The Government of Canada is committed to helping small and medium-sized businesses bring their innovations and initiative to markets across Canada and around the world.
Today, the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, announced $30 million from Budget 2022 for the Coordinated Accessible National (CAN) Health Network.
The CAN Health Network is a national partnership comprising leading Canadian health organizations and businesses in the field of health care innovation across Canada. It provides an integrated marketplace that makes it easier for businesses to compete and grow by providing:
- access to buyers' sites to validate their technology to solve challenges faced by health care organizations
- fast-tracked and scalable innovative procurement using existing guidelines
- an integrated marketplace allowing businesses to scale up rapidly, both nationally and internationally
This is a critical pipeline for health tech entrepreneurs-from testing their innovations to connecting them with the government procurement process to helping them scale and grow.
Minister Ng noted that the network has already proved its effectiveness only three years after its launch-by working together to connect two Canadian businesses working in health technology with the Government of Nova Scotia, which used their cutting-edge innovation to create its online COVID-19 vaccine booking portal.
To support the excellent work of the network, Budget 2022 dedicated a further $30 million to empowering Canadian health innovators to scale and grow their solutions and meet health care challenges right here at home. This builds on past investments of over $10 million for the network and its partners.
This new $30 million investment is taking the CAN Health Network national by supporting its expansion into Quebec, the territories and Indigenous communities.
