16, October 2026

In 2026 THECIS celebrates its 25th anniversary. To celebrate this, we are running a 25th Anniversary Blog series where we ask prominent individuals to write a blog to provide perspective on a topic related to innovation and entrepreneurship. This Blog is by Dr. Marvin Fritzler. He is professor Emeritus in the Department of Medicine and former head of the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Calgary, and founder and leader of MitogenDx, which provides specialized autoimmune, cytokine, and biomarker diagnostics

Health Innovation in Alberta: Historical and Personal Retrospectives – Blog #113

 

Health innovation in Alberta is historically and intrinsically linked to the energy sector, and most notably to the enigmatic Athabasca oil sands. A seminal account of Alberta oil sands innovation dates to 1715 when a Hudson’s Bay employee noted that Chipewyan women mixed conifer ‘gum’ with ‘black pitch’ that oozed from the banks of the Athabasca River to water-proof their canoes. Western Canada explorers Peter Pond (circa 1775) and Alexander MacKenzie (circa 1788) made similar observations. Fast forward to the early 1900s when Dr. Karl Clark and Syndey Ells investigated more efficient modes of bitumen mining and extraction for practical applications, including its use in roofing materials and roadway pavement. The privately owned Bitumount oil sands plant came on-line in the late 1920s. Due to financial challenges, Bitumount was sold in 1942 and taken over by the Alberta government in 1948. The facility was declared a provincial heritage site in 1974.  Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS)  was formed by Sunoco in 1952 and later became Suncor Energy. After several failed startups, GCOS began construction of a 45,000 bbl/day oil sands mine and bitumen upgrader just north of present-day Fort McMurray in 1964. At the time, this $250 million project was the largest private investment in Canadian history.  That same year, the Syncrude consortium headed by Imperial Oil was established. 1971 saw the election of Peter Lougheed as Premier of Alberta who recognized the tremendous value of the oil sands and determined to move the oil sands agenda forward. One of his first futuristic moves was the establishment of the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) in 1974, a Crown Corporation led by Clem Bowman. Its mandate was to address the challenges confronting oil sands development: efficient oil extraction, water use, pollution (tailings, air emissions), and power use. At the time, oil prices hovered around $20 per barrel leading many to question the economic benefits of the adventure. Unique features of AOSTRA included the requirement of the energy industry to match AOSTRAs financial commitments and that any innovative technology would be available to any user at fair market value. After a remarkable track record of innovation, AOSTRA was dissolved in 2000 and succeeded by Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI: rebranded Alberta Innovates-Energy and Environment Solutions 10 years later.

While all the oil sands hype was transpiring, Peter Lougheed, never content to rest on his laurels, established the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund (AHSTRF) in 1976 with royalties committed from energy revenues and royalties. AHSTRF remains active today with an estimated corpus of $32 billion. The AHSTRF paved the way (no pun intended) for health innovation. After receiving joint briefings and proposals from the Universities of Alberta and Calgary, Premier Lougheed established the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) in 1980 with an initial endowment of ~$320 million. Over ~30 years of operations this grew to over $1 Billion. In its prime, AHFMR invested >$60M/year in health research, much of it initially dedicated to building “capacity” by attracting highly qualified researchers to Alberta’s post-secondary and medical institutions. Over its lifetime, >$1Billion in funds were allocated and >8500 highly qualified individuals were supported. In the heady days of 1983 to ~2005, Alberta became the envy of other provinces because of a perceived “unfair advantage” for national peer reviewed funding and some scrambled to create similar entitles in their provinces. Through these and other investments, the bandwidth of Alberta’s health innovation sector dramatically grew to include numerous highly acclaimed start-ups. When Dr. Cy Frank assumed the leadership of Alberta Innovation Health Solutions (AIHS: AHFMR was renamed AIHS in 2010) he referred to the previous years of AHFMR’s devotion to building capacity by proclaiming “It’s not business as usual for health research in Alberta. For 30 years, Alberta had a model of investment and support for biomedical research that created much needed capacity in the province. It was an innovation for its time …we need to change the game with new approaches to innovation to meet societal demands on every level — health, the health system, social wellbeing, the economy.”

In addition to the tremendous impact of AHFMR/AIHS, two other drivers of innovation are worthy of mention. The first is the Informatics Circle of Excellence, (iCORE) initially chaired by Dr. Brian Unger at the University of Calgary followed by Dr. Randy Goebel at the University of Alberta.  Supported by annual funding allocations by the Government of Alberta of up to $14M/year, iCORE’s mandate was to develop a strong and vibrant informatics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) base in Alberta. The success of iCORE, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII) and Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (AITF) was palpable, largely through attraction of remarkable support from internationally recognised leaders in the field of AI such as Google, Microsoft and IBM. Today, debates and public demonstrations overshadow the establishment of data centres (DC), the ‘heart beat’ that drives AI and ML. Curiously, many of the public concerns with the oil sands development are mirrored by the concerns about DCs. If Alberta intends to protect its investment in health innovation and maintain a leadership role in AI/ML championed by iCORE and AMII, DCs are essential. It seems simple, if they aren’t developed in Alberta, they will be elsewhere, likely at considerable cost to Albertans.  One of the possible pathways to developing innovative solutions that address the concerns about DCs might be through a rebirth of an ‘AOSTRA’; ADCTRA (Alberta Date Centres Technology and Research Authority) where the principles of matching funds from industry and giving access to any AI/ML/DC innovation at fair market value are promoted.

The second major investment is genomics research and innovation championed by Genome Alberta (GA). In 2005, with the support of GoA, A major impetus for the creation of GA was the tremendous growth of health innovation in Alberta spurred by AHFMR and the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2001. This was followed by several other genome projects such as the bovine genome project in 2009 – of obvious high relevance to Alberta’s beef industry. Over more than 2 decades of operation with Dr. David Bailey at the helm, the >$90M invested in genomics research has leveraged $757M total investment in Genome Alberta. To appreciate the broad impact GA has in Alberta, one needs to know that to date $248M has been invested in human health, $207M in agriculture and the agri-food industry, $90M in forestry, $72M in the environment and exergy and $47M in data resources. Notable projects include investments in metabolomics (The Metabolomics Innovation Centre in Edmonton and Calgary Metabolomics Research Facility). Coming full circle to oil sands innovation and AOSTRA, GA recently promoted energy research as an eligible area for funding with Genome Canada resulting in a $13M award focused on bitumen recovery (University of Calgary) and oil sands remediation (University of Alberta).

The key perspectives intended by this op-ed on Alberta’s health innovation is that initial investment in the oil sands through leadership of Peter Lougheed and the Premiers and GoA leadership that followed, the development of AOSTRA, which became a protype for other innovation leaders, particularly in the health sector lead by AHFMR/AIHS. It is safe to say that without oil sands innovation fostered in large part by AOSTRA and AERI, now capturing a significant share of energy revenues worldwide through exports, that the high profile, high achieving informatics, AI, ML and health innovation sectors would not have achieved a fraction of their prominence.  This is not to minimize the anxiety in the post-secondary institutions when AIHS was terminated in 2016 but looking at the big picture, it is hard to imagine where Alberta would be. The bigger picture includes ongoing \remarkable philanthropic funding, government support, and leadership by Alberta Innovates.

Marvin Fritzler is Professor Emeritus of the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary and Founder and Medical Director of Mitogen Diagnostics Corp. From 2001 – 2010 he was a member and chaired the Alberta Research and Innovation Authority.

Sources