What is the Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine?
We are an independent, not for profit, multidisciplinary research facility focusing upon the scientific investigation of natural health products, nutritional interventions and strategies for preventive medicine. We have university affiliations and collaborative research relationships in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia.
Clinical Trials
We design and carry out formal, human clinical trials to investigate the safety and efficacy of natural health products. We have a close relationship with University of British Columbia in Vancouver and all of our on-site clinical trials are fully reviewed and approved by UBC's Human Research Ethics Board as well as Health Canada's Natural Health Products Directorate.
We also design and assist in the conduct of human clinical trials and animal studies at various off site academic centers. We are never involved in such studies unless they have been approved by the appropriate Research Ethic Board / Institutional Review Board and the appropriate government agency.
Technology Transfer
We search the world for novel and promising technologies at universities and foreign companies that have not yet matured sufficiently in their regulatory or evidence base to be exploited in the marketplace. Again, our focus are products in the natural health product realm but we also look at products that fit the criteria for a natural health product but have the potential to be moved into the biotechnology or pharmaceutical category through research and regulatory due process.
Our interest is to match such discoveries with a suitable industry partner and to then oversee the completion of the product's evidence and regulatory foundation through appropriate research, intellectual property protection and regulatory submissions.
Research and Development
We are involved in helping to make products more suitable for the marketplace by developing and testing the palatabilty and delivery systems for the product. Taste, convenience of use and tolerability are often as critical to a product's success as the product's effectiveness.We are also extensively involved in new product discovery and development.
Note: We never take commissions for product sales, we never accept company shares or any other royalties from the commercial exploitation of our discoveries. Any patent rights are signed to the appropriate industry partner or academic institution. We prefer to make our living by the hours we work and continue to do good science without such conflicts of interest.
Clinical Programs
From time to time, we are involved in the development and implementation of community programs designed to educate the public in matters of nutrition and lifestyle as it related to specific health concerns. For example, we have on several occasions conducted community weight loss programs for overweight and obese people in the BC Lower Mainland. These programs have been completely without charge and have provided extensive education in healthy weight management.Our motivation to carrying out such programs is to contribute to the community and to assess the effectiveness of such programs with the goal of creating a low cost way to provide preventive medical education so badly needed to combat such epidemics as obesity and diabetes.