For government and economic development
Turn Ontario's research investment into good-paying jobs and better care.
Ontario pays for health innovation twice. Once to fund the research that invents it. Again to buy the finished product back from another country. CORE Innovation works inside the health system to keep more of that value here.
CORE Innovation turns Ontario's health research into good-paying jobs, Canadian-owned technology and better care. We work inside the health system, with the people who build health technology and the people who use it.
The gap, measured
Canada's support system stops before the sale.
We mapped 288 Canadian organizations that support health innovation. We placed each one on the path a product travels, from first discovery through to a hospital buying it. Support builds steadily through early research, seed funding and clinical testing. Then it falls away, right at the point a company would earn its first revenue. 236 organizations support clinical testing. 89 support procurement.18
The pattern is sharpest where it matters most. Of the 57 accelerators and incubators in that directory, four support a company all the way through to adoption. In Eastern Ontario, CORE Innovation is the only one.18
The cost shows up in the trade balance. Canada imports roughly 75% of the medical devices it uses, and runs an $8.5 billion device trade deficit, half again as wide as in 2019. Per research dollar, Canadian health researchers file about ten times as many patents as their American peers. Yet only 12% of patent applications filed in Canada come from Canadians.192021
Canada produces the research, then imports the product.
The gap, in numbers
$300M+
Annual health research investment in the region
$2.2B
Annual procurement across ten institutions
4 of 57
Canadian accelerators that reach procurement
$28:$1
Documented return on one deployment
The first investment, measured
$4.5 million, against the targets it was given.
FedDev Ontario invested in the 8-80 Collaborative in 2023 and set two targets. Both were passed.22
125
Jobs created
Federal target: 85
54
Companies served across Southern Ontario
Federal target: 30
$18.6M
New sales generated
By companies we supported
Those are the returns on the first federal investment, before the network grew to ten institutions.
What the model has delivered
Companies that reached real procurement.
Behind those numbers are companies that made it all the way to a purchase order, and patients on the other side of each one.
PolyUnity
Surgical tools and supports printed on demand, inside the hospital, instead of ordered in and waited for. 1,281 products delivered, a documented $28:$1 return, and a five-year procurement contract.
ThinkRare
Clinical AI that flags signs of rare disease in a patient's record, so a diagnosis that often takes years can be reached sooner. First of its kind, now expanding to three hospitals.
NanoTess
Advanced treatment for wounds that resist standard care, a common and costly problem in diabetes and long-term care. Now in national procurement through HealthPRO Canada.
The capacity behind them
- Two Invention Studio cohorts, supporting 17 companies
- Three Bears' Den pitch events, with more than $60,000 invested
- Three annual National Health-Tech Innovation Conferences. The 2026 edition sold out, co-produced with Velocity at the University of Waterloo
- Seven Experts in Residence, covering sales, regulation, product, pharma and governance
- CHEO joined the CAN Health Network as an Edge in April 2025. One of 52 nationally, and the primary Edge in Ottawa
AI that reached the bedside
Adoption is where AI policy meets a patient.
Most AI investment stops at the demonstration. The harder problem is governance: deciding which tools are safe to run on real patients, and holding them to account once they are live. CORE Innovation works inside a hospital that has done it.
- More than 13 AI tools running in clinical production, not in pilot
- A formal AI Oversight Committee. Every tool must pass its review
- Epic electronic medical record integration at HIMSS Level 6
- ThinkRare, a first-of-kind clinical AI for rare-disease identification, now expanding to three hospitals
That governance record is the reason an Ontario AI company can prove its product here and take the evidence anywhere.
AI deployment and governance figures are CORE Innovation and CHEO program data.
Why Eastern Ontario
The region had every input except a bridge.
CORE Innovation serves companies across Southern Ontario. We are based in the corner of it with the least support of all. Eastern Ontario has more than $300 million a year in health research, ten health institutions, and $2.2 billion a year in purchasing. Until 2023 it had nothing to turn that into companies.
The national programs that do exist sit elsewhere, or start later. The CAN Health Network operates at TRL 7 and above. OBIO and MaRS serve the Greater Toronto Area. CORE Innovation covers TRL 3 through 7 from inside a coordinated hospital network, which is the stretch where an Ontario company either finds a first customer or leaves.
What we offer
Purchasing power, turned into a launch market.
Working inside a hospital gives an Ontario company what an accelerator cannot. Clinicians who will test the product. A care network of more than two million patients. And the procurement leaders who decide what gets bought.
We back both sides of that exchange: the innovators building health technology in Ontario, and the clinicians and institutions who adopt it. Fund only the builders and good products find no market. Fund only the buyers and we keep buying someone else's.
So every dollar invested here has a direct line to three things. Good-paying jobs. Patents that stay in Canada. And better care for patients in this region.
Common questions
What partners ask us.
- Why does Canadian health technology get commercialized abroad?
- Because the support runs out before the first sale. Canadian research is highly productive, but a company still has to prove its product in a real care setting, clear regulation and win a hospital contract. Public funding rarely covers that stretch. When it runs out, foreign investment finishes the job and takes the patents, the revenue and the jobs with it.
- See the evidence →
- How does an Ontario company get its technology into a hospital?
- It needs a clinical site willing to test it, evidence a procurement team will accept, and someone who can navigate the purchase. CORE Innovation supplies all three from inside the health system, which is why companies we support have reached five-year contracts and national procurement rather than stopping at a pilot.
- See what reached procurement →
- What is the 8-80 Collaborative?
- A hospital-embedded commercialization programme founded in 2023 by the CHEO Research Institute and Bruyère Health, with a $4.5 million investment from FedDev Ontario. The name covers care from eight seconds to more than eighty years of age. It has since served 54 companies across Southern Ontario and created 125 jobs.
- See the results →
- How is this different from other innovation funding?
- Most programmes support a company from outside the health system, or begin only once it already has a product hospitals are buying. CORE Innovation works from inside a coordinated hospital network across the earlier stretch, from early development through first sales, in a region no comparable programme serves.
- Why this region →
The first federal investment proved the model.
A $4.5 million investment in 2023 returned 125 jobs, $18.6 million in new sales and 54 companies served, against targets of 85 jobs and 30 companies. The programme, the regional network and the procurement wins are all still running. We would welcome a conversation about what comes next.22