Then he strayed from the beaten path.

It seemed harmless enough, at first. A software client here, a high-tech client there, just to mix things up. Then a hospital. The University of Alberta. Venture capital clients. Anything more Albertan than venture capitalists?

But one of those venture capitalists made some life sciences investments. Then a few more. One of those companies needed a lawyer. The only one they knew was Mr. Obert. And before he knew it, he was hooked.

He now represents a dozen of Alberta’s fledgling and not so fledgling biotech companies, among them Biomira, listed on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.

“About 10 years into my practice, I realized life sciences was about 80% to 90% of my practice,” he says. Shocking.

Think Alberta and about the last thing that leaps to mind is biotechnology. But there it is, Canada’s fourth-largest biotechnology cluster. According to Bio- Alberta, the “central voice” of Alberta’s bioindustry, the province is headquarter-home to some 100 bioindustry companies, which employ roughly 3,000 people.

Who would have thought it — a perfectly respectable biotechnology cluster in the heart of oil country.

Here’s the reality check: Only 13 of them have “final products for income generation.” That’s media release speak for having a revenue stream. Twenty-six companies say they’re far along in the research and development process. The rest? They’re just an idea. And almost all are burning, rather than making, money.

Now, 13 revenue-generating [but not necessary in the black] companies isn’t bad for a Canadian biotech cluster. But it’s not enough to support a cadre of biotechnology-serving lawyers. Or is it?

“It would be fraud to say I am a biotech lawyer. I am a corporate lawyer who has some biotechnology clients,” says Bill Smith, a partner with the Calgary office of McCarthy Tetrault. Among his clients is Calgary’s SemBioSys Genetics Inc., just back from a road show marketing a short form prospectus the company hopes will raise $20-million.

“The thinking in the capital markets for the last couple of years has been that if it was oil you could raise money and if it wasn’t, you couldn’t,” says Mr. Smith. “But today, the bloom has gone off the oil rose. Which is why SemBioSys is doing its financing today. It couldn’t do it eight months ago.”

SemBioSys is scouring the world for cash — the road show took its management all over the United States and Europe. When the investors come, the bloom off the oil rose notwithstanding, few of them will be from Calgary.

“People who have experience in the energy fields are more comfortable with those investments,” says Gordon Sustrik, a partner with the Edmonton office of Bennett Jones. “It is more difficult for them to make the shift to a biotechnology play.”

One of Mr. Sustrik’s flagship biotech clients, Oncolytics Biotech Inc. is in the last stages of a $13.8-million public offering.

While the finance environment for biotech is by no means easy in Alberta — or Canada — SemBioSys and Oncolytics demonstrate, as Mr. Smith puts it, “If you’ve got a really good idea, and it’s got a good market, the money will find you.

“But it’s a very Darwinian model, and there certainly is no oversupply of money.”

For law firms, biotechnology has been an emerging practice area destined to become a boom area ever since the oil sector’s first bust. “Biotechnology clients are right up there as a group of clients we want to grow with,” says Mr. Smith. “They have very interesting legal issues, they are always in need of capital, they have to deal with merger and acquisition issues.”

And, it goes without saying, they also have intellectual property, contract and licensing issues up the yin-yang.

Before biotechnology companies form a significant segment of an Alberta law firm’s client base, more than 13 of them have to be capable of generating revenue.

It’s going to happen, says Mr. Sustrik. And it’s going to happen the Alberta way — through a marriage of biotechnology to the industry Alberta knows best.

“Strategically, biotech has to be looked at as one half of the biotech-bioproducts business development,” he explains.

Bioproducts covers every biologically based product except those related to human health. That includes biofuels. Do you see where this is going?

“As the oil and gas companies begin to understand that they are in the energy business, and not the oil and gas business, they are starting to pay attention to alternative energy and bioproducts such as biofuels,” says Mr. Sustrik. “I believe that is the natural next development of the energy industry.

“In the bigger picture, biotechnology is integrally related to the whole bioproducts environment. And I believe the whole bio economy will be at least half of Alberta’s future.” With human health biotechnology riding its coattails to varying levels of commercial success.

They will, you know. Because in Alberta, it’s not primarily about oil. It’s primarily about making money. Bio Alberta estimates the global market size for Alberta bioindustry companies is around $138- billion.

Enough said.

(Copyright National Post 2007)