. And by day three, we were leaving and we were
going to head back home to Montreal. And we said to
our son: “Have you spoken to your roommate yet to
teach him about glucagon?” And he said, “No, I haven’t
done it yet”, and we knew why he didn’t do it yet.
There’s a whole process to doing it and the timing.
Anyway, he promised that he would do it and he did do
it. And the roommate, you know, who had not signed up
to become an EMS worker, he he’s very mature, and he
handled it well. And fortunately, our son never had a
severe low that year or during college and and it would
never have to be used.
But that idea of telling people who surround you and
educating people about it was really starting to hit home
with me. And I’ll say that these personal experiences
with my family led me to deeply understand the
relationship between the risk of severe hypoglycemia
and situation avoidance, dependence on others, loss of
spontaneity, constant compromise, increased anxiety
and fear, loss of confidence, and and vulnerability.
I had thought I had empathy during the early years that I
was marketing glucose treatment products, glucose
tablets and gels and drinks to pharmacies across
America. But before my boys were diagnosed and
before living through what I lived through with my boys,
I learned real empathy.
And I’ll say that after ten years of brewing and stewing
on the horrible complexity of glucagon rescue and
having put in the requisite 10,000 hours that Malcolm
Gladwell wrote about in his book ‘Outliers’, I was ready
to do something so that my boys could feel in their
hearts that people could have their backs. And that
those who surround them could feel in their hearts,
whether it’s a hockey coach or grandparents or college
roommate, that they could in fact have the backs of my
two boys.
And I got to tell you, I had no experience in pharma. I
had primarily sold over-the-counter products and
medical devices, but I wanted to do this.
But if we were going to innovate glucagon for rescue
purposes, I needed to find a CEO with pharma
experience who could lead what I envisioned to be a
new mission-focused company with a singular goal. And
that leads back to Claude, and I’ll pass it back to Claude.
[Claude]
OK, thanks. Thanks, Robert. We’ll go to the next slide,
please. So Robert and I were introduced to each other
through a consultant named Dr. Alexander Fleming. He
goes by the name Zan Fleming. Former FDA medical
reviewer, endocrinologist, and now for the last 20 plus
years and one of the world’s top consultants in
development of diabetes products.
I’d known Zan for a few years and Robert had met him in
a search for somebody. And that’s how we were
introduced. So in 2009, Robert and I started working
together. At the time, I was still in Colorado.
I wrote a business plan. Well, we wrote a business plan
to try to innovate glucagon. And as we were doing this
at Zan Flemming, the guy who introduced us, said to us
one day, well have you ever considered the intranasal
route?
And we hadn’t. We’d been thinking about a better
injection, a better way to inject. That, that’s where we
A photograph of two people silhouetted as
they canoe on a lake at sunset. An adult
man sits at the back of the canoe, a child
sits in the front of the canoe. In the
distance are two islands. The sun is setting
making the sky bright and colourful, with
streaks of orange, gold, black, white, and
blue.
Text on screen: Locemia Solutions. Making
hypoglycemia rescue simple
were headed. Maybe after Zan suggested the intranasal
route, I did a literature search that night. And lo and
behold, I found a paper published in 1983 by Dr Pontiroli
from the University of Milan on intranasal glucagon to
treat severe hypoglycemia in people. Then I found
papers by Dr Salama in Paris and a group of researchers
in Denmark. That together gave us quite a bit of data
indicating that intranasal delivery of glucagon might be
an interesting approach.
Robert and I actually flew to Milan to meet with Dr
Pontiroli, to Paris to meet with Dr Salama, to
Copenhagen to meet with some Danish researchers.
And we came back convinced that the intranasal route
was was the way to go. And so that became the basis of
what we decided to do.
In 2010, I moved back to Montreal and Robert and I
formed Locemia Solutions, the company that we were
building expressly to innovate glucagon for treatment of
severe hypoglycemia. We were able to recruit a very
talented team of individuals in and around Montreal.
Locemia was always a virtual company. We never had an
office. So for the Locemia team, working from home due
to COVID is simply a continuation of what we’ve been
doing for a long, long time. We worked with testing labs
in the area, we partner with KABS,, K-A-B-S in St-Hubert
to do our manufacturing. We ran most of our clinical
studies right here in Quebec, although we also ran some
in Ontario and in Manitoba and in several states in the
U.S..
One of the studies that we ran, which has quite a
Canadian flavour, is that what we call the nasal
congestion study. As we’re delivering the drug through
the nose, an obvious question is what happens if I have
a bad cold or a seasonal or seasonal allergies? Will the
drug be absorbed?
So we actually started a study late one winter in
Montreal, where we had ads in the metro and ads on
the radio, basically saying: If you’ve got a really bad head
cold and you’re really stuffed up and you feel like awful,
we’ve got a study just for you. And we managed to
attract about 36 people who came in with a really bad
head cold. We dosed them while they were not feeling
well, had them come back a couple of weeks later when
they were fully recovered, dosed them again, and we
were able to demonstrate that nasal congestion did not
affect absorption of the drug.
Anyways, just one of the fun anecdotes from this one
particular program. Eventually, we were successful in
completing phase one, phase two, and phase three
clinical studies, which culminated in the sale of the
product to Eli Lilly at the end of 2015.
So I’ll turn it back over to Robert.
[Robert]
And you can advance the slide.
You know, it’s funny like Claude summarized in less than
five minutes this amazing journey we were on. You can’t
imagine the twists and turns. And he summarized it with
a happily ever after ending that the asset was sold to Eli
Lilly. But we had plenty of angst and sleepless nights
along the way.
He mentioned the business plan we worked on which,
as you can imagine, included extensive market research
and consideration of other innovations in the diabetes
field. And I want to share with you a couple of old slides
with images that came out of this market research that
we did and ultimately became part of our fundraising
pitch pitch deck for telling our story to potential
investors. And when I look back at these images today,
in retrospect, they remind me of the actual internal
debate we were having with ourselves, with ourselves,
literally with myself and with each other, and and also
with advisors, trusted advisers in evaluating whether to
even embark on our journey to, let’s say, muster up the
courage, so to speak, of whether to do this.
So this slide that you see: ‘a long history of innovation
and insulin’, you know, since insulin was discovered,
there have been billions and billions of dollars invested
by companies innovating insulin and also the devices
used to deliver insulin. We’ve gone from animal derived
insulins to recombinant analog insulins in various, you
know, long-acting formulations, fast-acting
formulations. And we even have, you know, a few years
back, inhaled insulin.
And on the delivery side, which is what you really see in
this slide, you see in the lower left, we’ve gone from
Five photographs showing the progression
of insulin delivery technology. One
photograph shows a large gauge, reusable
needle in a metal case. The next
photograph is of reusable glass syringe
with a metal stopper and plunger. The
third image shows disposable insulin
syringes. The fourth photograph shows an
insulin pen which is a blue tube with an
orange tip, and a twistable dial on the
back end. The fifth and final image shows
an insulin pump consisting of a blue box
with five buttons clipped to the waistband
of a person’s pants, attached by a tube to
a round, clear, plastic button embedded in
that person’s abdomen.
Text on screen: A long history of
innovation in insulin and insulin delivery
glass syringes, which needed to be boiled to be sterilized
and needles that needed to be sharpened, to
individually wrapped sterile disposable syringes
featuring thinner and thinner needles over time, to
insulin pens and continuous insulin pumps.
The innovation has been impressive, and I’ve would for
those who are watching this, who might be in the
diabetes space and say, Well, you’re not showing
current technology, modern tech, and that’s because
this is an old slide. And what’s featured in this slide are
products that are more than a decade old. So none of
the modern tech has depicted.
[Robert]
The if you would go to the next slide, I’ll make a
comment here now.
So we have this history of innovation in insulin and
insulin devices, delivery devices, but we have this long
history of limited innovation in glucagon delivery. And
boy, did we think about this. We we had almost 50 years
of of nothing.
When I say nothing, we went from a cardboard box that
you see on the left holding the components of the kit.
Claude showed you the plastic kit. But before we had
the plastic kit to kind of add insult to injury, when the
plastic like you’re seeing the kit on the left, the box in
the left two circles are actually my son’s kit that was
actually it was an expired kit that I pulled from his
hockey bag.
And for years and years, the kit in Canada was not even
innovated to be the plastic kit that had been launched in
the US. We never got to the root of why that happened
in Canada. But we went all these years without
innovation. We went from a cardboard kit to a plastic
kit. But that’s not innovation. And so you might be
wondering why this was, and we spent countless hours
wondering the same.
At the end of the day, we concluded that there were
several factors that hindered or, you know, one might
say, blocked innovation in glucagon. And I’ll share with
you, you know, total, the total market for insulin was
billions of dollars, whereas the market for rescue
glucagon was less than $150 million at the time we were
considering taking the risk.
Four photographs showing the
progression of glucagon delivery
technology.
The first photograph is a small white box
open at the top. Visible inside the box is a
capped syringe and a capped vial.
The second photograph shows a small,
open, white box with its contents spread
out in front. There is a clear syringe with a
white plunger, a small vial with a metal lid,
and a long sheet of instructions with
diagrams.
The third photograph shows a red plastic
case open in the background. In front are a
glass vial labelled “glucagon for injection”
and a clear syringe.
The final photograph shows and orange
plastic case with a small vial and a clear
syringe with a white stopper inside. On the
inside of the box lid is a series of pictures
which give instructions for use.
Text on screen: A long history of limited
innovation in glucagon delivery
Glucagon innovation just wasn’t attractive to be a
priority for large pharmaceutical companies. And in a
way, I don’t blame the large pharmaceutical companies
for this. They were focusing on making better and better
insulins, for which my family is thankful. So, you know,
this is actually where small companies usually emerge to
find innovative solutions for unmet needs in niche
markets that are too small for big pharmaceutical
companies, but totally worthwhile for a more nimble
company to pursue. But yet it wasn’t done, and we
wondered about that, said, are we missing something?
But in the case of innovating glucagon in talking to
potential investors who were, you know, who we were
talking to, seeking funding for research and for our
research and development, we quickly came to
understand that they were totally spooked by the idea
of investing in a project that had, from their viewpoint,
double risk. And what do I mean by that? If we were
going to proceed, this was not just the development of a
drug, it was not just figuring out how to make a powder
that could go in the nose. It was the development of a
medical device that would deliver the powder.
And so we had double risk: drug, device, combination
risk. And and really investors got spooked. Small market
ignored by Big Pharma. And I got to tell you all of that
being said, we felt compelled to take the risk because
we felt that if we could overcome the technical hurdles,
the total addressable market, in fact, would be many
times the size of the existing market. We felt that the
market was so small because the existing kit was so
complicated or so I’ll say ‘bad’. And if the kit was simple
and better, more people would have it, teach it, and and
the market would expand.
So for us, it was an important need for people using
insulin. But equally important, I want to point out it was
an important need for those who love or care for those
who use insulin. And so it was incredibly compelling to
pursue this, and we mustered up the courage with our
own capital to get this started.
Claude, I’ll let you take it from there.
[Claude]
All right. Thanks Robert. We’ll go one more slide. So our
goal at Locemia was really quite simple. We laser
In the background, a woman standing
outside in front of a forest holds a syringe
in one hand and a vial of glucagon in the
focused on simplicity. We wanted to take treatment of
severe hypoglycemia from a situation that’s complicated
and anxiety-inducing to come up, a situation that’s
simple and where people are confident that they can do
the job.
other hand. She looks scared.
In the foreground, a photograph shows a
hand injecting a syringe into another
person’s arm. Text on image: complicated,
anxiety.
An arrow with ‘Locemia Solutions’ written
on it points from the previous image to a
photograph shows a child lying on the
grass unconscious. A hand is depressing
the plunger of a white spray bottle that is
inserted in the child’s nostril. Text on
image: simple, confidence.
[Claude]
So next slide. So that’s where we developed Baqsimi,
the nasal glucagon.
You can see here, it’s a really simple device. It comes in
a little plastic tube, well protected. You open up the
plastic tube, you pull up the device and device has got
dry powder in it, and it’s just simply a matter of inserting
the tip into the nostril. And it’s literally a puff in the
nose. The drug is then absorbed from the nasal mucosa
and works essentially as rapidly as an injection.
So that’s that was the product that we were able to
develop. Now we did it, we developed it to a certain
stage. I’d like to give it to to throw some major kudos to
Eli Lilly, who took the asset from us in 2015. They did an
amazing job of completing the development work, of
scaling up the manufacture, of obtaining regulatory
approvals literally worldwide, and finally launching the
product in multiple mock, excuse me, multiple markets
despite the challenges associated with COVID 19.
So we owe Lilly a big kudos and a round of applause for,
for the work they have done and continue to do with
with our rescue device that we sold to them in 2015. So
with that, Robert, I’ll turn it back to you.
[Robert]
Yeah, this I’ll get into what we really now we’ve set it up
to tell you about what we wanted to talk to you about
today. You know, after we sold our nasal glucagon asset
to Lilly in 2015, we were asked constantly about what
we were going to do next. And the answer to us was
actually really quite clear after working so long for so
A photograph of a hand holding a small
white spray bottle with a conical
applicator on the top. A spray of powder is
coming out of the applicator as the hand
depresses the spray bottle.
Text on screen: Making hypoglycemia
rescue simple
many years in my case, on on treatments for mild or
moderate glucose tablets, glucose gels, glucose drinks
and then working on a nasal glucagon after working on
products to treat hyperglycemia.
We decided that we didn’t necessarily want to or need
to start another company doing something else, but
rather we decided to dedicate our efforts going forward
to working with founders of other early stage companies
focused on preventing hypoglycemia, rather than
treating it.
We had spent so much time on treating it, and it’ll take
time to get to those products that prevent it. But some
founders and there are many out there, they need help,
and we felt that each company, even if they were
working on just a tiny element of what would be part of
a bigger ecosystem, that we wanted to help them
towards their goals of preventing hypoglycemia. And we
would like to use the remaining time with you tonight to
highlight some of these companies and their founders
that are working towards this mission of preventing
hypoglycemia.
[Claude]
Next, next slide. So the next slide next up please.
So here we’ve got we’re supporting several companies
that are working in what’s called automated insulin
delivery or closed loop or hybrid closed loop or artificial
pancreas systems. These companies are using software
to connect an insulin pump to a continuous glucose
monitor and then using algorithms that calculate the
trends in glucose levels and automatically control the
amount of insulin being developed.
This photo represents a device being developed by a
company called Beta Bionics, a company that was
founded by Dr. Ed Damiano, himself a diabetes dad. He
has a son with type one diabetes. Beta Bionics is one of
several companies that are developing automated
insulin delivery systems. Next.
Here’s a photo of a system from a company called
Bigfoot Biomedical. You’re seeing a cell phone, a couple
of special caps that go on insulin pens, a glucometer,
and an automated and a continuous glucose glucose
sensor. For the vast majority of people with type two
diabetes who take insulin, they do not use an insulin
Seven images that represent technologies
and companies that the presenters have
supported.
1. A silver insulin pump with a large black
touch screen. Two tubes are coming
out of the pump.
2. A cell phone displaying a glucose
monitoring app. In front of the phone
are two insulin pen caps – one in black
and one in white, both with black
screens. There is also a blue
glucometer with a screen displaying
‘120’ and a white, disc-like, continuous
glucose monitor.
3. A very small, silver, hexagonal
continuous glucose sensor sits on a
person’s fingertip. It is only slightly
larger than the person’s fingertip.
4. An insulin infusion set which consists
of a white cylindrical ‘clip’ with a white
circular sticker for attaching it to the
skin, and a tube.
5. A close up of the Canadian $100 bill
which has an image of a small vial
pump and give themselves insulin by injection. For these
people, it’s really difficult to know how much insulin
they need to take, as Michelle referred to at the very
beginning of the session tonight. One company called
Bigfoot Biomedical is introducing a new product that
connects a special cap on the insulin pen to the
continuous glucose monitor and using software provides
on the spot guidance for insulin dosing. Now like Beta
Bionics, the company I referred to in the prior picture,
Bigfoot Biomedical was formed by three diabetes dads:
Lane Despereaux, a fellow Canadian here on this call,
Bryan Mazlish, and Jeffrey Brewer, who was formerly
the president of JDRF. Next image?
[Robert]
I’ll speak to this one because this is a prototype of a new
generation continuous glucose sensor. You can’t really
see the details of what makes it different. It’s using
microneedles that will allow the sensor to be, I’ll say, I’ll
use the term ‘pressed on’, but more easily applied and
applied on other parts of the body different than today’s
phenomenal continuous glucose sensors. We have
spectacular continuous sensors today on the market,
but there will always be a next generation, and BioLinq
is a company that’s working on the potential of a multianalyte
sensor that uses these microneedles on the
lower surface. It’s sitting on the finger there. It’s not
because it’s going to be applied to the finger. It’s sitting
there to show you the context of the size of the sensor.
But if we can get to a sensor that provides information
to algorithms more than just glucose about, let’s say,
glucose, maybe lactate, ketones and perhaps even
cortisol. That could even improve automated glucose or
automated delivery of insulin and and also improve
guided insulin delivery in the case of a company like
Bigfoot.
This company and the way this network was, I was
introduced to the founders of this company by Jeffrey
Brewer, the founder of BioLinq, who said that “Robert,
this is amazing early technology, too early for BigFoot.
You should go down and see them in San Diego”. And I
did actually with my wife and my younger son, and we
visited there together.
I’ll go to the next image and the next image is an an
infusion set. People who wear insulin pumps have to
have the insulin infused, and we need better infusion
labelled “insulin”.
6. A package of “SiteSmart” insulin
needle tips. The front of the box
displays four needle tips and covers
each in a different colour: blue, green,
yellow, and purple.
7. The logo for Zucara: a white Z with a
green and grey background.
Text on screen: Preventing (Not Treating)
Low Blood Sugar—
Supporting Innovators
Working to Make
This Possible
sets. This particular infusion set is from a company
called Capillary Biomedical, and it is working, the
company’s working towards an infusion set that could
last in the body longer, seven days, and not kink. Kinking
is a huge problem with infusion sets, and that would be
yet another improvement for automated insulin delivery
and preventing hypoglycemia. Claude you take it from
there?
[Claude]
OK, next. Next slide. So here I’ve got an image of an old
insulin vial. You’ll see the relevance of that in just a
minute.
But we’re also working with several companies who are
seeking to improve insulin. Since the insulin was
discovered 100 years ago, there’s been a continuous
effort to make insulin safer, more effective, easier to
use.
We’ve been working with a company called Diasome
Pharmaceuticals. Like Locemia and Bigfoot and Beta
Bionics, Diasome was also formed by diabetes dad, a
man called Dr. Blair Geho and the company is now led
by his son Bob, who himself has type one diabetes. So
the company is working on an additive to insulin to
make more of the injected insulin actually get to the
liver. This is an important thing that we think would
make their insulin a better insulin.
We’re also working very closely with another startup
called Surf Bio. Surf Bio is working on novel formulations
to make an ultra-rapid acting injected insulin and also a
room temperature stable insulin. As is the case with the
prior companies we’ve been discussing, Surf Bio was
formed by two diabetes parents, both of whom also
have spouses with type one diabetes.
Finally, in the insulin space, I’ll make another comment
about another company called Akston Bio, a Boston
based company that is working to develop an ultra-long
acting insulin, as well as what is referred to as a glucose-responsive
insulin. This is an insulin that stays in the
injection site until blood glucose levels rise to a certain
level. So instead of circulating freely at all times, it’s only
there when blood glucose levels go high. So if they were
to succeed in this, we might finally have a truly safe
insulin that would significantly reduce the risk of
hypoglycemia.
Next slide. So one of the challenges associated with
injection of insulin is the development of scar tissue at
the injection site. Out of habit, people tend to
frequently inject in the same area. For example, a right-handed
person might take the syringe and frequently go
into the left quadrant left lower quadrant of the
abdomen. That’s fine. But if you do it too often or over a
long period of time, you tend to develop kind of a scar
tissue in the injected area, and that scar tissue adversely
affects the way insulin is absorbed. You might get poor
absorption, therefore your glucose levels don’t come
down. Or you might happen to hit some fresh meat
area, an area with good circulation and end up going
into hypoglycemia. The only way to prevent that is to
encourage people who inject insulin to practice what’s
called injection site rotation, where insulin injections are
spread out across different areas of the body.
We’ve been supporting a small Montreal company that’s
come up with a really low tech idea to encourage people
to inject to rotate through injection sites. They put their
pen needles, four different colours in a box and you, as an
insulin user, decide which colour goes where.
So let’s say you say: blue for me, goes in the buttock and
green for me goes into the lower abdomen, yellow is
another space, and purple is another space. So when it
comes time for me to give an injection, I go into the box
and randomly pull out a needle. It’s the blue one that
goes in the buttock. Next time I give an injection, I pull
out oh it’s a green one. That’s my lower left abdomen.
So I don’t have to remember where I gave the last
injection. I just pull it out and go to the site associated
with that colour, and it’s giving me an injection site
rotation scheme to reduce the complications.
Finally, the last the last image please. Is a company in
Toronto called Zucara Therapeutics, they’re working on
a new medication that we hope will actually prevent
hypoglycemia. Their medication hopes to restore the
abilities, the body’s ability to secrete glucagon in the
presence of low blood sugars. Interestingly here, this
company, the new medication is the fruit of research of
Dr. Michael Riedel, a professor at York University of
Toronto, who is widely recognized as one of the world’s
leading experts in exercise and diabetes. He also
happens to have type one diabetes himself.
So we’ve given you a set, a small sample of the kinds of
things we’re looking at and the kinds of entrepreneurs
and companies we are supporting with our mission of
making a difference for people with diabetes and as well
as preventing hypoglycemia.
So I’ll turn back to Robert. You’re on mute.
[Robert]
I was I was actually going to make some more
comments. I’m going to skip it because I want to leave
time for questions. Claude and I have not presented in
this way and told this story before about all the
companies we’re working with, so we had no real clue
on the timing of it. If you could go to the next slide
Claude, maybe you’ll take that one.
[Claude]
Yeah, OK. Well, I just we just want to show this last slide
because some of you may not be familiar with this, but
this is obviously the Canadian 100 dollar bill and that
insulin vial on the hundred dollar bill is the one we used
in the prior slide for insulin. So it’s a it’s a bill that came
out in 2011 recognizing the discovery of insulin in
Canada some hundred years ago, although, like I said,
the bill came out in 2011.
What we’re not showing on this image is some of the
other things that are associated with Baqsimi.
Those are you are interested in hearing a little bit more
about how Baqsimi is being received in by patients and
their caregivers. You do go to Instagram with the
hashtag hashtag Baqsimi. You’ll read all kinds of stories
of rescue and so on.
And Robert and I sincerely hope that the companies
we’re working with and others eventually have their
own hashtags like hashtag, Bigfoot, hashtag, Diasome,
hashtag, BioLinq, etc. So with that, we’ll stop there.
We’ve taken probably more time than we should have,
but we really appreciate the opportunity to speak with
you, and we’ll turn it over back to Michelle
[Michelle]
Well, thank you so much, Robert and Claude, for sharing
this story. I love stories of innovation. It fascinates me
The back of the Canadian $100 bill,
showing a woman at a microscope, and
ECG tracing, an insulin vial, and a DNA
strand.
Text on screen: Thank you!
how you how these ideas are generated and where they
come from.
So I’m going to invite our audience to find the Q&A
button at the bottom of your screen. Feel free to ask a
question. We’ve got about 15 minutes still that we can,
we can work through some questions coming in. As
those roll in, I’m going to start with a question of my
own. Where did you get the name Locemia from?
[Robert]
Claude, why do you take that one?
[Claude]
OK, so so Locemia, is a play on words that Robert came
up with. It’s a combination of low blood sugar and
hypoglycemia, Locemia. That’s where it comes from.
[Michelle]
And then what about Baqsimi?.
[Claude]
Well Baqsimi is another story. And as I said Robert came
up with Locemia. He also came up with Baqsimi. I can’t
tell you how many hours I spent in cars, on airplanes, in
hotel restaurants, hearing him come up with one name
after another after another.
But the concept behind Baqsimi is really rooted in the
concept of having someone’s back. I’ve got your back,
you’ve got my back. I know I can help you in a serious
situation. And so back B-A-C-K became B-A-Q because BA-
C-K would probably never be allowed from a
regulatory perspective in the name of of a drug. But the
B-A-Q sounds the same as B-A-C-K, and the Q refers to
Quebec, where most of the drug development efforts
took place. And then Baqsimi, the rest of the world is an
add-on to complete the word. But it’s a name we came
up with and we’re thrilled that that Lilly decided to go
with it.
[Robert]
The code, the code name for the project, which we
don’t think would ever have gotten approved by the
FDA but we loved was ‘schnauzagon’. I have a big
schnauz and now schnauzagon was going to be the
name, but we went with the more pharmaceutical
sounding name.
[Michelle]
I mean, I quite like schnauzagon, not going to lie.
[Robert]
Maybe people out in the market will. As long as people
who love or care for insulin users learn about the
product, they can call it whatever they want. For us, it’s
about creating a wider net and I make a comment.
You know, the people on this call tonight, you’ve
learned something. We hope you’ve learned something
and spreading the word and letting people know there is
now a simpler rescue glucagon. It means again that my
kids can know that people could really have their back
and those who love or care for people like my kids,
school teachers, hockey coaches, nurses, babysitters,
other parents, they can feel confident now that they can
do this, and that creates a wider and wider network.
And the simplicity also enables a discussion in just the
mere fact that we’re having this discussion. We could
have never had and talked about a glucagon kit for in
this kind of a forum because it was so scary before. So
we do say that that we think that simplicity has been a
discussion enabler. And the more discussion we have
about rescue of people who use insulin, the better and
more prepared will people people will be.
[Michelle]
On the topic of rescue. How often does hypoglycemia
occur? So you said once or twice a week for kind of a
mild or moderate, but what about a severe one?
[Claude]
So there’s the numbers on that vary considerably
depending on where you get them. But you know, we
see on average people with type one have one to three
episodes per year, people with type two on multiple
daily injections, it’s one or two per year. But that
number isn’t really very meaningful because you have
some people who are five or ten. They’re not aware that
they’re that they have hypoglycemia. And so they get
like, they don’t they don’t feel it coming on anymore.
So the number isn’t, what’s is important is what is it,
what the fear of hypoglycemia. People on insulin are
always afraid of the fear. You know, it’s the fear of
hypoglycemia, which is really the hard part. So the way
we look at is, it should always be prepared.
We frankly hope that the kit expires because you should
celebrate that you didn’t have to use it, but you had it in
case you needed it.
[Michelle]
What is the shelf life of it?
[Claude]
I believe in Canada it’s two years, I’m pretty sure I’d
have to double check with Lilly.
[Robert]
Yes.
[Michelle]
OK. Are there any other considerations that you have to
take into account with Baqsimi? Like you talked about
having a cold, and that’s good. But what about people
who have like asthma or sinusitis or like sensitivity in the
nose or anything like that?
[Claude]
Well, we haven’t explored every single situation. You
know, we know that the drug is indicated for people on
insulin four years of age and above, and nasal
congestion associated with the cold doesn’t have an
effect. It’s not inhaled, Michelle. It’s absorbed from the
nasal mucosa so asthma has no effect on this at all. Lung
disease has no effect. And would there possibly be
conditions of the nose? I’d be surprised. I mean, the
nasal passages have rich vasculature and a large surface
area for absorbing medications. So I don’t think there’s
any specific things but recommend people to take a look
at the label and consult with their doctor, make sure
that they’re covered on any potential contraindications.
[Robert]
I have a comment on that Claude and we’re talking to
our Canadian audience, so we’re pretty proud of the fact
that in the freezing, freezing, freezing tundra
environments, you know where I way up north in
Edmonton, Calgary or wherever you want to talk about
that, that the powder won’t freeze. And so, you know, if
you’re skiing, you’re out on the lake, you’re playing
hockey or skating, whatever. We’ve tested it, I should
say. I can’t make those claims that Lily would have to
answer that the point at which it would freeze. But I
haven’t seen that point. Claude? Comments?
[Claude]
No, same. Same.
[Michelle]
I suspect for a powder. It would be, it would be good for
really low temperatures.
[Claude and Robert]
Yeah.
[Michelle]
Yeah. So I’m going to ask you kind of a two part
question. So someone’s asking about some of these
timelines on the innovations that you were talking
about. And I’m going to steal a part of that question that
interests me specifically. And that’s about these, these
A.I. programs that you were describing that kind of
predict when hypoglycemia might occur and take into
account some of these other chemicals circulating in the
body and activities that are going on and such. How
good is that AI technology now? Like, how good is it at
predicting the highs and the lows and then modulating
that?
[Claude]
So I’ll say this, I’m almost embarrassed to even try to
answer this because I know one of the world’s experts,
Lane Desborough, is on this call. If we could have Lane
answer that question,that would be the best for the
entire audience.
[Michelle]
He’s laughing in the chat right now.
[Claude]
Lane. You do us a big favour, if you could just opine on
that.
[Michelle]
Maybe, Lane, if you can type it in the chat, perhaps.
[Robert]
Is Lane sitting in his undies by the pool? Well, he’s
muted, he’s muted.
[Claude]
We have that.
[Robert]
Hopefully, we’ll have enough time for him to give a brief
answer because it would be great.
[Michelle]
Well, while our tech maybe works on getting him
unmuted, let’s do a super quick question. What is the
price of Baqsimi?
[Claude]
Oh, I think in Canada it retails at $125 or $130 at dose, if
I recall. But it’s covered by private health insurance
across the country and its soon to be covered by our
various provincial insurance vault and insurance
programs like the RAM Québec.
[Robert]
And there was a press release by Eli Lilly about their
progress in that regard with regard to access. And you
can just Google Baqsimi, Eli Lilly, Canada. It was the last
press release Eli Lilly Canada did just two weeks ago. So
we’re excited about news that might come in the first
quarter of next year.
Lane’s trying to give the answer.
[Lane Desborough]
I think I can talk now, can you?
[Claude]
Oh yes, great.
[Lane]
So it’s an excellent question and something that many
companies have been trying to figure out for years.
What I would say is that predicting blood glucose in the
future is extremely difficult. I think probably the best we
can expect right now because you can see who the
future is around 30 minutes ahead.
And part of this is because people do this crazy thing
about three times a day called eating and eating is very
hard to predict. So when you eat, how much you eat,
the content of the food you’re eating is at a high
glycemic index and low glycemic index, does it have fat,
does it have protein? So all of those predictions that you
make through the course of the day kind of go out the
window every time a meal arrives.
So what are a slightly more nuanced answer is that
overnight is much easier to predict blood glucose
because the 42 things that are contributing to blood
glucose variation aren’t present: the stress, the exercise,
the hormones, the the meals. So it is more predictable
at night, but that’s not when you need it. That’s not
when you need the predictions. So what I would say is
it’s a challenge. People are working on it, but predicting
more than about half an hour into the future is pretty
hard.
[Robert]
Lane can you make a comment, though, without
predicting it, how good the algorithms are in the closed
loop systems today?
[Lane]
Oh, sure. So a broad answer to that question that I think
is supported by a lot of both clinical and real world
evidence is that people are able to achieve about 10%
higher time in range from their status quo when they go
on an automated insulin delivery system. And so, and by
time in range, I mean the time from, in American units,
70 to 180 mg per deciliter or in Canadian units, what
about five to ten, four and a half to ten mmol?
So wherever you’re starting from, if you’re at 40%, I’m in
range. You can probably get 50% time in range. And the
reason why this is so variable is because people’s
behaviours are such an important determinant of what’s
going on with their blood glucose. So they exercising?
Are they in a stressful job or are they going through
puberty? Are they eating a lot or are they on a low carb,
high fat diet? Are they very engaged with their diabetes,
or they are very busy with other aspects of their life? So
people are coming at a time in range from a bunch of
different places and perspectives. But in general,
automated insulin delivery gets you about 10% higher
than that.
[Robert]
Michelle, you should give Lane’s home phone number or
his cell number if people want to talk about, I’m just
joking Lane.
But we’re out of time. So Michelle, let’s pass to you.
[Michelle]
Yes, we are. We’ve got a few really good questions still
in the chat here. So I’m going to put you two on the spot
right now and ask you if I can type up some of these
questions and send them to you to answer as a written
interview which we can host afterwards.
Awesome. That would be fantastic. Yeah. So with that, I
want to say a huge thank you to our guest speakers this
evening, Mr. Robert Oringer and Dr. Claude Piché. Thank
you for your time. Thank you for your passion.
[Michelle]
And I think on behalf of millions worldwide, thank you
so much for the lifesaving treatment that you’ve made
available to diabetic families worldwide.
To our audience, I’d also like to say thank you for joining
us and for participating and for the questions that
continue to roll in and the thank you’s.
So my last plug of the evening is if you did enjoy what
you hear tonight, you should tune in for our third and
final talk in the series on Beyond Injections. And that is
occurring towards the end of March. That’s going to be
Lisa Hepner, who is the director and producer of a
documentary called The Human Trial, which, you know,
we’ve talked about the history of diabetes and insulin.
We’ve talked about innovations in for insulin users. And
she’s going to be talking about the potential for a cure.
So a world where we don’t have to worry about putting
insulin in our bodies that doesn’t come from our bodies,
which kind of is the ultimate the ultimate end game
here.
So if you’re interested in that check at our website, sign
up for our info lines. And yeah, we hope to see you
there.
So on behalf of myself, on behalf of Robert and Claude
and the Science and Technology Museum and the
Ingenium Foundation, I’d like to say a sincere thank you
to everybody. And I hope you have a great night, a great
week, a great holiday season, and that you all stay
healthy and stay well. Bye now.
A small vial of insulin from the early 1900s
capped with red wax. A yellow label says
“insulin 400 units. Connaught
Laboratories, University of Toronto”. A
second image show computer code on a
screen. The Curiosity on Stage logo is in
the header.
Text on screen: Thank you! Join us for The
Human Trial. By Lisa Hepner, March 2022.
[Claude]
Thanks, Michelle. Thanks, everybody. Good night.
All images on screen fade away.
Logos for the Ingenium Foundation and
the National Research Council of Canada
appears.
Text on screen:
This edition of Curiosity on Stage was
cohosted by the Ingenium Foundation and
was supported by the National Research
Council Canada.
The Canada Science and Technology
Museum logo appears. It spins on the
screen, then disappears.
The Government of Canada logo appears.
Text on screen: Canada Science and
Technology Museum
IngeniumCanada.org

Descriptive transcript: Innovation and the Future of Diabetes | Ron
Shlien | Curiosity on Stage Evening
Audio Visual
Michelle: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to
another edition of Curiosity on Stage. This
presentation is part of a series meant to discuss
new and emerging technologies making a
difference in Canada and around the world. My
name is Michelle Mekarski. I am the science
advisor at the Canada Science and Technology
Museum, and I will be your host this evening. For
those of you attending with visual impairment, I’m
a woman with shoulder length brown hair and
brown eyes, and I’m joining you this evening from
my home office in the city of Ottawa, which is built
on the unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe Territory.
This presentation is being recorded and will be
available on the Canada Science and Technology
YouTube channel in the coming weeks. So if you
really love what you hear tonight and want to
either share it with someone or watch it again
yourself, you’ll be able to find it there available in
both French and in English.
I also want to thank the Ingenium Foundation who
is generously co-presenting this Curiosity on Stage
speaker series focused on the centennial of the
discovery of insulin. We are truly grateful to have
the Foundation’s support in amplifying the
museum’s mission, and particularly we are inspired
by their mission towards science for all. In addition
to the Ingenium Foundation, we’re also looking to
thank the National Research Council of Canada for
their support in making this series accessible
through translations, captioning and transcriptions.
Here at Curiosity on Stage, we aim to be a platform
for thoughtful, critical and respectful dialogue
around scientific and technological issues that
matter. We also want to look into the future of it
and how those advances and innovations in
science and technology are going to help us to
build a better future. Over the next three years,
we’ll be centring our discussions around artificial
Text on screen: Innovation and the Future of
Diabetes, a perspective from an entrepreneur
and diabetes dad. Presented by Ron Shlien,
Mad Science, Creative Destruction Lab;
IngeniumCanada.org; @SciTechMuseum
The Curiosity on Stage Evening Edition logo, the
Canada Science and Technology Museum logo,
and the Ingenium Foundation logo appear on
screen.
The title screen fades away, leaving the
moderator on screen.
The moderator (Michelle Mekarski) appears on
screen. She is wearing a white blouse and
earbuds. The background has the Curiosity on
Stage logo. She remains stationary throughout
the video.
intelligence, accessible technology and medical
innovations, which includes the talk that we’re
going to have right here tonight. So tonight, in
conjunction with the Ingenium foundation, I am
delighted to introduce the first of three timely
webinars and the thematic series Beyond
Injections. 100 Years of Insulin and the Future of
Diabetes.
Diabetes is an ancient and widespread disease that
is becoming more and more prevalent. It’s been
around for a long time, and yet it’s often poorly
understood, especially by those of us who are
unaffected, like me. Now, diabetes runs in my
family, so I have heard a lot about treatments and
foods and exercises that often promise a cure. But
of course, a cure is much more complicated than
buying a certain product off of your Amazon Prime
list.
Curiosity on Stage is about inspiring thought by
bringing experts together to share relevant,
essential and engaging topics that matter. This
particular series is significant as it commemorates
the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin, a
story which is rooted in Canada that has
profoundly transformed the lives of so many across
the world. The insulin story is impressive,
especially the stories of those that have benefited
and shared in its progress. Today, therefore, I am
delighted and proud to welcome Ron Shlien to our
virtual stage. He is the first in a very talented
lineup to share stories and insights into their
chapter of the insulin story. So what can I tell you
about Ron?
Well, Ron and I have gotten to know each other
quite well over the last couple of weeks, and I can
tell you that Ron is an entrepreneur. As a teenager,
he co-founded the Mad Science Group, which has
grown from humble beginnings into a global
franchise organization with over 30 years of live,
in-person experiences and imaginative learning. It
has grown Mad Science into the kind of program
that has reached 80 million kids, getting them
excited about STEM and also offering career
oriented employment to over 70,000 people.
Ron is also a serial investor and collaborator. He
has supported and invested in companies in the
technology, biotech, fintech, renewable energy
data and cannabis sectors. And who knows, maybe
at the end he can offer us a couple of juicy stock
tips. He also recently joined the Creative
Destruction Lab, a nonprofit group that offers
mentorship to massively scalable, early stage
science and technology companies.
Ron also had the honour of being the Canadian
government’s first and so far only entrepreneur in
residence, a really unique position which was set
up to inject entrepreneurial thinking, passion and
creativity into senior government ranks for the
benefit of all Canadians.
And last but certainly not least, Ron is a diabetes
dad. In 2012, Ron’s son, William, was diagnosed
with type one diabetes. Ron has always held a
special place in his heart for kid related causes, and
this particular cause becoming so personal to him,
has motivated him to get involved in investing and
help those, especially children living with this
chronic conditions. So with that, hold on to your
proverbial hats, and please join me in welcoming
Ron Shlein to Curiosity on Stage.
Thank you. Wow, that was a great introduction. I
really appreciate it. So let’s begin. Since the dawn
of time, we’ve never ceased searching for ways to
improve our lives. The modern age has given us
unique innovations like the internet, iPhones,
refrigerators, cars and planes.
For many, surviving life without easy access to
these things sounds rough. However, if you have
diabetes, no doubt you’re also a big fan of one
particular 20th century marvel: Insulin. Following
its discovery in the early twenties. Insulin was
wildly hailed as a miracle cure, a gift for humanity,
a magical medicine that transformed death into
life, and whose discovery was considered nothing
less than a modern miracle. This year marks the
centennial anniversary of insulin, a drug with very
humble beginnings produced initially from dogs by
completely unknown scientists from within a
simple, poorly equipped Ontario lab. And yet it
remains to this day, perhaps among the most
The presenter (Ron Shlien) appears on screen.
He sits in a room with yellow walls wearing a
blue collared shirt. Two matching lamps, a table
with five family photos in silver frames, and a
piece of abstract art featuring pink, purple,
blue, and green smudges are located behind
him. He remains stationary throughout the
video.
Ron’s image shrinks and moves to the top right
of the screen as his presentation starts. It
remains there until the end of his presentation.
remarkable and vital achievements in medical
history.
Hi, my name is Ron Shlien, and I’m an
entrepreneur, investor and the former
entrepreneur in residence for the Canadian
government.
More importantly, like so many others, I’m a dad
who came into diabetes through a very difficult,
painful and personal family experience. To
comprehend what insulin represented in 1921, we
need to look at what was happening medically
during the early twenties. The previous couple of
thousand years had seen no real progress in
treating illness,
A photograph of Ron wearing a ball cap and
smiling towards the camera.
Text on screen:
About me:
Ron Shlien
 Entrepreneur, Investor
 Former Entrepreneur in Residence for the
Government of Canada
 Diabetes dad to William, a 14 year-old teen
who was diagnosed 10 years ago
And the world had just emerged from the great
influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed more than
50 million people. The epidemic, also known as the
Spanish flu, was ultimately defeated not by
science, but by the immune system adapting to the
virus. In other words, we exist today primarily
because of survival of the fittest. So I’m saying the
doctors in 1921 were mainly unable to treat severe
diseases of any kind, including diabetes, as their
medical knowledge was still really very early stage.
Science relied more on comfort and general best
practices instead of the specialized medicines and
treatments that we’ve become so accustomed to
and dependent on these days. Remember that
penicillin was discovered only in September of
1928 and the polio vaccine in the 1950s.
Photograph of a Spanish Flu ward, with
hundreds of occupied beds in a gymnasium with
nurses circulating around. A second photograph
shows three people in overcoats, brimmed hats,
and face masks.
Text on screen: 1918 Spanish Flu
The early days of insulin were very different from
what it has become today. Patients relied on glass
syringes with thick needles that needed to be hand
sharpened and sterilized to determine if insulin
was necessary. Patients or caregivers would have
to smell or taste their urine to try and tell if there
was any sugar in it, the sign of high blood glucose.
For context, check out your local museum and look
at some of the antique medical devices like the one
you see on the screen. They were most definitely
frightening in the context of daily indefinite use.
So let’s talk a bit more about insulin.
Various photographs of early medical
technology. One photograph shows a selection
of glassware (beakers, bottles, graduated
cylinders). Another photograph shows a
laboratory with many bottles on shelves
connected by tubing to various pipes and
buckets. Another photograph of a large gauge,
reusable needle in a metal case, with a
sharpening stone in a wooden case. There is an
early vial of insulin in a glass bottle with a wax
seal.
Text on screen: Medicine 1920s.
Insulin has always been produced from living
organisms. However, before the advent of biotech,
Black and white photograph of early insulin
production at Eli Lilly.
the pancreas from pigs and cows supplied the raw
materials needed. More than two tons of them
went into extracting a mere eight ounces of
purified insulin. I guess we’re lucky that both pork
and beef derived insulin are nearly identical and
work to convert the carbohydrates we eat into
energy in exactly the same way.
Insulin was not, however, technically discovered in
1921. Its role in the body was already understood
and its connection to diabetes had become, well,
pretty clear.
One photograph shows a man in rubber gloves
sifting through boxes of pig pancreases. Next to
him is another full bucket.
The second photograph shows a man standing
next to a meat processing machine. He is
placing something into the machine.
A diagram shows a pig overlaid with a pancreas.
It leads to a cluster of cells. It leads to a bottle
of insulin.
Text on screen: Early Insulin Production Eli Lilly.
Pig pancreas = insulin is removed = purified,
pasteurized, and bottled
In 1916, the word insulin was coined to describe a
pancreatic substance. But the disease was first
identified around 1650 B.C. and in 250 B.C., the
disorder was named diabetes from the Greek word
for siphon. You see, early on, it was believed that
diabetes was a condition where the body would
liquefy itself and escape through urination. Since
early diabetics would slowly wither away and
eventually die.
Ancient Greek pottery with image of a woman
making an incision in the arm of a man standing
over a bowl.
A painting of an ancient Greek family shows a
man, a seated woman holding a young child, a
young girl seated on the floor, and a young boy
standing behind the woman.
Text on screen: An ancient disease.
Researchers understanding of the disease
advanced in 1869, when a German medical student
discovered the island of cells in the pancreas.
Others eventually realized that they were
responsible for regulating glucose. So we know
that after more than 30,000 years, there was still
no effective treatment for the disease. Researchers
did recognize that carbohydrates accelerated
decline, so the best medicine developed in the
early 1900s was to withhold few food and named it
the starvation diet.
The problem is that most patients were children,
so horrified parents had to watch their kids waste
away and die either from starvation or a diabetic
ketoacidosis. This severe complication occurs when
your body produces high levels of blood acids
called ketones.
All this made the search for insulin desperate as
investigators, research and doctors from around
the world sought to discover a pancreatic extract
A photograph of F. Banting and C. Best seated in
an office. Both are wearing suits and ties and
are looking at the photographer.
A second photograph shows F. Banting in a
white collared shirt writing at a desk while
smoking a pipe.
A coloured illustration shows Banting and Best in
their laboratory. Banting holds a syringe while
Best looks on. Beside them is a lab bench
covered in glassware and pipes.
Text on screen: Banting and Best.
to save these dying children against the ravages of
this terrible and ancient disease. The breakthrough
happened in Toronto in 1921, led by a researcher
who was just out of medical school.
Frederick Banting was a doctor, but he couldn’t
really earn a living. He tried his work as a surgeon,
a teacher and even as an artist painter.
His paintings would eventually become quite
valuable, drawing prices in line with the famed
Group of Seven.
A selection of paintings by F. Banting including
 A hilly landscape with trees and grasses
 A wooden barn behind a wooden fence,
with snow all around
 A lake with mountains in the background
 A wooden house in winter
 A rocky island with a lone pine tree
surrounded by flat water
 A laboratory bench with glassware on the
bench and on shelves above.
Text on screen: Banting the artist
He had little experience and knew little about
diabetes, aside from reading a short paper. As a
long shot, and in the hopes of making a living,
Banting began his work in May at the University of
Toronto and was assisted shortly after by a young
medical student named Charles Best.
They had no idea that they were embarking on a
journey that would soon immortalize them as
medical geniuses and land them a Nobel Prize for
medicine.
A photograph of F. Banting in a white collared
shirt writing at a lab bench. In the background is
a selection of laboratory glassware.
Text on screen: Banting @ work
Their work started immediately and knowing that
the pancreas contains insulin, they started
removing them from dogs to make them diabetic.
And then use their own pancreases – the one that
was just removed – to try and develop an extract
that would then lower blood sugars. It was a
messy, dirty and cruel work. Many dogs died. But
by August, just three months later, one of the
extracts worked.
It’s worth noting that animal experimentation at
the time was socially accepted and medical science
was trial and error. So we definitely can’t fault the
Banting team for using them. Incidentally, the dog
in this photo? Well, he probably didn’t make it.
Graphic showing the process of Banting and
Best’s experiment.
1. A cartoon dog. Text: Remove dog’s
pancreas
2. A cluster of 5 blue cartoon cells. Text:
Isolate islets of Langerhans
3. A cartoon dog. Text: dog develops diabetes
4. A cartoon test tube with a blue liquid. Text:
cells liquidized and solids filtered out
5. A cartoon dog being injected with a syringe.
Text: Solution injected back into dog, dog’s
diabetes is treated successfully
6. Text: further experiments isolated and
purified insulin from the solution
A photograph of Banting and Best in front of a
kennel. Best is wearing dark pants, a white
collared shirt and a dark tie. Banting is wearing
glasses, a coat and dark pants. Both are smiling
at the photographer. Between them stands a
medium sized dog with a white chest and floppy
ears.
Soon after, a biochemist was brought on to purify
the ground-up organ porridge and made it viable
for human use. Finally, on January eleventh, 1922,
a 14 year old boy, Leonard Thompson, received the
first insulin injection. It was described as a smelly,
murky light brown liquid containing lots of
sediment, and it was given to him over several
weeks. Amazingly, it worked and the boy’s sugar
and ketone levels fell. What was staggering in this
photo demonstrate the amazing physical
transformation that saved this boy from certain
death. The child with only 65 lbs, the weight of a
mid-sized dog and was quickly transformed into a
healthy looking and strong teenager.
The Banting team, as researchers, of course,
couldn’t commercialize insulin, but a pharma
company out there called Eli Lilly, well, they sure
could. And as a bonus, they were conveniently
located close to several slaughterhouses in the
Minneapolis region. Lilly jumped at the
opportunity and started to mass produce insulin.
They stored a couple million pounds of frozen
pancreas from pigs and cows just to keep up with
demand. Since there was already an astonishing 1
million Americans lining up for ongoing daily
access.
A before and after picture of a young boy.
Before he wears a sailor costume. He is
extremely gaunt and thin. After, he is in shorts
and a short-sleeved shirt and is riding a four-wheeled
bike. He is rounder and healthy
looking.
A second set of before and after pictures
showing a shirtless 14 year old Leonard
Thompson. Before you can clearly see his ribs
and the bones in his arms. He is extremely thin.
After, he looks rounded and more fleshed out.
His ribs are no longer visible through his skin.
Text on screen: First Insulin Patient. 11 January
1922: 14 year old Leonard Thompson was given
the first insulin injection, saving his life. He lived
13 more years.
Next slide. Like most media and advertisers, the
discovery in 1921 spread like wildfire and was
heralded and marketed as a cure for diabetes.
People from around the world and from all
socioeconomic backgrounds were desperate for a
magical medicine. The reality, however, was very,
very different.
A selection of newspaper clippings with
headlines including:
 May cure Diabetes
 Canadian Doctor Discovers Cure for
Diabetes
 Toronto Doctors on Track of Diabetes Cure
Several of the clippings show photographs of F.
Banting, C. Best, J. Collip, and J. Macleod.
Text on screen: Global news
Next slide. Insulin did precisely what it was
supposed to do. Temporary lower blood sugars,
but it could also cause hypoglycemia. In this
situation, blood sugar has become too low, leading
to shakiness and confusion or even seizures, loss of
consciousness, or death.
Digital artwork showing a tree that is alive on
one side and dead on the other. Below the live
side of the tree is an angel on grass, below the
dead side of the tree is a demon on barren
ground.
Insulin became a daily self-administered drug, but
it could kill just as well as it could save if misused.
It’s worth noting that no self-administered therapy
has ever quite those same properties before or
since. In fact, consider your own experience with
medicine. In every case, at least that I can think of,
from cancer to heart condition, infection or even
cholesterol. A doctor always prescribes the
medicine that includes a treatment, a medicine
and a dose. And as a friend of mine, Lane
Desborough, an expert on diabetes automation
called it, you take a bunch of insulin and then start
eating your way out of hypoglycemia.
Incidentally, when you get to the part discussing
innovation, I’ll offer a sneak peek into an
extraordinary innovation led by a couple of good
friends and diabetes pioneers Robert Oringer and
Claude Piché. Both living in Canada, one Canadian.
They developed a remarkable new delivery
method to help counteract the potentially deadly
side effect of taking too much insulin.
In fact, like Banting and Best, they also worked
with Eli Lilly, the original insulin pharma to make in
market. So as you can see, we now know that
during the twenties and thirties, insulin curative
powers were greatly exaggerated.
Despite lowering blood sugars, managing them
was still very difficult. An elevated blood glucose
over time was dangerous. These days, it’s a
measurement known as an A-1 C. As a result, by
the mid 1930s, patients who are using insulin
began developing some serious high glucose
related complications that included damage to the
eyes, kidneys, nerves and heart: a real problem
that remains today. Insulin hadn’t cured anything,
but what it did was effectively transform diabetes
from a death sentence into a chronic, manageable
condition. And considering the alternative, it was
sincerely welcome. Remember, the glucose
monitoring wasn’t developed until the 1940s. So
until then, patients unaware of their blood sugar
levels need to fiddle around with insulin dosage
entirely and utterly blind. Next slide.
Text on screen: Insulin Can Save, Insulin Can Kill
And this is when we get to our story. Like most A photograph of a 5 year old boy with red hair
others, a diabetes diagnosis is a complete surprise.
Our family was on holiday in the Bahamas, and I
remember noticing that our son was becoming
increasingly lethargic, tired and very thirsty. Also,
his breath smelt like chemicals or more specifically,
like acetone. At first, we assumed he was just
under the weather, but eventually decided to fly
home and take him to see us pediatrician.
Within minutes, we were warned that he was
diabetic or likely diabetic, and needed to have him
rushed to the E.R.. His life was in grave risk. The
following days in the ICU were focused on getting
Williams sugars and ketones under control, and
then began the work of learning how to help him.
The training was short and we weren’t really noted
to the life altering effects of this diagnosis offered.
In fact, it was until a couple of friends Justin
Weinberg and Robert Oringer. Yes, the same co-creator
of Baqsimi, who separately sat me down
and explained it to me in stark, unvarnished detail,
that I started to truly understand.
I was mortified. Will’s life would never be the
same. Neither would ours. Technology, well, it was
still emerging. We pricked his fingers dozens of
times a day, calculated everything he ate, injected
him with insulin regularly. We even snuck into his
bedroom several times a night to test and treat
him, and even just to make sure he was still
breathing. Our best calculations were rarely
accurate and the variables to consider were
impossible. We treated his highs with insulin, his
lows with juice. Next.
in a hospital bed, wearing a green hospital
gown.
Text on screen: It’s personal. William was
diagnosed at age 5. Diabetes, a family affair.
And my wife, Shari, hung around outside his
elementary school all day, every day, rain or shine
or snow. Just so she could be close in case he
needed help. You see his fancy private school had
no nurse. Next.
A cartoon of a brown haired-woman in a red
and blue superhero costume with a red cape.
Text on screen: It’s personal. My wife Shari.
On average, a type one deals with their diabetes at
least 250 times a day. And that assumes that
nothing went wrong. It’s an enormous
responsibility that is especially rough on kids,
forcing them to mature too quickly.
Over the years, technology improved and so did
our lives. The burden never left, though. But things
A photograph of a hand with 152 tally marks
drawn in pen on the skin. The person is also
wearing a smart watch with a wrist band that
says ‘insulin dependent’.
Text on screen: Imagine thinking about diabetes
250 times each day:
1. dosed insulin
got easier. We became early adopters for many of
the tools and tech that I’ll get into. And we were
grateful that people were relentlessly pushing for
new ways to keep our boy safe. The world was
changing and quickly. People were tired of waiting.
Next.
2. calculated carbs
3. checked my Dexcom
4. pricked my finger
5. thought about how something would affect
my blood sugar now or later
6. explained something diabetes related to
someone
7. had to fix diabetes technology
8. communicated with someone about a
treatment decision
Hyperlink:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?
fbid=445181352767999&set=a.1095579496636
76&type=3&theater
Going back to Banting, what’s impressive, is that
following his discovery, one would expect him to
sell the patent and find a way to profit from the
discovery of history’s first modern and hugely
needed medicine. Remember that he wasn’t an
independently wealthy man. Yet he did something
remarkable and completely unexpected.
He chose to sell the patent to the University of
Toronto. This grand sum of $1, something
amounted to perhaps a day’s pay. He later
declared that this discovery was a gift to humanity,
it needed to be available for everyone.
So I wonder if he understood how diabetes would
eventually proliferate the globe and affect
hundreds of millions? In my mind, I believe and
hope that he did. Next.
A sepia photo of Frederick Banting in a dark
three piece suit, a striped tie, a white shirt, and
glasses. Superimposed on his suit is the
Canadian flag.
Text on screen: “Insulin belongs to the world”.
Frederick Banting and colleagues discovered
insulin 100 years ago and sold the patent for
just $1
So I’d like to ask each of you listening to this event
to take a moment to reflect on this simple, honest
question. Don’t worry, there’s no right or wrong
answer here.
But if you were poor researcher, that had just
knowingly come up with the discovery of the
century and history’s very first real medicine. What
would you have done? Remember, the discovery of
insulin was not an accident. Banting and his team
deliberately set out to develop it.
This was not a lottery ticket, nor a chance
discovery. Would you have sold it and profited
massively? Or would you have given it away for
nothing? Next.
A 3D digital cartoon of a white stickman leaning
against a red question mark.
Text on screen: Question: If you were a poor
researcher that had just knowingly come up
with the discovery of the century, what would
you have done?
In all honesty, I’m ashamed to say that I doubt that
I would have or could have done the latter. Next
again.
A 3D digital cartoon of a white stickman leaning
against a red question mark. A sold stamp
appears over top of the text.
Text on screen: Question: If you were a poor
researcher that had just knowingly come up
with the discovery of the century, what would
you have done?
On the left is a visual of type one diabetes where
the body’s immune system destroys beta cells in
the pancreas and as a result can no longer produce
insulin. Type one is also an autoimmune disease
that to this day, still cannot be prevented. It
represents about five to 10% of all diabetes
worldwide.
On the right, we have type two diabetes. It sounds
the same, but it isn’t. With type two is the
pancreas does produce insulin, but it isn’t used
correctly. This is known as insulin resistance. Often,
insulin produced in the pancreas also decreases,
causing insulin deficiency. Type two diabetes can
be prevented or delayed, as two of the major risk
factors can be modified. Overweight and inactivity.
What’s quite incredible is a type two diabetes
accounts for a staggering 90% of all diabetes cases
globally, many of which can be delayed or most
certainly better managed. Next.
Infographic describing the two types of
diabetes.
Type 1:
A stylized image of a blood vessel with green
dots representing glucose. Outside of the vessel
is another cell with white receptors that are
empty.
Text: Type 1. The body cannot produce insulin.
Type 2:
A stylized image of a blood vessel with green
dots representing glucose and red dots
representing insulin. Outside of the vessel is
another cell with white receptors that are
attached to red dots representing insulin.
Text: Type 2. The body does not produce or use
insulin well.
Over the years, insulin, it’s improved. There are
long acting, fast acting, many brands, each with
unique and essential attributes. Other important
medicines to help manage blood sugars have been
developed. Glucose testing has improved. We’ve
come a long way from tasting urine, to test strips
that are instant, small and accurate.
We have CGMs. These are devices that offer nearly
real time blood glucose readings. We can leverage
smartphones to process data insulin, instantly,
anticipate blood glucose, provide
recommendations and even deliver insulin all
instantly. We can also connect endocrinologists
and caregivers with real time blood glucose to
better manage and treat diabetes.
Knowledge on diabetes is also greatly improved,
and the unicorn, known as a closed loop, has finally
become a reality. Next.
Black and white photo of a young boy wearing a
white button-down shirt and a hat. He is seated
at a table, and resting his chin on one of his
hands.
Text on screen: Still waiting. Since the 1920’s
we’ve been hearing that diabetes will be cured
in 5-10 years…And yet we wait
To better understand the closed loop system. It
combines a CGM, an insulin pump, and a control
algorithm to adjust insulin delivery based on real
time blood glucose.
So if your blood sugar is high or trending high, your
insulin dose will be increased to bring your blood
sugar levels back into range or inversely decreased
if you’re low or trending low.
The goal of the system is, of course, better insulin
management. Perhaps more importantly, is to
reduce the burden that people with type one bear
every day by helping with control around the clock.
Next.
Infographic demonstrating how a closed loop
system works.
A cartoon of a women’s abdomen. Attached to
her abdomen is a continuous glucose sensor (a
white device that looks like a computer mouse).
The continuous glucose sensor passes
information to a smart phone held in the
women’s hand, the “control algorithm”. The
smartphone shows glucose levels and options
related to the closed loop system (stop, hypo,
start pump, food, start closed loop). The smart
phone passes information to an insulin pump
which is clipped on to the waistband of the
woman’s pants. The insulin pump is attached by
a tube to a port embedded in the woman’s
stomach.
Even the basic insulin pens are becoming smarter
by connecting to CGM and leveraging A.I. to
incorporate easy dosing recommendations.
A big shout out to Bigfoot Biomedical, they
developed the first of its kind smart pen cap that
combines a CGM data with A.I. to provide real time
insulin dosing recommendations that just received
FDA clearance. Like so many others, would emerge
from people having a deep connection to diabetes
and choosing to risk, well, everything to make a
difference. Next slide.
A smartphone with an app open saying “glucose
in range”. In front of the smart phone are
insulin pens and a glucose sensor.
On screen are logos for Bigfoot Biomedical, and
the FDA.
Text on screen: Congratulations
Every company and organization on the screen,
along with many others, have given so much to
drag diabetes out of the caves and create an
opportunity for our children to have better, less
complicated, more independent and longer life.
Because of each of them working, failing,
succeeding, trying and pushing the boundaries of
the art of the possible. We move ever closer to a
world and a life without insulin. Next.
A selection of logos from companies in the
diabetes space including:
 diaTribe
 Insulet
 Medtronic
 FreeStyle Libre
 Dexcom
 Viacyte
 Novo Nordisk
 Bigfoot Biomedical
 JDRF
 Sanofi
 NightScout
 Canadian Diabetes Association
 Beta Bionics
 Eli Lilly
 Roche
But for now, diabetes remains an epidemic of
unprecedented biblical proportions. And it’s
getting worse. According to the CDC. 34.2 million
Americans, just over one in ten have diabetes. 88
million American adults. Approximately one in
three have prediabetes. And about 95% of them
are type two. Unlike type one, these patients often
have other options other than insulin, although
many will eventually require insulin as a better
glucose lowering choice.
Some of the other medicines and new classes of
drugs like Trulicity and Lantus are already
generating billions in annual sales, which is an
obvious indicator of demand. So let’s look at some
mind numbing statistics, and I hope you’re all
sitting down for this.
Here in Canada, nearly eleven and a half million
Canadians live with diabetes or prediabetes. In
North America and the Caribbean together, one in
six adults are at risk of type two, which will
increase 33%. In South and Central America, two in
five people with diabetes are undiagnosed, which
will rise 55% to 49 million. In Africa, three in five
people with diabetes are undiagnosed, and three
in four diabetes deaths are from people under 60,
which will increase 143% by 2045. In the Mideast,
one in eight have diabetes, which will rise 96%.
And in Southeast Asia, one in five adults have
diabetes, and this will increase 74% to – get this –
153 million by 2045.
Incidentally, Europe has the highest type one kids
population amounting to 300,000. One in six live
births are affected by hypoglycemia or high blood
sugars and pregnancy.
Despite a century of advancements in treatment,
education and prevention, we as a global society
remain in the wake of these awful statistics. One in
ten adults on this planet today, some 537 million
people are currently living with diabetes. And the
numbers are only getting worse. Next slide.
Infographic showing the prevalence of diabetes
worldwide (among adults 20-79 years).
 In North America and the Caribbean, 48
million people had diabetes in 2019, which
is expected to increase 33% by 2045
 In South and Central America, 32 million
people had diabetes in 2019, which is
expected to increase 55% by 2045
 In Africa, 19 million people had diabetes in
2019, which is expected to increase 143%
by 2045
 In the Middle East and North Africa, 55
million people had diabetes in 2019, which
is expected to increase 96% by 2045
 In South-East Asia, 88 million people had
diabetes in 2019, which is expected to
increase 74% by 2045
 In the Western Pacific, 163 million people
had diabetes in 2019, which is expected to
increase 31% by 2045
 In Europe, 59 million people had diabetes in
2019, which is expected to increase 15% by
2045
 Worldwide, 463 million people had diabetes
in 2019, which is expected to increase 51%
by 2045
That doesn’t count the lives lost to COVID 19,
which has been particularly deadly for people living
with diabetes.
A computer-generated image of a coronavirus.
A heat map of the world showing prevalence of
COVID cases. China, Oceania, and Africa show
A study published in February found that having
either type one or type two diabetes tripled the
risk of severe illness and death from COVID 19.
Moreover, as many as 40% of the people who died
in the U.S. from COVID 19 had type one or type
two. Even worse, experts are concerned that more
people may develop diabetes due to COVID, and
the debate over a specific COVID induced diabetes
begins.
It’s been discovered that as many as 14% of people
hospitalized with severe COVID later develop
diabetes. There have also been new onset type
one or type two in babies, children and adults
infected with COVID 19. This data will no doubt be
studied for years, but the news? It’s not
encouraging. Next.
lower case counts; the Middle East, South-East
Asia, and Canada have medium case counts;
Russia, Europe, South America, South Africa,
and the USA have high case counts.
Text on screen: COVID-19 Coronavirus
What, then, is the next chapter for insulin?
Well, it will undoubtedly include continued
improvements in everything. Next again.
A selection of images showing new insulin
technology including continuous glucose
monitors, insulin pumps, nasal glucagon
powder, and several smartphone apps.
Text on screen: NightScout. #WeAreNotWaiting
Innovators and entrepreneurs are developing a
once a week insulin to replace the current once a
day option. Research also continues on glucose
sensitive insulin, which would only take effect
when your blood sugar rises.
But, progress remains slow. And, like everything
else, always seems to be, you guessed it, five to
ten years out. Next.
A cartoon graphic with an unlocked padlock in
the centre surrounded by medical devices
including sensors, pill bottles, and syringes
Insulin has saved the lives of lives and families,
including my son. And we owe so much to this
extraordinary discovery.
However, the most significant contribution from
this miracle drug would be for it to simply
disappear, which would mean diabetes has been
cured. It will undoubtedly take more time, but I
believe that until then, other therapies, cell based
therapies, will someday provide a better, safer and
more curative option.
STEM cell treatment for a long time has been the
anticipated future for diabetes, specifically making
insulin producing beta cells, which the body would
either tolerate through cell encapsulation or some
Two images are on screen: first, the word
innovation is surrounded by silhouettes of
machine parts.
The second is a silhouette of a lightbulb has a
brain in the middle.
Text on screen: What’s Next for Diabetes
Therapy? Continued Innovation.
 Long-acting Insulin: Weekly basal insulin to
replace the current long acting insulin.
 Glucose-sensitive insulin: Works only when
your blood sugar rises.
kind of mild immune suppressant. A couple of
great companies are on the verge of precisely this.
Vertex has begun a clinical trial on a stem cell
derived, fully differentiated pancreatic islet cell
therapy. It’s a fancy way of saying that they found
a way to transform stem cells into insulin
producing beta cells.
And Viacyte, based on Canadian technology known
as the Edmonton Protocol, has begun a phase two
clinical trial using encapsulated cells that transform
into insulin producing beta cells. Lisa Hepner, also
Canadian, will speak about this game-changing
innovation that has already helped a lucky few
become temporarily insulin free in an upcoming
Ingenium talk that’s part of the series, something I
promise that I’ll be tuning into and learning from.
Insulin forever changed what it’s meant to be
diagnosed with diabetes. It transformed death into
a future and gave people a chance to live long and
productive lives. Insulin was discovered right here
in Canada in a Canadian lab by Canadians. Next
slide.
Computer generated image of stem cells: they
look like pink blobs surrounded by a clear
substance.
Text on screen: What’s Next for Diabetes
Therapy? Insulin will eventually end in favour of
cell-based therapy.
 Stem-cell Therapy: Insulin-producing beta
cells from stem cells.
 Vertex Pharmaceuticals: “stem-cell derived,
fully differentiated pancreatic islet cell
therapy”
 ViaCyte: Encapsulated cells that mature into
insulin-secreting beta cells.
And their discovery showed the world for the first
time, that Canadian innovation mattered. The
Banting team didn’t receive government funding,
participate in a supercluster, or deliver the next
great IPO, but they did have Canadian training,
Canadian talent, Canadian grit and Canadian
curiosity. Next.
A photograph of a person’s face with the
Canadian flag face-painted across their whole
face.
Banting lived from 1891 to 1941 before his
untimely death, a mere 49 years. And during this
short time on Earth left an indelible mark that will
be remembered throughout the ages. We now
know that there isn’t a country or town anywhere
on this planet that doesn’t share our gratitude for
their achievements.
They’ve saved so many, so much sadness and been
credited for saving more lives than any other
Canadian and perhaps even any other person in
history. For Canada, this means that we need to
celebrate and remember Banting’s life.
It requires that we encourage others to follow in
similar footsteps so that we, as proud Canadians,
can cultivate the next great invention next. So I
ask, how do we encourage more Canadians to
A photograph of a little girl. She is posing with
her arms up and flexed, showing off her
muscles. She has a serious face and is staring
into the distance. She is wearing her hair in a
braid, a blue t-shirt that says “Canada Strong”,
and a red cape.
create medicines technology and advancements
not just for themselves, but for the benefit of
humanity at large?
Next slide.
How do we clone this philanthropic recipe so that
those Nobel Prize winners replicate their
humanitarian DNA for public good?
An infographic showing a selection of Nobel
Prize winners superimposed on the globe.
Frederick Banting is highlighted, with his
lifespan (1891-1941) written below.
A photograph of a Nobel Prize is also shown.
How can Canada, as a government, participate in
creating advantage and value for the benefit of
global society?
How do we transform economic motivation to
social potential?
In essence, and to coin a Canadian charity: How do
we transform me into we?
Well, I’ve had the opportunity of thinking about
this for a while. So. first, I think we need to
encourage the government to attract and retain
internal top talent and equip them to explore
solutions that matter. We already have the best
equipment and tremendous skill. But what they
may lack is the permission, culture and perhaps
some of the connective tissue to innovate.
That’s not to say that Canada doesn’t deliver. On
the contrary, magic does happen here. For
example, the Ebola vaccine was an incredible
achievement, along with other vital innovations
developed right here in Canada.
Second. Government should invest alongside
innovators not as a financial backstop, but as
motivated investors, alongside other expert
incubators looking to identify, accelerate and
commercialize opportunities that generate returns
and pride for Canada.
Third, and perhaps the most important of all. We
must invest strategically, but I’m not referring this
time to stocks and bonds. What are our greatest
assets? Our children. All kids are unique and they
all have talents. However, not each child has the
same talents. Identifying aptitudes and capabilities
A cartoon silhouette of a person’s head with an
empty space where the brain would be. In this
space is a lightbulb. Four more illuminated light
bulbs are rising from the person’s head.
Text on screen: Stimulating Innovation
 How do we encourage more Canadians to
create medicines, technology and
advancements not just for themselves but
for the benefit of humanity?
 How can the Canadian Government
participate in creating advantages and value
for the benefit of a global society?
 How do we transform economic motivation
into social potential?
 how do we transform ME into WE?
early on during elementary habit-forming years is
extremely important, then providing the
specialized education that will better equip kids to
help identify and grow their skills. As they learn,
surround them with the specialized technology and
training so that they become the leading edge as
early as possible.
Remember, skills are a perishable and evolving
resource. Our system is geared to deliver
homogeneous education, but our kids are not the
same. And we shouldn’t always learn the same
way. So we need to embrace their individuality and
help them figure out their super skills early. The
sooner they discover and develop their talent, the
more time they will have to excel and contribute
before they get too old and need to retire.
My thoughts are not novel. And other nations like
Israel have done this with stunning success. So we
already have a working model to consider and
evolve. Next slide.
For our family, diabetes is personal. Suppose I
could speak with Frederick Banting, Charles Best,
J.J. MacLeod and James Collip. I’d want to say
thank you and offer a father’s most profound
gratitude.
Thank you for giving my son a shot at an everyday
life. Thank you for letting me watch him grow up
and do such amazing things every day. Thank you
for every birthday, graduation, and for each special
moment. Big and small. Next slide.
A family photo of the speaker’s (Ron Shlien)
family: Ron, his wife, their two sons, and their
daughter sit on a stone bench in front of a
flower garden.
Two additional photos show Ron’s son William.
In one photo he wears a black coat with the
hood up while holding a Pokemon themed
birthday cake. In the other photo, he wears a
black suit and checkered shirt and leans against
a wall. In both photos, William is smiling.
Text on screen: It’s Personal. Our family today.
Diabetes is no longer a death sentence, and we are
grateful for all the love and potential that you’ve
made possible. Know that your efforts have saved
the lives of our son and the children of so many
that can celebrate, live, love, and laugh. Because of
you and for us, (next slide) life goes on.
Two photos show Ron’s son William. In one
photo he wears a black coat with the hood up.
In the other photo, he wears a black suit and
checkered shirt and leans against a wall. In both
photos, William is smiling.
Also on screen are images of birthday hats and
decorations; and a graduation hat and diploma.
Text on scree: Thank you! Canada Strong.
Finally, I’d like to thank the Canadian government
for allowing me to work alongside our senior
leadership to explore unique pathways, priorities
and opportunities to bring innovation, including
The logo for the Government of Canada.
Text on screen: A special thanks to the Canadian
Government for having allowed me to work
novel diabetes technologies to Canada.
Believe me, it took real courage to unleash an
entrepreneur into the enormous and complex
government machine. And I remain grateful for
theirs. Thank you. Next slide.
alongside our senior leadership to explore
special pathways, priorities, and opportunities
that encourage innovation including Diabetes
technologies. These efforts take courage and I
am grateful for theirs. Ron Shlien
Former Entrepreneur in Residence
So, Michelle, we turn it back to the Q&A now. A large blue question mark floats in the middle
of the screen.
Above the question mark are a selection of
images relevant to the centennial of insulin
including
 a photograph of Frederick Banting wearing
glasses, a dark suit and checkered tie
 A photograph of Charles Best wearing a
grey suit, and a striped tie
 Several vials of insulin
 A box of insulin from the early 1900s
 A photograph of a little girl sitting on a
table, injecting herself with insulin in the
thigh
 A newspaper cutting from the Toronto Daily
Star with the headline “Toronto Doctors on
Track of Diabetes Cure”
The Ingenium logo is on the bottom of the
screen.
[Michelle]
Well, Ron, thank you so, so much for sharing the
story of insulin and especially for sharing for
sharing your story.
[Ron]
Hold on.
[Michelle]
We’ll wait for you to reconnect. While Ron’s
reconnecting, I’d like to…
[Ron]
Hang on Michelle, I need to just fix a small
technical glitch.
[Michelle]
Not a problem. While Ron is fixing his technical
glitch, I’d invite everyone to explore the Q&A
function at the bottom of the screen. And if you
have any questions for Ron, write them in and we’ll
see how many we can get to.
The slide presentation is minimized, and the
moderator (Michelle Mekarski) and presenter
(Ron Shlien) reappear on the screen. As each
person speaks, their face reappears.
[Ron]
Michelle, I’m ready for your questions.
[Michelle]
Fabulous.
[Ron]
Sorry!
[Michelle]
No problems. This is this is the era we live in. So
the first question I’m going to start with is actually
one that came in earlier from someone that’s here
tonight. And they’re asking, is there a profile for
Canadians who are most likely to get type two
diabetes?
[Ron]
Yeah, great question. Yes, you are. In fact, they are
in fact more likely to develop type two diabetes if
you’re over 45. Have a family history of diabetes
are obese or overweight. Diabetes is more
common in African-Americans, Hispanics, Latinos,
Indigenous people or Asian Americans. Although
not everyone with type two diabetes is
overweight. Obesity and an inactive lifestyle are
two of the most common causes. These factors are
responsible for the majority of type two diabetes
cases in North America.
[Michelle]
As a follow up, what about Low-Income
communities, I’ve heard that they’re at risk as well.
[Ron]
Yup, they are. So, unfortunately, yes, people with
less money, less education, and lower social status
usually have less access to good food. They also
have more barriers to exercise, more stress and
often more exposure to chemicals. So people
who’ve had hard lives like a history of trauma or a
difficult childhood also have more of these risk
factors.
[Michelle]
Thank you. So what about type one, then? You said
there were certain things we could do in our lives
to help prevent or at least push off type two
diabetes? What about type one diabetes?
[Ron]
Yeah, so if the question is, can type one diabetes
be prevented? The answer is unfortunately not.
There are, however, new tests that can be
performed to determine if you have the genetic
markers that place you at a higher risk.
[Michelle]
Great. So there’s a question coming in from Anouk,
and she’s I’m going to kind of change her wording a
little bit, but she’s… What what can people do to
prevent type two diabetes or slow the chances of it
developing into full blown diabetes from just
prediabetes?
[Ron]
Anouk, that’s a great question. Thank you. There
are several ways to try and prevent type two
diabetes, and it’s the list.
 So no cut sugar and refined carbs from
your diet
 Workout regularly
 Drink water as your primary beverage
instead of soft drinks and sugary drinks.
 Lose weight if you’re overweight or obese
 Quit smoking.
 Follow a very low carb diet.
 Watch your portion sizes.
 Avoid a sedentary behaviour.
 Eat a high fibre diet.
 Even things like optimizing vitamin D levels
or minimizing your intake of processed
foods
 And surprisingly, drinking coffee or tea
along with other foods or drinks that are
high in antioxidants will absolutely help.
[Michelle]
I’m going to ask a follow up question from that,
too. So do you think then that some of these
factors are the reason that type two diabetes is
increasing in the world? Like more people eating
fast food, more coffee being drank, that kind of
thing?
[Ron]
In a word, yes. Yeah. You know, I think type two
diabetes, to a large degree, not for everyone, is
simply caused by this intake of all of these things
and a lack of, a sedentary life, and doing all the
things I had just mentioned.
[Michelle]
Another question that came in from before. What
is the average age to get diagnosed with type one?
[Ron]
So type one is usually diagnosed, diagnosed before
the age of 40, although now sometimes people
have been diagnosed later on after an illness
causes an immune response that triggers it. Most
type one diagnoses occur in children between the
ages of four and 14.
[Michelle]
So that’s really young. My goodness.
[Ron]
Yeah, my son was diagnosed at five.
[Michelle]
Yeah. Oh my goodness. I mean, it sucks for
everyone, but for a kid and their parents, it’s
heartbreaking.
[Ron]
It is. But you know, for children that are diagnosed
very early on. The only thing I can really say is they
don’t really know another way. So once they get
used to where they are and they get a little older,
they don’t remember a life without diabetes, so
their routine, although they may not like it, it
becomes part of their life.
[Michelle]
Another question – we got several mail in
questions – is insulin the most expensive liquid in
the world?
[Ron]
Yeah. Good question. It’s good I started doing
some research before this, so insulin in the U.S.
costs about 90 $600 a gallon, and that makes it,
believe it or not, the sixth most expensive liquid in
the world behind:
 Chanel No. five, which is $26,000 a gallon,
 Horseshoe crab blood, which is being used
in research. It’s a blue, a blue blood that’s
apparently incredible for research and
that costs $60,000 a gallon. Poor
horseshoe crabs,
 Lysergic acid or LSD. The drug comes in
number three at $123,000 a gallon.
 King Cobra Venom is a whopping $153,000
a gallon
 and the number one most expensive liquid
in the world. You want to take a shot at
Michelle at what this might be.
[Michelle]
I’m all that I can imagine is like melted gold or
something, I don’t know.
[Ron]
No, no. Scorpion venom at $39 million a gallon.
[Michelle]
Wow, I suddenly feel like I’m in the wrong field.
[Ron]
Well, you got to find and you got to milk a lot of
scorpions. I’m not sure there’s a lot of job security
in that work.
[Michelle]
So why are the price so high? It’s like it’s in
demand, the patent got sold for a dollar. How?
How is the cost so ridiculously high?
[Ron]
So an economics question. I love it because I shout
out to my friend Steven in the audience. In a single
word, greed. Generally, basic economic principles
would dictate that prices for goods and medicines
should fall over time. And as competition enters
the market, prices are driven down. It’s a rule of
supply and demand. So despite insulin being price
regulated, it’s sad to say that it’s gone up about
eight x over the past 20 years. I personally believe
that manufacturers charge so much for one really
simple reason. Because they can. For example, if a
video game system was too expensive, consumers
would hold off buying it. But with insulin,
consumers can’t walk away because they just they
can’t live without it. And what’s particularly sad for
me is that, you know, there are a lot of people out
there that don’t have these medicines paid for by
Medicare or Medicaid, or provincial subsidy
programs. And often they have to make decisions,
especially in an inflationary market, between
medicine and food. And what’s so rotten is that, as
you know, as a diabetic, if you’re a type one
diabetic, food is medicine, and having to decide
between insulin and food is just terrible.
And if you’re a type two diabetic, well, you need
higher quality food to be able to try and keep your
diabetes in check. And the least expensive food are
always the inexpensive carbs, which then these
people would then be forced to eat more and
more of. So this becomes this horrible, self-fulfilling
prophecy of their diabetes becoming out
of control because they can’t afford their
medicines or they can’t afford the food to take
care of themselves. So it’s it’s a horrible situation
that really at some point needs to really get looked
at, perhaps from the different food services and
food agencies within the Canadian government
and other governments around the world, because
this problem is it’s not going to go away on its own.
[Michelle]
Mm-Hmm. Another question in here about cost
while we’re on the subject and it’s about insulin
pumps, so this question is from someone living in
Quebec and insulin pumps are not covered by
provincial health care. Do you know, are pumps
covered in other provinces and territories?
[Ron]
Well, actually, I would like to correct that. Insulin
pumps in Quebec absolutely are. As an example,
my son is diabetic, and in Quebec, he’s on an
OmniPod. This is an example of a small OmniPod,
which is an insulin pump.
If you’re under 18 in Quebec and you sign up for
the insulin pump program and you go through
their process. Eh, from zero to 18, you’re fully
covered for insulin, for pumps, for pump supplies,
even things like Emla are covered.
But if you’re over 18 and you weren’t underage
As Ron discusses insulin pumps, he holds up an
example. Each insulin pump is a rectangular,
relatively flat, white plastic device about 2
inches or 5 cm long.
He then holds up a blue plastic bag about the
size of a grocery bag full of insulin pumps.
when you were first diagnosed. Therein lies the
problem. But yes, other provinces are are starting
to get into this. And incidentally, this is this bag full
of insulin pumps. It’s a horrible environmental
waste, but it keeps my son alive.
This is a few months of pumps in here. If you can, if
you can see inside this package, there’s, I don’t
know, 50-60 and he goes through this every, every
couple of days. He needs a completely different
pump.
So the good news is that if if the caller is asking
questions and they happen to be under 18,
absolutely they’re covered. No problems there. It’s
part of RAMQ. If they were diagnosed when
they’re under 18, they are still covered as part of
RAMQ. As long as they fill out that form every year
and send it through their endocrinologist back to
RAMQ, or CHU de Québec. And if they’re over 18. I
don’t know what to say. It’s not covered.
[Michelle]
It’s too bad.
[Michelle]
A question coming in from from Laura here. And
she’s asking you to expand on the stem cell
treatment, her daughter was unfortunately
recently diagnosed with type one diabetes.
[Ron]
So stem cell treatments are nothing that’s available
now. Viacyte, Vertex and other companies are
trying to find ways to get the the to get stem cells
to become insulin producing beta cells, and they’re
trying to find ways to inject them into the liver or
to inject them into the pancreas, to encapsulate
them into these special teabags that are that are
inserted underneath the skin, where interstitial still
fluids that contain blood glucose levels can go in
and then they can produce insulin on their own.
And then you’re you’re technically insulin free
because your body is producing it.
These are things that are currently in testing. Lisa
Hepner with the human trial. We’ll be talking
about that on hers, I think, in February. Michelle?
And stay stay tuned because they had a film crew
follow a bunch of these diabetics around. Some of
them have been insulin free for a long time now,
and it’s it is the future of this technology.
[Michelle]
Another question asking, what about pancreas
transplants?
[Ron]
Yup. You can have a pancreas transplant and
conceivably you would be diabetes free. The
problem is the immunosuppressant drugs required
to keep you healthy so your your body or your
white blood cells don’t go after your own pancreas
is arguably more dangerous or similarly is
dangerous to insulin therapy.
So that’s why unless you have real chronic insulin
issues where you really can’t tell your lows and you
can’t really treat it and you run into serious
hypoglycemia situations, it’s not something that is
typically explored medically.
[Michelle]
Question here from Lisa asking: some of these
innovations you’ve been talking about, which ones
have you and your son personally used?
[Ron]
Well, my son started off with an insulin pen. So this
is an example here of an insulin pen. It’s a pen. It’s
loaded with insulin in the front. This is a rapid
acting insulin called Novarapid. You attach your
pen, your your insulin tip, you dial in the amount of
insulin that you want. You’re the one that
calculates it and you inject it. And this is how you
lower blood glucose.
Since then, my son has evolved onto a pump,
which was one of these things. This pump is
connected to a PDM, the PDM is like a brain, it
doesn’t talk to anything, but you program it and
you figure you figure out things like insulin
sensitivity and carb ratios and all kinds of other
stuff. And it injects insulin that’s part of something
called a basal rate. In other words, a certain
minimum amount of insulin that you need to stay
alive. A minimum. And then you every time you
eat, you have to calculate your bolus insulin. The
Ron holds up an insulin pen. It is roughly the
size and shape of a marker. The tip is orange.
The back of the pen is a dial that can be rotated.
It is blue.
He then shows his son’s insulin pump again. The
insulin pump is a rectangular, relatively flat,
white plastic device about 2 inches or 5 cm
long. It is packaged inside a clear plastic bubble
similar to a blister pack that medication would
come in.
insulin that you use to eat your way out of
hypoglycemia, if you will. So my son went on to
that. And after the insulin pump with OmniPod, he
actually went on to a fully closed loop technology,
which was part of a product called Loop, which
really isn’t part of anything here in Canada just yet.
It’s part of a we’re not waiting movement, and that
is the future of new closed loop technology. So
he’s kind of been through the full gamut.
[Michelle]
Well, it’s incredible, such a such a crazy story.
[Michelle]
So, Ron, there’s there’s a bit of a special guest
who’s popped up in our audience and wants to say
hi to you and as a bit of a story to tell. So I’d like to
introduce this as a bit of a surprise. Bob Banting,
who can correct me if I’m wrong, is the great
nephew of the Banting that we’ve just been talking
about. And I think he wants to say a couple of
words on what drove Banting to come up with this
idea and press on with the research when he
wasn’t even paid. So Ron, with your permission. I’d
like to introduce you to Bob Banting.
[Ron]
Yes, Mr Banting, thank you.
[Bob]
How are you today?
[Ron]
Wonderful, thank you for tuning into this.
[Bob]
We’re not bouncing around here too much. There
we go. Trying to do this with an iPad. Yes. I thought
maybe your viewers would be interested in hearing
a bit of a bit of a story about how Fred Banting,
that’s great Uncle Fred Banting ended up being
driven.
His idea came to him in the middle of the night in
London. But it really was driven by the fact that as
he was growing up, one of his chums, a gal, her
name is now known, known to us as fairly recently
as Jenny Victoria Jordan. Jenny was a childhood
friend that lived on an adjacent farm. And little by
As Bob Banting speaks he shows up on screen.
He is an elderly man with short white hair
wearing glasses and a dark sweatshirt. He is
reclined in a chair and the keyboard for his iPad
is visible on his chest. Behind him is a window
with white blinds pulled closed.
little, she exhibited all the classic symptoms of
diabetes. And when Fred was away the first few
years at university, she came down with diabetes
and Fred would visit her on her porch. He
ultimately was a bearer at her funeral. So Fred
ended up being driven by this.
He talked about this idea many times long before
the idea came forth. By discussing it with one of his
cousins, also a doctor and a person who both
helped out with the original insulin injections.
That was a good friend, Fred Hippo, they grew up
together on the farm. And Fred and he talked
about the need for this solution in, in 1920 or
sorry, 1919, when they were both looking for a
ride, a boat ride back to Canada after serving in the
war.
So really, the driver and the idea for the the insulin
was in fact, I guess cultured in his mind with a
childhood friend that he didn’t talk about at all
largely because the family her family died at the
time with a lot of kids do at the same time. They all
died one after the other of infectious diseases and
their sister died, as well as a diabetic. So he never
talked about it, never mentioned it. And out of
respect for the neighbours, he never focused on this
at all.
So I thought maybe you’d be interested in that
tidbit.
[Ron]
That’s an incredible story, and you know, I just
while I have you here, I just I want to thank you
because of what you know your your your relative
has done. He saved my son’s life. My son’s alive,
and the lives of so many others have been saved
because of this incredible medicine. And it’s it’s
incredible sitting here and speaking with you,
knowing that, you know, a couple of generations
back was was a personal close family member that
made this all possible.
[Bob]
Yeah, I was close to him. My father talked about
Fred a lot. He was old enough to have met him
alive. So he talked about it, my aunts and uncles all
talked about it. And Fred would come back home
to his birthplace home in Alliston, and they would
all meet there. So it was great background.
I hear this story and the thank yous. It wasn’t me
or any of the relatives that did this at all, but the
thank yous keep coming up, and I like to take and
consider the need for me to take the history and
the thanks and the thankfulness and turn that
something somehow into a way to have Fred
Banting come back and finish the job.
[Ron]
Wouldn’t that be something?
[Bob]
Sorry about the video.
[Ron]
That would truly be something. Well, listen, you
bear his name and you bear his blood, and I’m
grateful for that. So thank you.
[Bob]
You’re welcome.
[Michelle]
And thanks thanks to both of you. There’s thank
you flying in on the question and answers right
now, both to you, Bob, and also to you, Ron.
Unfortunately, I think that’s all the time we have
for questions. There are a couple more that we
didn’t get to answer, and Ron has agreed that any
unanswered questions, he will do a bit of a kind of
a written interview which we will have posted on
the Ingenium website after the fact. So if your
question didn’t get answered, look for Ron’s article
or tune in for our next topic, which is going to be
on December eighth, where we’re going to be
exploring some of the future innovations in
diabetes.
[Ron]
So I can tell you that Rob and Claude are two really
interesting guys and their innovation is incredible.
That’s made a huge difference in our lives as well,
because, you know, the antidote of too much
insulin requires glucagon, which raises your blood
sugar. And if you can’t drink anything because
you’re unconscious because you’ve accidentally
taken too much insulin, you’re in a situation where
you need help. And their story is remarkable, their
innovation is fantastic, and you know, we have it in
our go bag all the time. I’ve got a couple of bottles
right here with me of what they invented, so I
strongly think anyone that’s interested in diabetes
should check it out. They’re two really dynamic
guys. And of course, after that, the section with
Lisa Hefner is going to be fantastic.
But Michelle, I just want to thank you for doing
this. It’s been a pleasure working with you, and I’m
so glad that the Ingenium Foundation and the
Science Museums of Canada found that this was an
important enough topic on the centennial to talk
about.
[Michelle]
Absolutely, and I and I want to thank you, our
guest speaker this evening and also our surprise
guest speaker.
[Ron]
Yes! Wasn’t that great.
[Michelle]
It was so cool! I want to thank you so much for
your generosity, for, for sharing your passion with
us and the story that’s very personal for you.
I’d also like to thank our audience, of course, for
coming and for participating and for sharing all of
those questions.
[Ron]
And when one special request, Michelle, if you
could just reach out to Bob Banting and find out if I
can, if I can get in touch with them directly, that
would be fantastic.
[Michelle]
I will. I will send him a message. For the rest of our
audience members, there’s going to be a link
dropped in the chat any second now to a survey in
case you want to share your thoughts with us.
We’d really love to know how we can keep
improving this series. And you will also be receiving
an automated message tomorrow through the
email that you used to register, which will also
have a link to this survey if you don’t manage to
click it in time.
So please check the museum’s website for
upcoming topics. If you want to know more, check
out our info line.
And on behalf of myself and Ron, and the Canada
Science and Technology Museum, and the
Ingenium Foundation, I want to say a sincere thank
you and good night. I hope you all stay healthy and
stay well. Bye now.
[Ron]
Good night. Thank you.
Michelle and Ron’s images fade away.
Logos for the Ingenium Foundation and the
National Research Council of Canada appears.
Text on screen:
This edition of Curiosity on Stage was cohosted
by the Ingenium Foundation and was supported
by the National Research Council Canada.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum
logo appears. It spins on the screen, then
disappears.
The Government of Canada logo appears.
Text on screen: Canada Science and Technology
Museum
IngeniumCanada.org

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Curiosity on Stage.
The Curiosity on Stage Evening Edition logo, the Canada Science and Technology Museum logo, and the Ingenium Foundation logo appear on screen.
Text on screen: Accelerating a Cure for Diabetes – Lessons from a Global Pandemic. Presented by Lisa Hepner, Vox Pop Films.
[Michelle]
This presentation is part of a series where we discuss new scientific discoveries and emerging technologies that are making an impact on Canada and global society.
Even though we are meeting today on a virtual platform, I would like to acknowledge the importance of the land that we all call home. From coast to coast to coast, we acknowledge the treaty lands and the ancestral and unceded territory of the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations people. I am joining you this evening from my home office in Ottawa, which is built on the unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory.
My name is Michelle Mekarski. I will be your host for this evening, and I am the science advisor at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
Finally, I want to thank the Ingenium Foundation who is generously co-hosting this Curiosity on Stage Speaker series, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin. We are truly grateful to have the Foundation’s support in amplifying Ingenium’s mission and particularly inspired by their mission towards science for all.
I would also like to thank the National Research Council of Canada for
The moderator (Michelle Mekarski) appears as a small insert. She is a woman with brown eyes and brown hair in a bun. She is wearing a blue blouse with a floral pattern and earbuds.
their support in making the series more accessible through translations, transcriptions and captioning.
Now, here at Curiosity on Stage, our goal is to get you thinking. And we do that by bringing in experts to share stories and revelations on topics that matter. Tonight, in conjunction with the Ingenium Foundation, I am delighted to introduce the third of three webinars in the thematic series Beyond Injections: 100 Years of Insulin and the Future of Diabetes.
[Michelle]
This particular series is significant as it commemorates the 100th year anniversary of the discovery of insulin which is arguably one of the most lifesaving inventions to ever come out of Canada.
Before the discovery of insulin, someone was who was diagnosed with diabetes, was basically told to get your affairs in order, as most could only expect to survive a couple of months beyond their diagnosis. This is why the discovery of insulin in 1921 was such a breakthrough. It saved millions of lives, but it’s not the end of the road.
If you have type one diabetes, you need to regularly self-administer insulin to keep your blood sugars within a normal range. The trouble is that’s not a simple task. There are 42 factors that impact blood sugar levels and determine the amount of insulin you need to self-administer. These include things like what time of day it is, what types of foods you’re eating and how much, if you’re exercising. If you’re stressed, how stressed are you? Are you sleeping a lot or are you taking a nap? What are your hormones doing at any particular given time? As you can see, there’s a lot to think about.
Now, diabetes will slowly and steadily erode your organs. It’s a toxic roller coaster of high and low blood sugar levels that can lead to long term complications such as blindness, stroke, heart attacks, kidney diseases and amputation.
The discovery of insulin did not cure diabetes. Too much insulin, and you risk severe low blood sugar, which can lead to death. Too little insulin, and you risk diabetic ketoacidosis, which can also lead to death in as little as three days.
Diabetes does not have a cure. But today we’re going to be hearing a story about how maybe, just maybe, we could be close to one.
Now, before I introduce our speaker, I want to ask a question to our audience here. Have any of you ever watched anything by HBO, A&E, PBS, Sony Pictures Classics, Lifetime, Discovery TV, MTV, TLC, or CBC? In, oh, I don’t know, the last 25 years or so? If you have, there’s a good chance you may have seen some of our speaker’s work.
A glucose monitor with two buttons marked ‘M’ and ‘S’ has a blank screen. A glucose test strip with a green patch is inserted into the monitor. Surrounding the monitor are approximately forty sugar cubes. The monitor and sugar cubes are lying scattered on a pink surface.
Text on screen: Accelerating a Cure for Diabetes — lessons from a Global Pandemic. Lisa Hepner. The Human Trial – Vox Pop Films.
Lisa Heppner has spent the last two decades producing a variety of films and programs, along with an impressive list of acclaimed directors. Along with her husband, Guy Mossman, she runs a production company in L.A. called Vox Pop Films, which specializes in nonfiction content and commercials.
One of Lisa’s latest projects and her directorial debut is the focus of today’s talk, and it’s a documentary called The Human Trial. This documentary tells the story of a biotech startup on the verge of a major medical breakthrough. A stem cell derived product which could lead to a cure for Type one diabetes.
So here today, to talk to us about Accelerating the Cure for Diabetes, Lessons from a Global Pandemic is Lisa Heppner. Welcome to Curiosity on Stage.
[Lisa Hepner]
Thank you so much, Michelle. I’m thrilled to be here. Not only am I Canadian, but I was born in Ottawa and I grew up there. So this is very special to be speaking to my hometown crowd.
I think I would like to start the talk by saying I’m not a scientist. I’m not a researcher. I’m not a biologist. In fact, I remember clearly in high school begging my biology teacher to not have to write my final exam so this is not, this was not my area of expertise when we started this film.
So I come to you today as a filmmaker and someone with Type one diabetes. I’ve had Type one diabetes for 31 years. That’s a long time. And I think, Michelle, you encapsulated and explained it beautifully. Insulin is not a cure, and this disease can kill you. And I don’t believe the general public fully grasps that.
So my job as a director and a patient with type one when I was making this film was threefold. One, shine a light on what it’s like to live with Type one diabetes and why it needs to be cured. Two, bring the curtain back on cure research. I liken it to bringing the curtain back on Oz, showing what really happens in the labs, what really happens in the trials to fully explain why it takes a long time for these breakthroughs to happen. And these breakthroughs don’t happen fast enough for anyone suffering from a chronic disease or for anyone who has a loved one with a chronic disease. Thirdly, I think it was very important to show the power and potential of embryonic stem cell research and how it should not be politicized. I’m happy to say that the Canadian in me knows that in Canada there is not the same level of religious debate or shall we say, right wing debate that exists in this country. But there have been times when this type of research has been stymied and it put back a lot of potential breakthroughs, including ViaCyte’s work.
Lisa Hepner appears. She is wearing a navy blue blazer, blue shirt, a silver necklace, and glasses.
So those were the three goals. And I certainly hope that in our 92 minute film that these are apparent.
I think actually coming back to the fact is how little I know about science or how little I knew about science, that was actually probably an advantage because when I was talking and interviewing the researchers, I made them talk to me like I was six years old, like I was their six year old niece or nephew. And obviously being able to distill these messages so the general public can understand is critical and it also helped me understand. That was probably my my secret.
Anyway, before I talk more, I would love to show you a trailer for the Human Trial that we just finished. It hasn’t been released to the public. So this truly is a sneak preview for you. We are releasing the film on June 24th in Canada, and the United States. We’re booking theatres right now and there will be more opportunities to watch the film, which I can speak to later.
Brian, if you’re there, could you please play that trailer for the Human Trial?
[Lisa narrating]
There’s a lot of unknowns, and I think it’s the unknowns that are terrifying. And it’s me, it’s me on that operating table.
[Male scientist narrating]
We’re developing the bio artificial pancreas that can potentially cure type one diabetes.
The trailer for The Human Trial begins to play.
A series of images flash on screen: the logo for Abramorama; the logo for Vox Pop Films; an aerial shot of a suburban neighbourhood in winter; 16 pills lined up on a dark table as a hand reaches down to pick up a pill; a whiteboard with the text “procedure (in patient’s words): putting pods in arm; a man giving a women (Maren) a hug as she lies on a gurney; an operating room; researchers wearing white suits looking at microscopes inside a fume hood; a man holding a seal plastic package with red liquid inside; a close up of a rectangular, transparent plastic device;
[Lisa narrating]
It’s become a joke that the cure is always five years away. But if it’s so close, what is taking so long?
Do you feel guilty that the cure is always five years away?
[Male researcher]
I don’t feel guilty. I feel hopeful.
More images flash across the screen: text “The Journalist”; Lisa Hepner working on a computer in the dark; an aerial shot of a city’s downtown with a highway and skyscrapers; a glucose monitor in an arm; a billboard which reads “Have type 1 diabetes?”; a large circular building; a man sitting on a staircase.
[Male scientist]
When you’re doing clinical research, there’s always the first patient.
[Female nurse]
That’s Maren.
[Male patient]
I’m Greg. Nice to meet you.
[Female patient]
I have some extreme lows which cause me to have seizures.
[Male patient]
I’m going blind.
More images flash across the screen: text “The patients”; a sad woman hugging two children; a man playing with a toddler in a hospital room; a woman (Maren) and man (Greg) shake hands; a person is rolled by on a gurney, ready for surgery in front of a sign that reads “University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview”; two more patients are shown being wheeled into operating rooms, including Maren; Greg receiving an eye test.
[Male scientist]
It takes 10 to 20 years to develop a new drug.
[Male scientist]
This is my life’s work. We need the investment to prove to you that this works.
[Female scientist]
We have 180 days of cash.
[Lisa]
What happens if we don’t raise the money?
[Male scientist]
Shut the doors.
More images flash across the screen: text “The scientists”; a female scientist wearing a lab coat, gloves, and goggles pulls a test tube out of a freezer and puts it in a box with several others; a lecture hall showing a histological image on the screen; an aerial view of a city; close up of a male scientist; several people dressed in business attire walk down a city street; a presentation showing lines on a graph; a man drinks some water;
[Female patient]
Part of science, and I’m trying to come to grips with on my own is it even working? Because if it works, it’s like winning the lottery.
[Male scientist]
We still don’t know how it will work in people. And that’s why we’re all here – to make it work in people.
[Male scientist]
Thirty two years in the waiting, hoped and prayed for this for a long time.
[Female patient]
I don’t know if I could keep doing this anymore.
[Lisa]
It’s just been really hard on them. But they’re paving the way for others, so…
Images continue to flash across the screen: aerial view of a University campus; two people walk down a university hallway; close up of Maren’s face; Greg walking across a university campus; a scientist in a lab working with tweezers in a dish of gel; microscope lenses being changed; scientists observing an image under a microscope; a woman crying; patients looking sad; Lisa Hepner sitting on the floor, crying with a computer in front of her; a man and his daughter playing in a pumpkin field;
[Male patient]
We’re talking about my life here. I’m not afraid of death, but I need to be here for my daughter. That’s what this is about.
[Lisa]
How much is riding on this?
[Female scientist]
Everything. Sorry.
Images continue to flash across the screen: a man and his daughter playing in a pumpkin field; an overhead view of a man and woman playing with their daughter in the snow; surgeons operating; a tattooed arm; a female researcher crying
[Female patient]
It has been more than I ever expected.
[Lisa]
You’re showing efficacy?
[Male scientist]
To see it come this far. It’s amazing.
[Female patient]
I’d like to think I’m a pioneer where you read in textbooks – she was the first. So. Fingers crossed.
More images flash across the screen: text “Science Matters”; a diabetes monitor; a party in a dining room with a banner that says “believe”; close up of a women baking with her children; text “More than ever”; Lisa Hepner surrounded by images of medical scans; a lecture hall full of people applauding; families playing and sledding in the snow; doctors fist bumping; patients hugging in a hospital room; a patient being interviewed
in a medical bed; a doctor; the flame of hope; text “The Human Trial; coming soon”.
[Lisa]
Okay, you guys, I hope that gives you a flavour of the film. We’ll be showing another clip later on. I think we are.
We are often asked. Guy and me. And Guy is my husband and cinematographer who co-directed the film with me. We are often asked, what was the genesis of this film? Why did you guys choose to take on this Herculean task of following science in real time? Of following an experimental trial that had never been done before? And why did you commit to filming it? To perhaps efficacy.
And the answer is we didn’t know better. It’s, you know, we learned patience as the trial unfolded, and we learned that what we wanted in two years’ time wasn’t going to happen.
If I were to backtrack even a little further as to why we made this film, it actually taps into me being a type one, person with Type one diabetes. When Guy and I were living in Brooklyn in 2008, I woke up one morning drenched in sweat and dazed and confused. I had suffered a severe hypoglycemic attack in the night. Guy turned to me being the inveterate filmmaker that he is and said, We need to make a film. I had no idea about diabetes until I lived with you. This is not… this is a bad disease. We need to do something.
After much convincing, I agreed that we should at least research how we might tell the story of diabetes. So let’s fast forward to 2013 where we were living in L.A. and we did a lot of research into what stem cells, what the potential was for stem cells… to stem cell therapy, excuse me, stem cell therapies to cure type one diabetes.
All of this research led to ViaCyte, a biotech company in San Diego that was that had just submitted their IND to the FDA. The IND is an investigational new drug application. Sorry if I butchered that. And it basically means the FDA has given you the green light to go into the clinic to experiment on humans. We were there. We were lucky. The filmmaking gods looked down on us, and we were there when they got the phone call from the FDA. And we were there when ViaCyte was popping champagne and celebrating that they were actually going to the clinic to experiment to try and make this work in humans.
There was so much passion in the room and so much commitment. ViaCyte, many people at Viacyte had been working on this particular protocol for a decade. This is highly unusual in the world of biotech. Most people don’t work on a single product for that long. So the
The trailer disappears and Lisa Hepner returns full sized to the screen.
excitement was palpable.
And we started to film and we learned, as I keep saying a lot. And I want to share some of the hurdles that we saw the scientists experiencing, because as a type one, as a person with type one diabetes, I was pretty cynical about cure research.
When I was diagnosed in 1991, I was told the cure was five years away. As you can see in the trailer, it’s a promise that is told to most people with Type one diabetes and most families who have Type one diabetes and on it and they have to deal with it.
So I was cynical going into this and then when we started filming, I started to understand their hurdles and just how difficult it was to not only fund clinical trials, but to stay in a clinical trial.
So here are my takeaways, which I hope you find interesting.
Science takes time. Progress is incremental. Now, we heard Dr. Fauci say that a lot over the past two years. I hope his message found a home. I know in many places it did not. But it is the truth. We all want a tidy headline that talks about a breakthrough, that talks about a Nobel Prize. But science doesn’t work that way. And in science and this was a big lesson for me, just even as a human being, there is no such thing as failure. All failure leads to a better understanding of what can be done better the next time.
So as we were filming, running out of money, we’re two and a half years in. I had to be reminded by the CSO, the chief scientific officer, that this is how science works. And Lisa, if you’re here filming, you have to basically relax. So I did. And this is one of the biggest lessons that I don’t think many people know is how expensive it is to fund cure research. It on average, in the United States, it costs $3 billion to take a drug to the marketplace. And that’s if the drug even gets to the marketplace. The statistic on that is very depressing. It’s less than 1% of drugs that are in the clinic, actually, or device make it to the marketplace. So it’s a very expensive and risky endeavour.
And when we were filming, I was chagrined and surprised to see that the researchers were traveling around the world raising money for a clinical trial that was about to go dark. And they weren’t in the lab working, perfecting, fixing problems. They were, pardon of my language, shilling for money in Riyadh and Tokyo, in Canada. They were doing the best they could to keep it going. And when I asked the researchers who I became, you know, pretty close to, I said, So, just what is the impediment to you curing type one, if you will? And they said money because they fully believe in their product. ViaCyte fully believe that their embryonic that their stem cell derived product will
work.
And I am really thrilled to say that they’ve proven efficacy on a few patients and that they are now working with CRISPR, the gene editing company, to create a cell line that is not detected by the patient’s immune system. So this means that no anti-rejection drugs would be needed. I’m kind of diving into the science here. Nonetheless, I have so much respect for the researchers, for the biotech innovators, who challenge the status quo and who work tirelessly for often pennies an hour until they can take their drug or device to the marketplace. It’s risky. It’s a, it’s a long game. And I learned that loud and clear.
So let’s Brian, let’s cue up my second clip. It’s a longer one. It’s just under 13 minutes. And it’s the introduction to the film. And you’ll meet the research scientists at ViaCyte and you’ll see what they were up against.
[Lisa’s son]
That is yuck.
[Lisa]
What’s yuck?
[Lisa’s son]
Blood.
[Lisa]
Yeah. Well. It is what it is. OK, push hard. See it here?
[Lisa’s son]
See it here?
[Lisa]
I know and then I have to squeeze it. Look at how much blood there is. Hmm what does that say? Can you do it? Yeah, OK. Two ni- go ahead.
[Lisa’s son]
Two nine four.
[Lisa]
Hmm. Yeah. That sucks. Weird! I don’t know, Jack. Yeah, I know this is just not good. I don’t know why it’s going up. I have to talk to my doctor.
[Lisa narrating]
The average person has three traumatic events in their life. Waking up in the ICU was one of mine.
[Lisa]
The opening scene for The Human Trial begins to play.
A series of images flash on screen: the logo for Abramorama; the logo for Vox Pop Films; text “in association with Amy Rapp Productions, Beyond Type 1, Tenth Muse Films”.
Lisa and her son are sitting in their living room on a couch. Lisa is testing her blood sugar levels. Her son pricks Lisa’s finger.
He points at the drop of blood. Lisa squeezes her finger and touches it to the blood test. They read the results together.
Lisa’s son pricks his father’s finger. He looks at the drop of blood. They touch the drop of blood to the test strip and read the glucose monitor.
Maybe we can test daddy’s blood sugar. Let’s see where daddy’s is.
[Lisa’s son]
There it is, there it is look!
[Lisa’s husband Guy]
Yeah!
[Lisa]
Okay. All right.
[Lisa’s son]
Nine six.
[Lisa]
Wow.
[Lisa narrating]
I’ve spent the last 30 years trying to outrun my disease, but it’s not working. The irony is, I look healthy, but I’m not.
[Lisa]
I always feel like I’m going to the principal’s office for these calls. I hate doing these calls. My little stress ball pancreas.
Hi, Mary Rose.
[Lisa’s doctor, Mary Rose]
Hi, Lisa.
[Lisa]
You know, there’s one thing I want to say I wanted to tell you that I have a little tingling in my heel, in my left heel. And it’s only like when I’m in the shower and I’m like shaving my leg or whatever. But I’ve been feeling a bit of tingling and that’s, I’ll be honest, that’s kind of freaking me out. But I don’t know. Like.
[Mary Rose]
Well, it can. The diabetes can be starting to affect your nervous system. This could be the beginning of neuropathy. So the best thing to do is get your blood sugars under control.
[Lisa]
I mean, you know, I’ve had type one now 31 years, and I wasn’t always in really tight control.
[Mary Rose]
Yeah.
Lisa sits at her desk writing number on a small notepad. Behind her is a large whiteboard with a smiley face drawn by her son.
Lisa takes a sip from a mug and checks her glucose monitor and dials her doctor for a virtual call on her computer. She squeezes a stress ball in the shape of a pancreas.
Lisa starts talking with her doctor over a video conference app.
Lisa starts to tear up and get more upset as she discusses things with her doctor.
[Lisa]
Oh my God. OK.
[Mary Rose]
Well, I yeah, I know it’s hard.
[Lisa]
Yeah.
[Mary Rose]
Well, we’ve got today and we can move forward from here. You know, it’s best to face this before it gets real bad. Lisa. I could never judge you for not being perfect with this honey because I couldn’t do it myself. And I don’t that’s why I think you should come see me more because you can’t do it yourself either.
[Lisa]
Yeah.
[Mary Rose]
Bye. Take care.
[Lisa]
Bye. Thank you.
[Guy]
You didn’t tell me about your feet.
[Lisa]
Hmm. Well. It’s just something I hope that goes away if I take better care of myself.
[Lisa narrating]
It’s become a joke in the community that the cure is always five years away. Stay strong. The cure is on the horizon.
But each year, more than five million people die from diabetes waiting for that cure. If it’s so close, what is taking so long?
We started looking for a biotech company that was doing something different, something radical. Then in 2014, my husband, Guy, and I heard about a company that was rethinking how to cure diabetes. They had engineered stem cells to implant into humans. We were skeptical, but intrigued.
Lisa is driving her car. Several shots show her face, her dashboard, and a close up of the glucose monitor in Lisa’s arm.
Lisa drives past a billboard that reads “Have Type 1 Diabetes?”
Guy is in the front passenger seat, aiming his camera at Lisa.
They drive past a sign that says “5 South – San Diego”
Their car parks in a parking lot, Lisa exits and start walking towards a building.
[Lisa narrating]
The first patient got his insulin in nineteen hundred twenty two.
[Politician]
We cannot be a strong nation unless we are a healthy nation, and so we must recruit not only men and materials, but also knowledge and science.
[Male reporter narrating]
Scientists usher in a new medical age when the monumental reports that proved the Salk’s vaccine against crippling polio to be a sensational success. Salk’s Child was one of the two million children involved in tests of his vaccine. Tests which have ended for all time, a threat of one of the world’s most vicious diseases.
[Male politician]
Measles vaccines have been successfully tested by thousands of parents who have permitted their children to participate in the trial.
[Male reporter narrating]
Behind it all are tests and research and years of development and hope.
A series of antique, black and white photographs and video clips flash on screen: a woman holding an emaciated child; a child injecting himself in the thigh with insulin; a child dressed in boxing gear injecting himself in the thigh; a newspaper headline that reads “Nobel Prize awarded for insulin research”; a politician giving a speech; a scientist looking through a microscope; an x-ray of a chest; a medicine bottle; a female scientist with a set of scales; test tubes in a centrifuge; children walking with crutches; a child crying while receiving a vaccine; a newspaper headline that reads “Polio test 90% effective”; people talking in an auditorium; cameramen gather around a person; a factory producing a vaccine; a child holding her injection site; a male politician giving a speech; a line of smiling children; a vial of the mumps vaccine; a newspaper headline that reads “Eradication of smallpox seen in next 10 years”;
[Male reporter]
Do you think that you will live to see a cure?
[Male patient]
No
[Male politician]
More recent colour images and video clips flash across the screen: twelve people hang a sign over a balcony that reads “one AIDS death every 8 minutes”; vials being removed from liquid
Science moves in a way that’s not linear. It can be incremental, punctuated by breakthroughs back to incremental.
[Male reporter]
Is there any guarantee this will actually work?
[Dr Fauci]
There is never a guarantee when you’re doing a clinical trial. If there was a guarantee, you wouldn’t have to do the trial.
nitrogen; microinjections into cells; a machine moves a test tube; a male politician gives a speech; a woman receives a COVID vaccine; Dr Fauci is interviewed on CNN; a female scientist pipettes into small test tubes.
Images disappear and the film’s title appears “The Human Trial” on a background with a molecular diagram.
[Michael Scott]
We just submitted our first IND to the FDA in the United States, and that’s an investigative new drug application. And altogether, it’s over 8500 pages.
I’m just going to clear off some space, so it doesn’t look so awful. Perfect.
For me, it’s only the culmination of a little over three years of work, but for some of my colleagues, they’ve been involved in ViaCyte for over a decade and their heart and soul professionally has gone into this company and our product.
Text on screen: Year 1
A round, coliseum-like building appears on screen. Text on screen: Viacyte Headquarters in San Diego, CA.
A trolley laden with large binders full of paper is pushed down a hallway. Text on screen: July 15, 2014.
A man unloads the binders onto a desk. The same man is shown at a different desk where he is giving an interview. He clears up a scattered mess of papers by putting them on the floor.
The man is identified as Michael Scott, VP, Device R&D.
[Michael Scott]
So this is a mock up, and it doesn’t contain an actual device, but. Actually let me just take a look. Maybe I’m lying to you. It’s easier if I take it out of this package.
Oh, I lied, so you can see the implant right in there, and it contains cells.
Michael Scott holds up a plastic package. Within that package is a second package filled with red liquid. Inside that pink liquid is the implant he is discussing.
[Lisa Hepner]
That one contains cells right now?
[Michael Scott]
Yeah.
What we’re developing is a bio artificial pancreas that uses stem cells to potentially cure type one diabetes.
The implant is a clear plastic rectangle about the size of a credit card. Several stripes and bumps cover the implant.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
It sounds groundbreaking, but diabetes is complicated. It all starts with the pancreas, the ugliest organ in the body. In type one diabetes, the body attacks itself and destroys the cells that produce insulin.
Lisa Hepner opens a door and walks into a dark room.
She sits at a table and turns on a small lamp that illuminates a piece of paper in front of her. On each side of her are cameramen, filming as she draws on the paper.
She draws an uneven oval to represent the pancreas. She labels it. Inside the pancreas she draws several circles representing insulin-producing cells. She crosses them out with a red pen.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
And when you don’t have insulin, sugar builds up in the blood and it can’t get into the cells. It’s as vital to the body as oxygen.
She flips the page of her sketchbook and draws a tube representing a blood vessel. She draws red lines representing blood flow and orange squares representing sugar.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
While people with type two diabetes have trouble absorbing insulin, type ones don’t produce any insulin at all. Either way, too much sugar in your blood is toxic.
Text on screen: T2D some insulin; T1D no insulin. Toxic. She draws a cartoon face with X’s for eyes, representing toxicity.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
High blood sugars can lead to blindness, kidney failure, strokes and amputation, low blood sugars, and you risk unconsciousness and death.
She flips another page on her sketchbook and draws a stickman labelled with blindness, kidney, and strokes, and scribbles out a leg to represent amputation. She then draws a tombstone.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
So I’m constantly injecting insulin to control the amount of sugar in my blood.
Normal blood sugars are flat with the odd spike. My blood sugars look like the Himalayas.
She flips another page on her sketchbook and draws a graph showing time on the x axis and blood sugar levels on the y axis.
She draws a relatively straight horizontal line with a couple small bumps to show the levels of a non-diabetic throughout the day, then draws a jagged line representing the blood sugar levels of a diabetic throughout the day.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
ViaCyte wants to fix this toxic rollercoaster. Program stem cells to make insulin, put them in a high tech teabag, implant them into humans, and over time, they’ll replace the damaged cells in the body.
[Scientists talking]
Okay Jay, ready?
Sealed.
[Michael Scott]
We can do as much testing on the bench and in animals as we want, and we still don’t know how it will work in people. And that’s why we’re all here to make it work in people.
Scientists wearing white coveralls, masks, and gloves are working in a lab.
[Paul Laikind]
OK, so today is our 30 day clock on the IND. I was hoping to make this a very suspenseful meeting, but somehow having bottles of champagne… I guess if the answer was bad, it would have been hard liquor. There are no hold issues in the clinical trial may proceed.
[Kevin D’Amour]
When I first heard this morning, excitement was the third or fourth emotion I had, it was like, Oh yeah, now I can be excited about this.
Been here 12 years. This is my life’s work. To see it come this far and officially go into a patient. It’s amazing.
A collection of people are gathered in a conference room. Everyone is seated at tables facing the front of the room.
At the front of the room is Paul Laikind, President and CEO of Viacyte.
Short clips of various people listening to Paul talk are shown.
Paul pops a bottle of champagne and pours it into glasses after he announces that the clinical trial may proceed.
A close up on Kevin D’Amour (chief scientific officer) shows his happy reaction to the news.
[Michael Scott]
This is a new frontier. The FDA is understandably concerned about
the safety risks associated with any kind of cell therapy, but they recognize that patients need better treatments.
It takes 10 to 20 years to develop a new drug. But those are usually drugs that are not that novel. It’s a pill. You eat it. Everyone knows how to do that. This is extremely novel.
[Kevin D’Amour]
Nighty night.
Researches are all seated in a lecture theatre watching a presentation. At the front of the room, a man is giving a presentation.
In another shot, researchers in lab gear a preparing test tube samples. Kevin D’Amour puts the samples into a deep freezer.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
I don’t think anyone knew how long this trial was going to take. We were still in phase one where scientists test if their product is safe and tolerated by humans.
[Lisa Hepner reading an email out loud]
I am sure you were hoping we would have definitive answers for you to film by now. Welcome to the exciting but often frustrating world of biotechnology.
[Lisa Hepner narrating]
It’s a critical stage, but it doesn’t show if the product is working.
Text on screen: Year 2
Lisa Hepner is in her apartment working at her computer. Her computer screen is reflected in her glasses.
She reads an email out loud, grunts in exasperation, and then closes her laptop.
[Michael Scott narrating]
Clinical studies like this are set up in phases for very good reason. The first phase is designed to determine basic safety tolerance and not put a whole bunch of patients at risk without understanding that it’s safe first. The second phase is the most exciting because that’s where you get the data, the proof of concept.
A researcher in full lab gear (white coveralls, mask, and gloves) closes a door and walks down a hallway. They walk into a room with a sign on the door that says “Keep this door closed at all times. Authorized personnel only. Gowning required”.
Researchers are shown working at computers, microscopes and fume hoods, and writing on clipboards within the lab.
[Michael Scott narrating]
Then the moment we’d all been waiting for the FDA gave them the green light to move to phase two of the trial. It was finally time to see if
Several Viacyte staff are posing together for a photograph. After the
the cells could work in people.
photo, they fist bump each other.
A box is shown being removed from a lab, and transported in a truck.
[Lisa Hepner]
How much is riding on this?
[Susan McClatchey]
Everything, everything. Sorry. It’s going into a person.
A sign is shown that reads “Clinical and Translational Research Institute (CTRI)”.
Susan McClatchey (Director, Quality) is interviewed in white coveralls and a bonnet. She is shown looking through a window into a lab. She starts to tear up as she is interviewed. She is clearly very emotional.
[Lisa narrating]
ViaCyte opened seven trial sites in the US and Canada, including one at the University of Minnesota, and that’s where we met patient one, Maren.
A white box is placed into a shipping box, secured with packing tape, and labelled.
An aerial view shows the campus of the University of Minnesota.
The final shot shows a woman asleep in a dark room.
[Lisa]
All right. So a little bit of a cliffhanger for you guys. We meet patient one Maren, and we meet patient two Greg, and we follow them for a year and a half. As they go through the ViaCyte trial. And it was very challenging for these two patients. And maybe I won’t reveal what happens to them now. I’m going to keep that as a secret for you guys to watch the film.
I don’t want to speak for much longer because I know that Michelle wanted to open it up to Q&A. Perhaps I’ll just end by saying that the rollout of the COVID vaccine showed us what was possible. How we could accelerate cure research if we properly supported the science where funding wasn’t an obstacle. Where there was collaboration between governments and corporations, and where there was no shortage of clinical trial patients. So let’s end on on hope and that we can all benefit from these breakthroughs. And that we should all support these scientists and these patients who sacrificed so much for the rest of us.
The movie clip disappears and Lisa Hepner reappears.
[Michelle]
Well, thank you so, so much, Lisa, for first off, for sharing a sneak peek of your film, which our audience might not know but is not even released to the public yet. So you guys are part of a special group that gets to see a little bit of it in advance, but also for giving us a bit of a glimpse into what a clinical trial looks like and what your life has been like trying to tell this story.
So we’ve got just over 20 minutes left. I’ll invite our audience to find the Q&A button, which is one with two speech bubbles at the bottom of your screen. Start throwing in some questions and we’ll we’ll see how many we can get through.
But I’m going to start with one of my questions, because I’m the moderator and I have the mic right now, but I wanted to touch more on on this, the COVID situation. Like, obviously, we went from a brand new disease to a vaccine, you know, in an unheard of amount of time. Right. And for you, who’s been following this clinical trial for years now, is that something that is very frustrating then to say, well, that happened with COVID? Why can’t it happen with diabetes and other chronic diseases? Or is it more of a hopeful feeling? Or is there kind of a little bit of both mixed in in there right now?
[Lisa]
That’s an excellent question. I would look at it as a more hopeful take away than one of resentment that COVID got more attention than diabetes. I think it was really enlightening to me editing this film while all of this was going on. For the past two years, we’ve been editing this film in my guest room right? We had to shut down our office. So here we were watching the news unfold and then the swift rollout of the COVID vaccine. And in fact, it took one of my exec producers saying, Lisa, you need to connect the dots. Like look at what just happened. And once we did and we started working also with faster cures at the Milken Institute, we realized that there was a great framework or model that could be followed.
And what’s very heartening for me is that even in this, you know, in the state of America and our dysfunctional political system, but there is a bill that’s being introduced called ARPA H that is trying to legislate an institute, better funding for this type of promising cure research or vaccine research. So that we don’t just languish, if you will, after what we’ve learned from the pandemic.
The only other thing I’d add is that I just want to put in context that swift rollout of the vaccine. You probably know that the mRNA technology have been worked on for like a decade by Moderna. And so it was there. It was ready. They had done a lot of work during SARS you
Michelle and Lisa take turns appearing on screen as they speak back and forth.
know, that crisis that kind of went away. And then people’s interest in their technology went away. Enter COVID 19. And it really reignited everything overnight, and it just showed us what could be done in six months.
[Michelle]
Mm hmm.
[Lisa]
Amazing. It is. It is. It is inspiring to me.
[Michelle]
Great. I also wanted to ask and you know, you talked about how for ViaCyte, they, they’d shown efficacy. So they’d shown that what they’ve developed is actually producing insulin in some patients now. So what’s next for them?
[Lisa]
Mm hmm. So where they’re at with their clinical trial is they have not proven widespread efficacy because there has, there is, their cells are
still, their insulin producing cells that have been implanted are still being rejected by the patient, which means they have to take these very strong immunosuppressant drugs which have side effects which sometimes even have a negative impact on the cells that have just been implanted.
So they haven’t hit this out of the park yet. They haven’t hit this out of the park. Yes. They’ve proven efficacy in that insulin that their cells can produce insulin in people, but they haven’t proved that it can be sustained. So they’re trying to fix the issue of having to be on immunosuppressants by working with CRISPR to gene edit their cells. So their cells cannot be, so their cells are invisible to the body’s immune system. So that means you don’t have to take anti-rejection drugs. That means there’s a lot more chance that the implant is going to thrive, get the oxygen it needs and not be targeted by the body’s response.
So that’s where they’re at. They are in, they are starting… This is exciting and a very big Canadian angle. The Health Canada was the first regulatory agency to approve putting these gene edited cells into people. And that was in February of 2022. It’s hard to keep track of time. So this is this is really exciting. And again, Canada’s leading the way. And I do believe it’s at the University of Alberta under James Shapiro. He’s kind of a rock star in this world.
[Michelle]
So it sounds like these these kind of CRISPR edited cells will be great because, you know, there’s a really good chance that they’re not going to be rejected. But there’s a question in our audience saying basically, are there any risks to doing these type of… He’s calling them like blind
cells that the body doesn’t see. Like if something goes wrong, like will the body not be able to deal with the wrongness of those cells, if that makes sense?
[Lisa]
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, this is a question that ViaCyte gets all the time. And of course, they speak to their clinical trial patients about it. The way their device works is they put the cells into a polymer device that, you know, looks like a credit card. These polymer devices can be removed easily via surgery, but they can be removed if there is something that’s not going well for the patient.
They I mean, the biggest thing is that the FDA well, the FDA has now approved that clinical trial in the United States as well. But the big thing is, is that Health Canada and the FDA have approved this trial. And they they would not have approved this pioneering research unless they knew that it was safe or. Right. Or that or rather I should fix that. Or if they knew that there was a way to prevent putting a patient in danger by removing the devices.
[Michelle]
Right. So there is basically like a failsafe there, just in case.
[Lisa]
That’s the word I guess I would use.
[Michelle]
Yeah.
[Michelle]
Question here about balancing the various iterations of this technology. So we just talked about one iteration. You know, they had a first product. They’re making an edit and they’re trying it again with a slight upgrade, let’s call it. So how do you balance making all these different iterations, all these new versions with the fact that you actually need to stop and wait and see how it works as well? Like, how do you balance that timeline and the rush for advance, but also the wait and see to see if it works.
[Lisa]
That’s really a tough thing that the researchers have to balance exactly. There are in fact, ViaCyte has three products in the clinic right now, three of them. And so they have to balance, you know, as this question this person put so eloquently, how on earth can they go to the third iteration if they’re still tweaking the second iteration? And that is because there are different variables in these products. So it’s almost like a new clinical trial.
Does that make sense? So that it’s not just a new version of it. It
actually has to go in as a new product, a new version, a new new trial. So what am I trying to say? So the regulatory agencies have to go through this… They have to look at this new protocol and treat it as such. Does that make sense?
[Michelle]
So that you basically have parallel clinical trials like similar but parallel kind of clinical trials going on at the same time and learning lessons from each of them presumably as well. Right.
[Lisa]
But the point is this is that they can run in parallel.
[Michelle]
Right. Okay. So you don’t have to stop and wait. I guess as we saw also with the COVID vaccine, because, you know, there were multiple trials running all at the same time. And then with all the open science that was going on, people were able to learn, as you’ve said, from the failures the mistakes, the kind of the not workings of others. And it got us there that gets that much faster.
[Michelle]
Well, so another question here coming in is the you mentioned an international component to this research, and they’re asking because you know, you’ve been involved and you’ve been all over the world, and seeing kind of how this is all going. Were there any big takeaways for you about cure research clinical trial research and the way it’s conducted in different countries?
[Lisa]
Now, that’s a great question. We didn’t do a deep dive into this. We were literally just filming the researchers raising money abroad. So I didn’t do a deep dive into how does the funding of cure research in Canada differ from how it’s funded in Belgium? I could have gone there, but then there were so many themes in the film to cover already, and we wanted to keep it really personal and human. That if I had done a deep dive into the different systems, it would have been a survey film, not a verité film.
[Michelle]
That’s fair enough. Is it a topic that interests you maybe for future?
[Lisa]
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I defer to experts. I’m sure there has been, you know, good studies on what’s the best way or what’s a better way of funding cure research.
[Michelle]
I want to ask about the people who volunteer for clinical trials. I know that there can sometimes be like a stigma almost for signing up for
these these research trials that have no guarantee of working. What is kind of your takeaway after hearing these stories and sitting with these people who have volunteered for these clinical trials? What’s your message?
[Lisa]
Right. I think the motivation for the patients differed. I think some of them wanted to do it for altruistic reasons, that they realized that what they brought to the table was really important, even if it didn’t work for them. It might work for, you know, patient 22 down the road. And they appreciated that. So there was a, there was an understanding and respect for science and a willingness to sacrifice themselves for science.
Other people wanted… I’ll be totally honest. This is America. They wanted to get free diabetes supplies because it costs a lot. And when you sign up for a clinical trial like this, you actually get your supplies covered.
Thirdly, I think some of the people who signed up just hate type one diabetes, hate the disease. Like really hate it. And they’re tired of it. And they’re… they need this hope, too. So it’s almost… I don’t know if it’s cathartic. But by being in a trial like this, there is hope and they can feel the hope. And that makes them perhaps able to handle their disease better.
[Michelle]
Right. And so I guess a lot of different motivations, depending on who you are. And how would you encourage people external to these trials who maybe are hearing about it or reading in the news. Like how would you encourage them to kind of see really the sacrifices these people are making?
[Lisa]
Well, I guess watch this film you will see writ large what sacrifice they made for people like myself. I think there just has to be a deeper understanding of what these trial patients do for us.
During COVID, I mean, you probably remember these clinical trial participants talking to the news, talking to reporters and saying, yeah, I’m not sure what’s in this. I don’t know if it’s a placebo. I don’t know, you know, what exactly is being injected in me, but I’m willing to do it because I want to help. And, you know, it’s stories like that that I think educate the public about the important sacrifices that people make.
I think in terms of if there’s any interest in signing up for trials, I can speak to how to do it in the United States. You know, you go to the NIH, National Institute of Health website and you can sign up for clinical trials there.
I think it’s just really coming away, appreciating what these brave people have done.
[Michelle]
Right. Another question in chat is seems to relate a bit to the COVID, the COVID again. And you know, COVID was cured, not cured. A vaccine for COVID was developed so quickly because it was seen as an important right. It was it was a global pandemic. And you know, they mobilized all of the people and all of the money and all of the manufacturers, etcetera. And even now that we’ve seen that it can be done, we’re not seeing it being done for something like diabetes. So how do you make diabetes.. And like, it’s important, like a lot of people are affected by diabetes. I would argue probably everybody knows somebody affected by diabetes. So how I guess do we make it seem as important as COVID and how do we mobilize the research and the pharmaceutical companies who may not see any financial interest in this? And how do we light that fire.
[Lisa]
What an excellent question. Really excellent question. Diabetes is a pandemic. 6.7 million people died from it. In 2021 6.7 million people around the world. You know, I hope that we’re not, you know, immune to understanding what that number is. You know, it’s the population of Madrid that died. The health expenditures are huge looking after diabetes, the mental health component, the physical component, the loss of work. Right. It is a pandemic and it needs to be taken seriously.
Second half of the question so how are we going to have it taken? You know, how do we make people understand and how do we make people, encourage people to really take it as seriously as they did the COVID 19 pandemic?
Well, and, you know, again, I speak from an American perspective, but you can lobby the government you can lobby your members of Congress, members of parliament, if there is an opportunity, if someone is speaking out and saying, you know, I want to sponsor, I want to introduce a bill that supports cure research and biotech innovation, you know, at an early phase. And I again, I speak from an American perspective, but go out and support that. Go call your senator. I guess we have a Senate, of course.
[Michelle]
Call your MPs.
[Lisa]
Yeah, yeah. Go call your MPs, lobby. Talk to your friends. You know, get a conversation going about it regarding like diabetes.
There’s a huge stigma attached to being someone with diabetes. There really is. I look healthy, as I say in the intro of the film, I’m not healthy. I’m not. You turn me inside out, I’m not doing so well, but you can’t see that. So I think that makes the outside world look at me and say, oh, just inject your insulin and watch what you eat and you’ll be fine. And it’s not like that. And I think we’ve discussed that a lot in this presentation. I think it takes people being willing to talk about it. I think it takes people with diabetes, to be honest about it, because so often people hide behind the facade of normalcy and it doesn’t do anything to help the community find a cure. We have to say as a group: this disease is bad, like really bad. It needs to be cured.
Yeah, I think so much is about getting the word out there and then having a call to action. And in our film at the end, we do have a call to action, which is “five years”, that “five years is now support faster cures”. Go to beyondtype1.org/cure. And then we show many ways of how to get involved. But no, I really appreciate the question. It’s kind of like the big question.
[Michelle]
Yeah. I hope you’re, I hope your film reaches in enough people that that fire is lit. That would be would be my big wish for you in this film and the legacy it leaves.
[Michelle]
Someone down here is asking this. This film is done but of course, ViaCyte’s journey is not. Do you have plans to keep filming and have a Human Trial two?
[Lisa]
Maybe once we get this film rolled out, I’ll answer that question. I certainly like ViaCyte and I like the senior management. They’ve been incredibly patient and open with us and the stuff we filmed. I couldn’t believe some of the stuff they let us film.
I don’t know. Yet. If I have it in me to do a sequel, but maybe I won’t have to.
[Michelle]
Fingers crossed, right? It’ll just be it’ll just be like the next headline, and then within a year everyone will be cured and then done.
[Lisa]
That’s it!
[Michelle]
That leads us nicely into I think what’s going to be our last question of tonight. But if funding was not a factor, if the amount of researchers was not a factor, if finding people to participate in clinical trials was not a factor. Can we cure diabetes in five years?
[Lisa]
Oh, yeah, hands down. I think it should have been cured yesterday. Oh, I fully believe that. No, absolutely. And, you know, ViaCyte’s not the only, you know, person in the sandbox, there are a lot of high level research being done, including in Canada. SerNova in London, Ontario, who are really doing great work. And this there’s a Harvard lab run by Doug Mountain. It’s called Vertex and they were just on the cover of The New York Times for proving in the very first patient that not only do their cells work, but they got the patient was off their insulin. 90% off their insulin within… You know, I think it was eight weeks. That’s incredible.
It’s going to work. It really is. And I tell this to people who are newly diagnosed and really depressed. I tell this more to the people who’ve had it, like the veterans like me. I’m not a veteran. But you know what I mean? I’m a I’m a cynical kind of journalist, you know, but I do believe it’s possible. My son asks me, my little baby son, he’s seven: mommy, when will this disease be cured? When will the flame of hope go out? And I do the math. I’m like, okay, you’re seven. So when you’re 11.
I don’t want to give false hope. But the science is the science is there.
[Michelle]
Well. I thank you. Whether or not you meant to it, I think you’ve given us all. Hopefully a little bit of hope.
[Michelle]
So, unfortunately, that’s all we have time for, for questions. It is coming up on the hour mark.
So first and foremost, I want to say a huge thank you to you, Lisa, her, for pulling back that curtain a little bit for a lot of us and showing, you know, what it’s like to be involved in a clinical trial and what it’s like to be a filmmaker who’s trying to capture this story.
I’d like to let our audience know that the human trial is being released theatrically in the US and Canada on June 24th. That’s next month and will be available for community screenings and events by Roco Film’s. In January 2023 it’s going to be released on iTunes and other video subscription services. And if you want to know if your particular video subscription service is going to host it, you can go to thehumantrial.com website’s up right now and you can find that.
In the meantime, if you want to follow Lisa and her story or find out more about the film or what you can do to support diabetes research. Flip through all the pages on thehumantrial.com.
Alternatively, you can check out some of Lisa’s other work including the
Text on screen: www.TheHumanTrial.com
Movie posters for ‘The Human Trial’ and ‘Women on the Frontlines’ are shown. The Human Trial poster has outlines of a man and woman. The Women on the Frontlines poster shows a road along a cliff edge with women walking along the side of the road.
feature length documentary Piece by Piece – Women on the Front Lines, which was co-directed by Lisa back in 2003 and was filmed in Afghanistan, Argentina, Burundi, Bosnia Herzegovina, and in the U.S..
If you did have a good time, I hope you consider joining us for future Curiosity on stage events. This summer, we will feature two events on accessible and inclusive technologies, featuring global leaders in accessible arts related content, and an innovative machinist who creates the world’s best adaptive downhill racing bikes.
You need more information, please check the museum’s website, write into our info line or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
[Michelle]
So on behalf of myself and Lisa, the Ingenium Foundation and the Canada Science and Technology Museum, thank you so much for joining us today. I want to say a sincere thank you and see you next time.
Text on screen: Thank you! Join us for Assistive Technology: innovating towards inclusion, summer 2022.
Logos for the Ingenium Foundation, the Canada Science and Technology Museum, and the National Research Council of Canada are shown.
All images on screen fade away.
Logos for the Ingenium Foundation and the National Research Council of Canada appear.
Text on screen:
This edition of Curiosity on Stage was co-hosted by the Ingenium Foundation and was supported by the National Research Council Canada.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum logo appears. It spins on the screen, then disappears.
Text on screen: Canada Science and Technology
Museum. IngeniumCanada.org
The Government of Canada logo appears.