The bank has made an undisclosed investment with Lumira Ventures, a Toronto-based firm with a healthtech focus. (The Globe and Mail)

Talking point: Lumira’s new life-sciences VC fund is already the largest of its kind Canada has seen in two decades, and makes RBC one of few Bay Street firms putting money into domestic biotech. It is “not a one-off and is part of a broader strategy,” Anthony Mouchantaf, RBC tech and innovation banking group director, told The Globe. Lumira is about 75 per cent of the way to its target of raising US$200 million for its fourth fund. Its previous three funds raised over US$118 million each, according to PitchBook, with the most recent at around US$140 million. It has previously invested in Bardy Diagnostics and Engage Therapeutics, each of which sold for hundreds of millions of dollars last year, and Toronto-based Think Research, which went public in December 2020.