Qlt Inc.
A Canadian biotechnology company, QLT Inc. made light-activated drugs for eye disease, most famously Visudyne, a treatment for age-related macular degeneration that is switched on by laser light. Born in Vancouver in 1981 as Quadra Logic Technologies, it grew out of discoveries at the University of British Columbia, with scientist Julia Levy at the helm. Levy was driven to develop Visudyne partly because her own mother, who had the disease, once told her her face had become "just a brown smear."