The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is one of the largest addiction and mental health organizations in North America, combining research, clinical care, health promotion and education. CAMH's scientific initiatives continue to play a critical role in revolutionizing our understanding and approaches to prevention and care in the fields of mental health and addiction. CAMH is in a unique position to bring together internationally recognized neuroscientists, clinical and social scientists and to offer state-of-the-art facilities, a range of professional training and a province-wide network of community program staff.
CAMH research has shown significant gains since its inception. At the time of the merger of the former Addiction Research Foundation, Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Donwood Institute and Queen Street Mental Health Centre in 1998, the combined grants of the Addiction Research Foundation and the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry totaled 15.4 million dollars (including grants as principal and co-investigators). Over the last seven years, this funding has increased to 35.5 million dollars (2004-2005 data). We now have 7 endowed University Chairs and Professorships based at CAMH, 6 Canada Research Chairs, and our share of funding amongst the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network (TAHSN) hospitals has grown from 2.5% to 6.2%.
In addition, CAMH Science has led to filing of 23 patent applications in the last four years and our work has changed practice and policy in Ontario and beyond.

Clinical Research
Director, R. Michael Bagby, Ph.D., C.Psych.
michael_bagby@camh.net

Neuroscience Research
Director, James L. Kennedy, M.D. MBME, ABPN, FRCP(C)
James_kennedy@camh.net

Social, Prevention and Health Policy Research
Director, Louis Gliksman, Ph.D.
Louis_gliksman@camh.net

Anti-psychotics are the class of drugs used to treat “psychosis” (i.e. delusions, hallucinations, bizarre speech and disorganized behaviour). The total prevalence of psychosis occurring in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is estimated at the level of 5 million patients in US alone. There is an unmet need in the market for compounds that have the efficacy of clozapine (the gold-standard in the treatment of psychosis) or better, avoid motor-side effects, agranulocytosis and metabolic side-effects. CAMH has developed a series of small molecule compounds that have been shown to be effective in animal models of psychosis and have receptor binding profiles similar to clozapine.

A US patent has issued (US.6,890,919). Applications have also been filed in Canada, the UK and Europe.

The compounds are available for licensing and are being actively marketed by BioDiscovery Toronto and CAMH.

Dr. Stephanie De Grandis provides business development expertise to BioDiscovery Toronto, a member of the Regional Innovation Network in Ontario and AllerGen NCE, a National Center of Excellence in allergy and asthma research. Stephanie has over 20 years of combined research and business development experience in the Canadian biotech sector. She is the CEO and founder of her own consulting company BioLaunch Inc. (biolaunch.de/ca) and is the former Manager of Business Development at the University of Guelph. She has held senior positions in the following venture capital, private, and public companies: University Medical Discoveries Inc., Trillium Therapeutics Inc, Allelix Biopharmaceuticals and Cangene Inc. Stephanie completed her PhD at the University of Guelph and MBA at the University of Toronto and has authored over 40 scientific publications.

Klara Vichnevetski, Ph.D.
Intellectual Property Management Strategist
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
33 Russell Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2S1
Tel. 416-595-6056
Fax. 416-979-4704
e-mail: klara_vichnevetski@camh.net
www.camh.net