Manitoba-China partnership a promising first for incubator

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This article was published 06/09/2017 (3152 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Technology Accelerator has teamed up with a similar organization in the large central Chinese city of Hefei, which could lead to more Chinese investment in Canadian companies, as well as assistance to Canadian companies in penetrating the Chinese market.

To kick off the collaboration between MTA and the Hefei High-tech Industrial Zone (HHTZ), a venture-capital fund connected with that incubator group will invest $1 million in Arterial Stiffness Inc. ASI is a Winnipeg company that has developed a non-invasive portable device that collects a pulse wave signal, then uses proprietary software to produce a measure of arterial stiffness.

Seven members of the HHTZ were in Winnipeg this week to mark the occasion. It is the first international partnership between a newly launched incubator at the HHTZ that focuses on international collaborations.

The $1-million investment in ASI establishes a joint venture that will provide resources and infrastructure to further develop the technology and to launch it into the Chinese market.

The senior official from the Hefei delegation in Winnipeg, Cheng Gui Fan, deputy general manager of Hefei High-Tech Construction Investment Group, said, “We have done international investments before but we have never partnered with a Canadian incubator.”

Michael Zhang, the founder of ASI who acted as translator for the group, said there are 300 million people in China at risk for cardiovascular disease.

“There is a strong demand in China for innovative technologies that could be used to detect and prevent chronic disease,” Zhang said.

ASI’s technology uses an inexpensive, reusable clip that fastens to the patient’s finger. Successful tests have already been undertaken in two hospitals in China and Zhang said the company is about to embark on efforts to simultaneously secure regulatory approval of the technology in China, Canada and the U.S.

Arterial flexibility is believed to be an early bio-marker for cardiovascular disease.

Marshall Ring, the CEO of Manitoba Technology Accelerator, which has been assisting in the development of ASI for about five years now, said the collaboration with the Hefei group is a real coup for his operation.

“When we develop a technology and we are looking to launch into China we will go to them as the first friendly contact,” said Ring. “I am a firm believer in doing business with people you have a good relationship with.”

MTA has helped a few Winnipeg companies with successful commercial launches in the past — it did some work with Skip the Dishes — but its connection with HHTZ is on a vastly different scale to what it is used to.

The HHTZ manages a number of incubators and has more than 20 associated venture-capital funds whose assets total around $10 billion.

The fund connected to the incubator that has partnered with MTA has $40-million in venture capital attached to it.

MTA is leveraging the experience that the Wellness Institute at Seven Oaks General Hospital forged with Chinese partners that led to the opening of the Canada Wellness Centre at Rizhao Hospital in a small resort city in the north of China on the Yellow Sea two years ago.

Zhang, who works as a senior informatics specialist at the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, was instrumental in establishing that partnership as well.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca