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Toronto • San Diego • Mark Poznansky
Championing the Business of Biotechnology in Canada January/February 2013
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www.biobusinessmag.com
A lifeline
for biotech
Medical Devices: a spark of
hope for a changing industry

Contents
Championing the Business of Biotechnology in Canada
12
Investigating Canada’s
Medical Device Sector
Canada’s not a big global player in the medical
device sector. It comprises about three per cent of
the market but there’s potential for so much more.
Bio Business explores the industry: what we do
well, what we could do better and what needs to
happen for Canada to take a step forward.
17 Starting from scratch. Neovasc absorbed
the crash of 2008 and has rebuilt into one
of Canada’s most exciting device companies.
19 Is your chemo working? Rna Diagnostics
has developed an assay that will tell doctors
whether the treatment course a patient is on
is working.
20 Profound prostate steps. Profound Medical
is developing novel technology that could
change the way prostate cancer is treated.
also inside
8 Regional Profile: San Diego
Companies like Hybritech are the bedrock on
which the strong San Diego biotech cluster was
built. Now a focus on collaboration is helping the
Californian powerhouse remain an industry
benchmark.
10 Regional Profile: Toronto
What more can you ask for? Toronto boasts
access to everything a biotech company needs,
making it a growing life sciences power.
Visit
us at
www.biobusinessmag.com
for extended articles of this issue
of the magazine.
10
standards
5 Editorial
6 NEWS
22 Business
Leadership
“
There are sparks of hope. There’s work being done
to look at this earlier and earlier which is really...
cutting innovation that puts us ahead of the rest
of the world in terms of the development and
evaluation of products.
”
-Brian Lewis, MEDEC CEO
Read more on page 12.
www.biobusinessmag.com 3

BB_JanFeb13_Issue4.indd 1
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January/February 2013
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Bio Business
Championing the
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Shayan Jaffer
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Editorial
Making Devices Succeed in Canada
Why not Canada?
We rank near the top of high school, college and university completion rate with other
OECD countries. Our researchers are publishing world class research but when it
comes to health innovation we’re simply not good enough, ranking 14th out of 17
countries.
In putting together this issue of Bio Business I spoke with numerous people on the
front lines of Canada’s medical device industry and the one thing theme that kept
coming up was the desire for this sector to succeed in Canada.
Seeing all the world class research that is coming to fruition through companies
such as Neovasc, Rna Diagnostics and Profound Medical is extremely encouraging
but when you stop to think about the trouble these companies face to attract financing
and the difficulties in trying to commercialize their innovations, you can’t help but
think of what might have been for all the other companies that have failed for lack of
venture capital.
“We’re one of the successful ones but there’s relatively few of us at this level and
there could be more and there should be more,” says Rna Diagnostics CEO Ken
Pritzker. “So the point we’d like to make is the various kind of supports for commercialization
are being put in place at this level and the opportunities are increasingly
better than they were a couple of years ago. We’re heading in the right direction but
if one looks at how to attract capital and keep the development in Canada and keep
the ownership in Canada… as we grow, it becomes quite problematic. That’s our challenge
and the challenge for companies like us.”
One of the main issues that stops Canada from being a bigger player in the
device market is we can’t keep our good ideas in the country and give them the support
and money they need to grow so either they’re taken to other countries or they
just fold entirely.
Various supports and programs are being implemented and are starting to bear
fruit, such as MaRS’ Excellence in Clinical Innovation and Technology Evaluation
(EXCITE), The Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee (OHTAC) and
the recently announced R&D MEDTEQ Consortium in Quebec.
We hope to see you at the Bio International Convention.
Follow us on twitter for live updates from Chicago.
On Twitter at biolabmag
Nicolas Heffernan
Associate Editor
Bio Business is a proud member
of BioteCanada and
Life Sciences Ontario.
Publisher of
Lab Business Magazine
Bio Business Magazine
Printed in Canada
Toronto • San Diego • Mark Poznansky
Championing the Business of BioteChnology in Canada January/February 2013
Canadian Publications Mail Product—Agreement 40063567
A lifeline
for biotech
Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement 40063567
Medical Devices: a spark of
hope for a changing industry
Science Policy
Microscopes
Kimberly Strong
Speed is of the
Essence
Princess Margaret’s Maria Amenta
transforms the lab
Do the flip!
Visit Princess Margaret’s rapid response
lab.
www.biobusinessmag.com 5

Photo Credit: National Research Council of Canada
Biofuel Test Flight Reveals
Reduction in Emissions
Results from the world’s first civil flight powered by 100 per cent
biofuel released by the National Research Council of Canada
(NRC), show that the biofuel used in the flight last October is
cleaner than and as efficient as conventional aviation fuel.
Information collected in-flight and analyzed by a team of experts
revealed an important reduction in aerosol emissions (50 per cent)
when using biofuel compared to conventional fuel. Furthermore,
additional tests performed on a static engine show a significant reduction
in particles (up to 25 per cent) and in black carbon emissions (up
to 49 per cent) compared to conventional fuel. These tests also show
a comparable engine
performance, but an
A second aircraft trailed the Falcon 20 improvement of 1.5
to measure engine emissions.
per cent in fuel consumption
during the
steady state operations.
The jet’s engines
required no modification
as the biofuel tested
in-flight meets the
specifications of petroleum-based
fuels.
“We are pleased with these positive results. The flight went
smoothly and the data collected enables us to better understand the
impact of biofuel on the environment,” says John R. McDougall,
President of the National Research Council of Canada. “We will
continue to work with our partners Applied Research Associates,
Chevron Lummus Global and Agrisoma Bioscience Inc. to bring
this effective energy solution to market. The final product will be a
sustainable option for reducing aviation emissions.”
New R&D Consortium For Quebec
Medtech Sector
Canada’s Medical Technology
Companies (MEDEC) couldn’t
hide its delight with the
announcement of Quebec Government
funding for the MEDTEQ Consortium.
Brian Lewis
MEDEC is a founding member of the
new medical technology industrial R&D
consortium, together with more than 30 companies, universities
and providers.
By building upon the strengths of representatives
of these three key pillars, this open innovation initiative
will facilitate the development of leading edge
solutions for patients and address unmet needs of healthcare
providers.
“MEDEC will continue to support the consortium as it
stimulates the vibrancy of our industry and the leadership
of our partners,” says Brian Lewis, MEDEC’s President and
CEO. “It highlights our commitment to the sector’s innovation
agenda and to the sustainability of healthcare.”
While the MEDTEQ Consortium will facilitate increased
collaboration between companies of all sizes, it will also
provide small to medium size companies the opportunity to
highlight their capacity for innovation, both incremental
and breakthrough, positioning them directly on the critical
path to global markets.
For more on medical devices, turn to page 12.
6 Bio Business January/February 2013

News
Historic $50 Million Gift to Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Dr. Benjamin Neel has 50
million reasons to smile.
The Research Director
of the Princess Margaret
Cancer Centre will have $50
million to spend on research
thanks to Canadian philanthropists
Emmanuelle
Gattuso and Allan Slaight.
“This unprecedented
‘superfund’ allows us to
build and support research
teams focused on precision
genomics, advanced tumour
biology, immune therapy
and molecular imaging,”
says Neel. “I truly believe that we can conquer
cancer.”
The donation is the biggest ever private
gift to cancer research in Canadian history
and will advance the Princess Margaret
Cancer Centre’s Personalized Cancer
Medicine initiative. The Princess Margaret
Cancer Centre, one of the top five cancer
Left to right: Paul Alofs, Dr. Bob Bell,
philanthropist Emmanuelle Gattuso,
Geoffrey Ogram, Dr. Benjamin Neel
and Dr. Mary Gospodarowicz.
research centres in the world, is revolutionizing
cancer care by creating and
delivering its own distinct model of
personalized cancer medicine encompassing
four key themes: detect, diagnose,
target and support. Personalized
cancer medicine will help detect cancers
earlier, diagnose cancers more precisely,
provide targeted treatment, and better
Provinces and Territories Seek Significant Cost Savings for
Canadians on Generic Drugs
Provinces and territories are working together through a co-ordinated approach to
price setting for six widely used generic drugs, which represent approximately 20 per
cent of the publicly funded spending on generic drugs in Canada.
This joint approach will leverage combined purchasing power to obtain the lowest
generic prices achieved to date in Canada, and consistent with the price for these
drugs on the international market.
It is expected that when fully implemented, this initiative could produce savings of
up to $100 million for provincial and territorial drug plans.
Participating provinces and territories have agreed to establish a price point for
six of the most common generic drugs at 18 per cent of the equivalent brand name
drug. Currently, individual provinces and territories pay between 25 and 40 per cent
of brand name prices. The new prices are to be in effect by April 1, 2013.
“Drug plan costs are increasing for all Canadians,” Saskatchewan Premier Brad
Wall says. “In recent years the generic drug industry has worked with provincial and
territorial drug plans to lower generic drug prices in Canada and with today’s
announcement, we will realize savings that will ensure more dollars for provincial
healthcare systems across Canada.”
Prince Edward Island Premier Robert Ghiz says, “this
is just a starting point—we are committed to continuing to
work together on a long-term strategy to further improve
value for Canadians.”
Photo credit: Marko Shark
support patients and their
families through their cancer
journey.
Gattuso and Slaight’s gift
to The Princess Margaret
Cancer Foundation’s Billion
Dollar Challenge is pledged
over 10 years, and is an investment
in human capital. It will
create an unprecedented
“superfund to support superstars”
that will provide longterm,
sustainable funding to
attract, support and retain
researchers whose sole focus is
to eradicate cancer.
For more on Princess Margaret,
flip to LAB Business and turn
to page 10.
New Study Says Government
Policies Misinformed
Canada-Europe trade negotiations are
being influenced by false assumptions
about the impact of drugs on the cost of
healthcare according to new research published
today by the Canadian Health Policy
Institute (CHPI).
Canadian negotiators are reluctant to
adopt European standards on intellectual
property rights for new drugs because of
allegations by special interest groups that
those standards will lead to significantly
higher healthcare costs in Canada.
The CHPI study suggests that the federal
government might be risking an opportunity
to secure Canada’s economic future over
worries about drugs costs that are exaggerated,
because the actual scale of government
drug spending is small and its impact
on healthcare costs over the last 38 years
has probably been close to neutral.
Brett Skinner, the author of the study
says, “The trade agreement will reduce barriers
for Canadians to do business with
nearly 500 million people—almost 15
times the size of our domestic market.”
www.biobusinessmag.com 7

Critical Mass
San Diego’s rich history of biotech propels industry today
By Talbot Boggs
Denise Garcia still remembers with enthusiasm the years
she spent working in the operations and regulatory divisions
of Hybritech in San Diego, doing everything from
conducting tours of the compounding laboratory to managing
and training employees. She worked with Hybritech through a
series of mergers and acquisitions in the mid-1980s and beyond
that have been credited with helping turn San Diego and southern
California into one of the world’s leading biotechnology
clusters on the planet.
“It was a time of great energy and passion in the company and
the industry in San Diego,” recalls Garcia, who co-founded a nonprofit
resource network group for Life Sciences and Technology
professionals in Palm Beach, Fla., after leaving Hybritech. “The
company grew very quickly. When Eli Lilly took over it had a very
different culture and a lot of people left and started their own
companies. Everybody in the area was connected with everybody
else, which gave you great career mobility. You only had to decide
what you wanted to do and more than likely you could find it.”
San Diego has had a significant concentration of biomedical
research institutions such as the Salk and Scripps institutes and
the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for half a century,
but the region’s biotech industry began in the late 1970s
when two researchers from UCSD, Ivor Royston and Howard
Birndorf, founded Hybritech.
In 1986, Eli Lilly purchased Hybritech for $400 million, and
many of the company’s entrepreneurs, with the appropriate financial,
scientific and business connections, went off and started their
own pharmaceutical and medical-device companies, including the
city’s biggest success story, Idec, which now is part of Biogen-
Idec, a manufacturer and researcher specializing in drugs for
neurological and autoimmune disorders and cancer.
In the ensuing years, the cluster began to spread to surrounding
communities and counties while the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) began to increase funding for basic science
research. Today, more than two dozen research institutes, universities
and colleges in southern California conduct basic scientific
research or train future generations of scientists, entrepreneurs
and life science workers.
As the industry grew, so did the infrastructure to support it,
and the area now is home to numerous support services that specialize
in the life sciences. That critical mass of research, entrepreneurs,
support services, and private investors savvy about the risks
and long incubation periods for life science products acts as a
magnet to attract even more life sciences activity to the region.
“The industry in San Diego is very robust and is growing in all
sectors,” says Kevin Lustig, founder and CEO of Assay Depot, an
online marketplace for pharmaceutical research services. “There
are more than 320 life science contract research organizations and
some 81 research institutions all within a five-kilometre radius as
well as big pharmaceuticals like Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, and
Merck plus hundreds of start-ups like us. We all have common
roots, and now with the internet everyone can stay connected and
network. It’s a community, a great place to get going with access
to financial support and many brilliant people.”
The biotech cluster is comprised of six major sectors: biopharmaceuticals,
research and lab services, medical devices and diagnotics,
industrial biotechnology, whole sale distribution and wireless
communication.
8 Bio Business January/February 2013

Regional Profile
“There is a real culture of collaboration here based on the belief
that what is good for one is good for all,” says Steve Hoey, director
of business creation and development with CONNECT, a
regional program designed to facilitate the creation of technology
and life sciences products by linking inventors and entrepreneurs
with the resources they need for success. Since 1985 it has been
credited with assisting in the formation and development of more
than 3,000 companies.
What can other municipalities learn from San Diego’s experience?
“This is a bottom-up process,” says Lustig. “It’s a matter
of putting all the right elements in place to ensure that you can
grow organically.”
Those elements include identifying a core group of early development
companies like Hybritech that have good growth potential.
Get the different people and organizations together, foster
belief in a goal and then develop the infrastructure and support
systems. And finally, use technology to create good communication
among all members and bring all these elements together.
“You can’t mandate success, you can’t make the lighting strike,
but you can bring together all the elements to create an environment
that gives the lighting a chance to strike,” Lustig adds. “It’s
like rolling a snowball down a mountain: it keeps getting bigger
bit by bit until it reaches a critical mass, and then it just takes off
on its own.” BB
San Diego biotech at a glance
• The life sciences employ about 42,000 people in
San Diego and generate approximately $22 billion
in direct, indirect and induced economic activity.*
• 42 per cent of San Diego county residents possess
an associate’s degree or higher compared with
35 per in the rest of the United States.*
• 312 new technology companies started up in 2011,
an increase of 14 per cent over 2010, leading to
the creation of 1,100 new jobs.**
• Merger and acquisition activity doubled in 2011
to $6.6 billion from $3.8 billion in 2010**
• Venture capital investment increased almost 25 per
cent in Q4 2011 over the previous quarter.**
• A record number of 1,215 patents were granted
in Q4 2011, up from 940 in Q4 2010.**
*2012 Southern California Economic Impact Report,
BIOCOM, Hendershot Economics
**CONNECT Innovation report 4th quarter 2011
and 2011 year summary
The Voice of
Life Sciences
in Ontario
Life Sciences Ontario (LSO) is a member-driven organization that represents and promotes the
province's vibrant and diverse life sciences sector. LSO collaborates with governments,
academia, industry and other life science organizations in Ontario, across Canada, and globally
to promote and encourage commercial success throughout this diverse sector.
Strengthening our industry through:
• Advocacy & Policy Development
• Facilitating Economic Development
• Networking & Education
• Mentorship & Professional Development
• Marketing & Promotion
• Representing Ontario’s Life Sciences industry
in key partnerships
Are you on the Map??
Ontario Life Sciences Asset Map; An interactive online
directory of life sciences organizations across the province
"Diversity of Members, Unity of Voice”
For more information on becoming an LSO Member or Partner, please contact us:
admin@lifesciencesontario.ca
P: 416-426-7293
109-1 Concorde Gate, Toronto ON M3C 3N6
www.lifesciencesontario.ca
www.biobusinessmag.com 9

Everything you Need
Access to resources, financing, markets, and an educated and diverse population,
mean Toronto has everything a biotech needs, mostly within a few kilometres
By Talbot Boggs
Although most of his business is in the United
States, Greg Hines thinks Toronto is one of the
greatest cities in which to own and operate a
biotechnology company. And he should know. He’s
been doing it for 12 years and continues to make
Toronto his headquarters.
Between 2000 and 2007, Hines was president of a
DNA diagnostic testing company now called Luminex
Molecular Diagnostics, when he left to start up his
own company, Arctic DX. He rented “a cubicle of an
office” from MaRS in downtown Toronto, then a
fledgling organization dedicated to helping bring
incubator companies in the biotechnology and life sciences
sectors to life.
Over the next three and a half years MaRS supplied
Hines with office space at a subsidized rate and
helped him develop a business plan and network with
finance companies, regulatory authorities and other
groups he needed to successfully develop his product
and bring it to market. Last year, Life Sciences
Ontario named Arctic DX its Emerging Life Sciences
Company of the Year.
Arctic DX’s main product, Macula Risk, identifies
people who will lose their sight to age related macular
degeneration so the disease can be managed to prevent
blindness. It also helps in supporting the selection of
intraocular lens implants for cataract patients. Macula
Risk currently is being reimbursed by Medicare in the
U.S. Hines has sales agents across the U.S. and a laboratory in
Grand Rapids, MI, but still considers his company Canadian.
“MaRS was just an incredible help,” says Hines. “There are so
many things that are needed to successfully bring something like
this to market, and they’re all right here in Toronto.”
The reason for Hines’ love of Toronto as a place to do business
can be summed up in one word: access—access to resources like
MaRS, access to financing, access to great technical minds, access
to an ethnically diverse population, and access to markets.
“Only in a city like Toronto with world-class universities, hospitals
and organizations like the Fields Institute (for Research in
This photo: An artist’s rendering of the new phase two MaRS building in downtown
Toronto. Below: Labs at the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative
Medicine (CCRM).
Mathematical Sciences) could you find technicians and people
who can design DNA assays and conduct up to 100 chemical
experiments in one test tube at one time,” says Hines. “DNA testing
also has a lot of ethnicity related to it and Toronto has people
from all over the world. It’s fantastic.”
A lot of organizations and people share Hines’ enthusiasm
for the city. Toronto has the largest combined biomedical and
biotechnology cluster in North America and is home to more
than 11,000 principal researchers and technicians operating out
of the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, 100 hospitals
and research institutions and nine teaching hospitals. Toronto-
10 Bio Business January/February 2013

Regional Profile
based researchers have earned a world-class reputation for
medical and technological breakthroughs in cancer, central
nervous system disorders, genomics, stem cells and cardiovascular
and respiratory diseases.
The Discovery District boasts Canada’s largest concentration
of research institutes, business incubators and business support
services, spanning 2.5 kilometres in the heart of downtown
Toronto, making it the densest geographical centre for research in
the world.
“The whole development cycle is here,” says Sonia Sanhueza,
a MaRS adviser and leader of its life sciences and health care
practice. “Organizations realize Toronto is the place to be because
it offers great opportunities to develop licensing agreements and
partnerships and get the investment, marketing and other advice
to move toward commercialization.”
“All the pieces of the puzzle are here: hospitals,
research institutes and large pools of capital all
within a few blocks of each other.”
Founded in 2000 and opened in 2005, MaRS works with
companies in life sciences and health care, information technology,
communications and entertainment, clean technology and
social innovation. It provides education, advisory services, market
intelligence and access to talent, customers and capital to help
organizations launch, grow and develop into market leaders.
Every day more than 2,300 people from the scientific, business
and finance communities come to work at MaRS, which is undergoing
a $350-million expansion that will double its space and
make it one of the world’s largest urban science, technology and
research destinations.
The major thrust of the Ontario government’s economic
development and innovation strategy for the biotechnology and
life sciences sectors has been to bring research and technologies
to commercial fruition through organizations like MaRS, the
Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine
(CCRM) and MaRS Innovation, the commercialization agent
for new research and discoveries emerging from 16 leading
Ontario academic institutions.
“Everything is here in one place” says MaRS Innovation
President and CEO Raphael Hofstein. “You’ve got top-rated
research activity, teaching hospitals promoting the concept and
practice of transitional research (taking research from the bench
to the bedside), and the capability to conduct clinical trials in our
own backyard. The icing on the cake is the global medical technology
and pharmaceutical companies.”
The Toronto region is a hub for medical devices. Sixteen of the
top 25 global medical device companies now operate in the
Toronto region, and Sanhueza estimates that about 70 per cent of
clients in MaRS’ health care and information technology practice
are involved in designing and producing medical devices.
As well, Toronto is at the epicentre of the recently created
Ontario-Quebec Life Sciences Corridor, which brings together
the life sciences research, business and investment communities in
the two provinces, with government partners, to achieve worldclass
innovative discoveries and successful commercialization.
Toronto’s biotechnology business has continued to boom, even
during the economic downturn, with hundreds of millions of dollars
in new buildings and infrastructure projects, the formation of
new strategic partnerships and the commercialization of new
processes, products and technologies.
“The sector has continued to be very strong and has thrived
during the recent difficult economic times, primarily because the
companies involved in it are well-managed and financially secure,”
says Matt Buist, Vice President of Life Sciences Ontario. “Sure,
there might have been some cutbacks, but they haven’t stopped
the growth.”
Buist says the only weak link in the Toronto biotechnology
chain at the moment is in pharmaceuticals because patents on
some of the world’s largest drugs such as Lipitor and Viagra have
already, or are about to come off patent. “This can mean a big loss
in revenues,” says Buist.
While much of the public funding of the sector comes from
the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation
(MEDI), private-sector collaboration among the various areas has
in the past been mostly informal. However, the sector now is
beginning to create a better “culture of collaboration.”
“All the pieces of the puzzle are here: hospitals, research institutes
and large pools of capital all within a few blocks of each
other,” says Dr. Michael May, Chief Executive Officer of the
CCRM. “When intellectual property is identified it is passed on
to organizations like ours which then incorporate it into a project
and then assign people to the task of bringing it to commercial
fruition. It’s something we can brag about because there aren’t
many cities or countries that can do it as easily as we can.” BB
Toronto biotech at a glance
• Largest combined biomedical and biotechnology
cluster in North America.
• Annual revenues of $4 billion, employing 140,000
people.
• 11,000 principal researchers and technicians, 100
hospitals and research institutions, and nine teaching
hospitals.
• More than $1 billion a year in private medical
research investments.
• Home to nearly 50 global pharmaceutical and
biotechnology companies.
• Home to more than half of Canada’s major
pharmaceutical companies. Of the 17,000
pharmaceutical jobs in Canada, 11,000 are based
in the Toronto area.
www.biobusinessmag.com 11

Transforming Medical
Improvements in science and technology has seen the industry
flourish in Canada but there is still a lot of room for growth
By Nicolas Heffernan
With the Canadian medical device sector it’s what might
be rather than the reality that gives hope for the future.
In 2008, the Canadian medical device market was
valued at $6.4 billion, or less than three per cent of the world
market, but growing faster than the global drug market. By comparison,
the American market was valued at more than $100 billion;
approximately 42 per cent of the global market. In 2009,
medical device sales reached $220 billion in Canada.
“I think our members are well aware that the world around
them is becoming more complex so the ability to be able to influence
it and deal with it all takes time,” says Brian Lewis, CEO of
Medical Technology Companies (MEDEC), the national association
created by and for the Canadian medical technology
industry. “The whole thing now is doing the right things to get
there and that’s where we need to focus on. It’s about being ready
to deal with the situation as it comes forward in the future.”
But Lewis sees the desire that will help Canada move out of
the current “tough environment”.
“It’s the idea that it can thrive,” Lewis says. “We just have to
be able to pull it all together. There’s a desire to make it want to
work and if we position it properly I believe we absolutely can get
the growth that’s required or the processes modified to make
Canada more competitive on the world stage.”
The state of the industry
Currently, Canada is a modest player on the global medical
device stage, primarily as a purchaser and small exporter to the
U.S. market. While the U.S. remains Canada’s primary partner
for exports, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands
are gaining a bigger share. There has also been a shift in the
source of Canada’s medical device imports since 2000. The
United States still accounted for 51.1 per cent but China,
Mexico and Ireland have more than doubled their share of the
Canadian market, while Germany and Switzerland also posted
higher growth rates.
Canada’s device manufacturing industry consists of about
1,500 facilities and 35,000 employees. In the United States there
were nearly 5,300 medical device companies in 2007, employing
more than 365,000 people. Most medical device manufacturing
and development facilities in Canada are small and medium
sized enterprises (SME), with 57 per cent employing fewer than
25 employees and 37 per cent having 25 to 49 employees. Only
four per cent employ 50 to 150 workers and less than one per
cent is considered large with more than 150 employees. About
90 per cent of Canadian medical device facilities are Canadianowned,
although foreign-owned facilities tended to be larger as
21 per cent had 50 or more employees.
12 Bio Business January/February 2013

Medical Devices
Technology
Canadian clusters
The industry has a presence throughout Canada, but is concentrated
in Ontario and Quebec where the majority of all facilities
were located.
Out west, B.C. specializes in interventional and implantable
cardiology, diagnostic testing and analysis, in addition to orthopedic
devices. More than 60 medical device companies are operating
in the province and Simon Fraser University supports the cluster.
Winnipeg is also home to a cluster with expertise in MRI, which
is supported by the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg’s Health
Sciences Centre and the Centre for the Commercialization of
Biomedical Technology. More than 60 medical device firms are
located around Edmonton and Calgary; Alberta is supported by
the National Institute for Nanotechnology and the National
Research Council Institute for Biodiagnostics West.
The two biggest clusters in Ontario are located in Ottawa and
Toronto but there are pockets of advanced activity elsewhere in
the province, especially in diagnostic imaging in London. Ontario
is supported by 24 colleges and 20 universities, as well as research
institutes and the MaRS Centre for Technology and Innovation.
About 675 companies are based in Ontario.
Quebec’s centre of the device industry is Montreal, with the
province playing host to more than 350 companies with a strong
B.C.
60
Alberta
60
Manitoba
60
Ontario
Quebec
675 350
▲ B.C. (specifically Vancouver) has more than 60 medical device
companies operating in the province. Winnipeg, Calgary and
Edmonton boast more than 60 medical device firms. In Ontario
device clusters are currently focused in Ottawa and Toronto with
675 companies. Montreal is at the centre of Quebec's medical
device industry, hosting more than 350 companies.
optic-photonic sector, partnering with a number of universities
with access to national research centres and support available
through Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence.
Regulation
Devices are regulated by Health Canada using a four-tiered classification
system, with the device manufacturer, importer, or distributor
responsible for classification. Class one devices are low
risk and are exempt from licensing and do not need to obtain
Health Canada approval to market. Class twos are low-to-medi-
www.biobusinessmag.com 13

Devices
Imports
um risk devices and require that applicants assert the safety
and efficacy of their device without having to submit evidence
to support this conclusion. Class threes are medium-to-high
risk devices that are surgically invasive and
intended to be absorbed into the body and remain there
for at least 30 consecutive days. Class four devices are highrisk
and surgically invasive that diagnose, control or correct
a defect in the central cardiovascular system. Class three and
four devices require more documentation and provision of evidence
proving the safety and effectiveness of their device.
On average, medical devices in Canada take two to five years
to progress from concept to commercialization depending on the
complexity and regulatory classification. The lifecycle of a device
in the marketplace tends to be a maximum of five years but a
competitor will usually move in with a competing product
between 18 months to three years. “There is not the same degree
of reliance on patents as you see in pharmaceuticals just because it
is so easy to be able to change a product just slightly,” says Lewis.
“So you would think that this would mean it would be less competitive
but it is actually... because of your ability to develop products
and improve upon something that’s there.”
Strengths
Canada brings numerous strengths to the global medical device
market. Canada can boast a well educated population. Canada
ranks second out of 17 OECD countries in high-school completion
rate, first in college completion and fifth in university completion.
Canada is ranked eighth in the quality of research published
by its universities, ahead of both the U.S. and the U.K. But
despite the high rankings in these categories, Canada ranks only
14th in health innovation. “The quality of the research being done
in Canada is second to none,” says Lewis. “It really is high-quality
research but it’s not just research, it’s being able to take that
research and commercialize it and apply it and adopt it.”
Canada also brings an emerging capacity for collaboration
among companies, university researchers and health sector partners
with aid from government-sponsored programs and policy.
Another strength is Canada’s strong track record for conducting
clinical trials, currently ranking
fourth in the world in trial
capacity and hosting 4.1 per
cent of the world’s trial
sites. Canada also boasts
global leadership in
health technology assessment
(HTA), a decisionmaking
strategy that
compares the cost and
effectiveness a new technology
with competing
existing technologies.
Finally, Canadian policy
has begun to support the
3%
3%
3%
5%
21%
Other
Italy
$48 million
U.K.
$50 million
China
$57 million
Germany
$85 million
65%
United
States
$1,195 million
Devices
Exports
Japan
$274 million Mexico
$280 million
4% Germany
4% $424 million
26%
7%
China
Other
$469 million
7%
52%
United
States
$3,404 million
device sector through tax incentives for
research and development, with
Canada offering some of the most generous
scientific research and experimental
development (SR&ED) tax incentives
among G7 countries. But the incentives don’t
support bigger and more successful companies.
Issues
Despite these advantages, Canada is still a relatively modest
player in the global arena in part because of the numerous challenges
the industry faces. Today, nearly 10 per cent of Canadian
medical device companies are spin-offs from universities, laboratories
or other firms and on average, a medical device exceeds five
years before it begins recuperating initial investments. But for
many small firms and start-ups, stable and sustained financing
through the initial prototype phases can present a huge barrier to
innovation. The device industry in Canada is very dependent on
partnerships with other institutions to research, develop, innovate
and validate new technology, but the large and bureaucratic
nature of these institutions makes it difficult for some companies
to access the system to achieve collaboration. Without access to
venture capital partnerships and/or universities small companies
can’t access the external government research funding, which is
concentrated in academic institutions, making both private and
public funding scarce.
Venture capitalists invested nearly $4 billion in Canada’s
device industries in 2001. At this time, Canada held approximately
10 per cent of the total North American venture capital
for the industry. But in each of the last three years, venture
invested roughly $1 billion. Only 6.6 per cent of total venture
capital invested in North America was invested in Canada in
2009. But over the past decade, annual U.S. venture capital investments
in the device industry averaged nearly $2.5 billion. The
value of venture capital investments in medical technology
increased by 40 per cent in the U.S. and by almost 60 per cent in
Europe and Israel from 2000 to 2009.
Improvements also have to be made to the regulatory process,
as the timelines are a bit of an unknown, a lot of the fees
are prohibitive given the size of the market and Health Canada
doesn’t recognize approvals from other respected regulators like
the FDA and the European Union. “It’s more of a process thing
than a quality thing because Health Canada’s quality is really
good,” says Lewis.
Procurement is also a major challenge in Canada because
many professionals favour short-term cost savings to participating
members. Today, it is estimated by industry insiders that only 20
per cent of supply chain officers are well-trained and only five per
cent are professionally qualified as procurement professionals who
14 Bio Business January/February 2013

Medical Devices
Theranostics
Drug-device combos make sense but path to success
is paved with stumbling blocks
Dr. Paul Walker, CEO of
Spectral Diagnostics Inc.
By Nicolas Heffernan
Combining a drug and a device
seems like a no-brainer but there
are few companies who have
found success with both.
“The idea seems so obvious. The actual
practicality of it is sort of the stumbling
block,” says Paul Walker, President and
CEO of Spectral Diagnostics Inc.
Spectral is one of the few companies
who have found success as a theranostics
company. Spectral’s Endotoxin Activity
Assay (EAA) is paired with a therapeutic,
Toraymyxin, to help treat sepsis, with a
specific focus on endotoxemia.
Walker and a colleague developed
the assay in the 1990s and it is currently
being used in more than 200 hospitals.
“We recognized that the major financial
payback for our shareholders would
be associated with matching [the assay]
with a therapeutic so we licensed what
we considered to be the best therapeutic
on the market,” says Walker.
Companies that develop a companion
diagnostic might think they are limiting
the size of their market, “although it
also contributes very highly to the success
of the product because now you
know exactly who to give it to,” says
Walker. “So I would say that’s the direction
we’ve taken. We’ve said, ‘No, we
don’t want to treat everybody. We want
to treat the people that are going to be
dramatically improved by this therapeutic
intervention.’”
Technicians
working at
ProMetic Life
Sciences Inc.
Walker believes more companies will
find success with combination devices
but it’s a difficult process. “I believe it
will continue, it’s just these things are
time consuming and expensive to develop—a
really good diagnostic or a really
good biomarker,” says Walker.
Another company to find success with
a combination device is ProMetic Life
Sciences Inc. ProMetic’s technologies are
used to remove pathogens from blood,
and extract and recover valuable proteins
from plasma, while its therapeutics
treat blood-related disorders. Prometic
also offers enabling technology that other
companies can license to develop their
own therapeutics.
The technology was developed at
Cambridge University and the company
is now headquartered in Laval, Quebec.
“Combining this basically is a means
for us to retrieve a higher value for our
core competency, core technology. And
we’re not fighting for those types of
agreements; they actually fit with the strategic
understanding and focus of our
partners,” says President and CEO Pierre
Laurin. He says plenty of similar businesses
are out there and more might
follow suit.
“These are companies that started
enabling others and all of a sudden
they’re saying, ‘Hang on a minute, I can
keep on enabling others but I’m to develop
a pipeline of our own and license out
something more valuable down the
road.’ So I don’t think it’s unique but I
think people don’t get to see the benefit
of this because they end up being bought
out by big pharma,” says Laurin.
understand how to best identify total value of the products and
technology they procure. “Our hospitals are running on such a
tight budget. Our health care system is essentially running on
fumes in some ways and what’s happening there is decisions about
adoption of new technology in terms of bringing that into the
hospital and the procurement process ends up being challenged
because the focus is on cost minimization,” says Lewis.
In the device sector, the singular focus on the cost of devices
has resulted in decisions to acquire new devices, often with little
attention to quality of patient care outcomes and limited, if any,
involvement of physicians or other health professionals. “So it’s
about looking at it more broadly, being able to budget more
broadly. It’s looking at short-term price minimization. It’s not
looking at cost-effectiveness; it’s looking at price minimization
rather than looking at longer cost impact.”
Lewis also wants to see product purchasing that supports
Canadian innovation with an emphasis on SME growth and the
connectors to MNE growth. There needs to be a demonstration
of the value of medical technology with MNEs creating the
foundation. “It is about what are the patient outcomes, what are
the cost outcomes and what are the true benefits, and the measure
has to be different for devices than it is for pharmaceuticals,”
says Lewis.
Another issue for small companies is launching their products
in Canada. Canada must work on developing the environment
that will allow research to stay in Canada beyond the development
stage. “Because of the regulatory and procurement environment in
Canada is such that a lot of these companies tend to go to the
United States or Europe first to market their products and to get
them approved,” says Lewis.
www.biobusinessmag.com 15

What needs to be done
In order to get to where industry leaders like Israel and the U.S.
are, input from all the stakeholders in Canada is essential.
“Sometimes things get developed in isolation and then they are
launched upon the industry,” says Lewis. “Possibly if they got into
a conversation with the industry as well as the doctors, they could
possibly come up with a solution that would achieve the same end
without limiting the utilization or adoption of a new technology.”
Also the Ontario Health Technology Assessment Committee
(OHTAC), a standing advisory subcommittee of the Health
Quality Ontario (HQO) Board that makes recommendations
about the uptake, diffusion, distribution, or removal of health
interventions in Ontario and MaRS EXCITE, the premarket
evaluation of products in terms of health technology assessment
—looking at broad health outcomes rather than looking just at
price must gain traction and be the spur for MNEs to invest in
Canada are showing promise. “I think if those large organizations
invest in Canada more, it helps create a stronger medical device
community,” says Lewis. “It actually causes those biomechanical
engineering individuals to cluster and begin to work on stuff. I
think you need that external investment to come into Canada to
really help build the foundations that will actually help the smaller
organisations as well.”
Lewis would also like to see government help companies
through the regulatory process with cost recovery help and enable
new technologies to be “onboarded” more easily. “And by easily
I’m not talking about safety and efficacy,” says Lewis. “I’m talking
about the ability to have funds and the ability to look at something
new that’s coming along and onboard it because there just
isn’t enough expense budgets available in the hospitals.”
Reasons for hope
Lewis sees reason for hope because of the interest from governments
across Canada, industry’s desire to work through the tough
environment and the strong research done that creates a strong
foundation.
“There are sparks of hope—I shouldn’t say hope because it’s
even a little stronger than that. There’s work being done to look
at this earlier and earlier which is really... cutting innovation that
puts us ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the development
and evaluation of products,” says Lewis. “It’s just tweaking a few
other things and there’s openness and understanding. We’ve just
got to be able to get parties in the room and get into open dialogue
and trust to be able to make those few adjustments that we
need to make it a better environment. I think we can move up the
chain significantly if we play our cards right.” BB
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Pour vous inscrire ou pour en savoir plus sur la biosécurité
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16 Bio Business January/February 2013

Medical Devices
Out of the Ashes
Neovasc ressurects as a Canadian device leader
By Nicolas Heffernan
It’s not very often you hear the CEO of a small startup cite the
market collapse of 2008 as one of the best things to happen to
his business, but Alexei Marko is convinced Neovasc wouldn’t
be thriving now if it wasn’t for the crash.
Marko had recently been appointed CEO of Medical Ventures
Corp. and shortly into his tenure he completed the acquisition of
two Israeli companies, B-Balloon Ltd. and Neovasc Medical Ltd.
The newly formed company rebranded itself as Neovasc. But
shortly after that “all hell broke
loose” on the capital markets forcing
Marko and his CFO Chris Clark to
re-evaluate their company. Neovasc
was fairly well capitalized but it was
also a fairly big company, with multiple
projects on the go, facilities in
Israel and 10 different product
development programs.
“In some ways it gave small companies
such as ourselves the licence
to just forget about what people
thought about what we were doing
and just do what we thought the right thing was,” Marko says.
For Marko and Clark, the right thing was stripping the company
to its bare bones and starting almost from scratch, cutting
staff down from to 25 from 75 people, and cutting any programs
that weren’t showing immediate promise or potential for cash
flow. The business was pared down to a tissue program and
reducer and refractory angina (RFA) product that had been
acquired out of the Israeli Neovasc.
“It was a very difficult thing to do but it was absolutely the
right thing to do,” says Marko. “It’s never easy to fire people. It’s
never easy to lay people off. I don’t think we had any choice and I
look back on it now and it was really one of the keys that allowed
us to get to where we are.”
Now things are looking up for the Vancouver-based company.
At the moment, the basis for Neovasc’s work is its tissue business,
which is focused on the transcatheter heart valve industry. “That
business is cash flow positive and what it’s allowed us to do is
really pay for the whole company and the overheads and actually
start to underwrite the vast majority of our R&D and pipeline
projects. So while as a whole the company is not a cash flow
positive company, we have a very, very low burn,” Marko says.
The reducer is a device that treats RFA by snaking a catheter
through the jugular vein and restricting the venous outflow, creating
back pressure on the blood flowing in forcing it into areas it
wouldn’t normally go.“It’s a little like pinching off the end of a
garden hose,” says Marko. “If you have a leaky garden hose, the
blood or the water will take the path of least resistance down the
middle of the hose if you let it run freely. But if you pinch off the
end of the hose a little bit so there’s some back pressure, that water
or blood will start squirting into areas of high resistance where it
wasn’t going before.” The
blood is forced into these
The Tiara. aschemic or non-oxygen
receiving territories of the
heart which provides a lot
of relief from symptoms
from aschemia from lack of
blood flow to these areas.
The reducer can be sold in
The Reducer complete with delivery system.
Europe. It’s also running a randomized pivotal trial that’s nearing
completion. The company plans to launch the product soon after
the clinical trial is finished.
The other product in the pipeline is the Tiara transcatheter
mitral valve. Currently, the approach for most transcatheter valve
replacement has been with the aortic valve but Neovasc is trying
to tackle the much more complicated mitral valve.
Progress was accelerated because of the experience and knowledge
gleaned from Neovasc’s tissue and reducer programs. “I don’t
know if we are the leading but certainly if somebody were to
throw out a list with all the promising programs, we’re credited
with being one of them,” says Marko.
Neovasc is now implanting its valves into a sheep model with
a view to doing a first human trial in late 2013. This has never
been done successfully. BB
www.biobusinessmag.com 17

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First Real Time Breast Cancer
Chemotherapy Guidance Tool
Medical Devices
Test can accurately predict whether treatment will work
By Nicolas Heffernan
The RDA is a test that allows doctors to know with 99 per
cent certainty whether a patient with breast cancer will not
achieve full pathologic complete response (pCR) to the
chemotherapy they are receiving early in treatment, so they can be
considered for another form of treatment.
“The patients will benefit because they will have reduced toxicities
from various kinds of ineffective therapies,” says Ken
Pritzker, CEO. “Because there will be decreased chemotherapy
this will reduce cost from the complications of chemotherapy and
it will reduce the cost in terms of keeping the amount of facilities
that are required to provide chemotherapy. So there’s a patient
savings and there’s a cost saving.”
For breast cancer, chemotherapy is given in six to eight cycles
over four to five months. Currently, patients get the full treatment,
and most patients’ tumours will shrink at least 50 per cent, however
less than 25 per cent will get a survival benefit. But almost
half the patients who have breast cancer will get chemotherapy as
part of their treatment.“So what it means is we’re over treating
these patients with drugs that have severe and serious side effects,”
says John Connolly, VP Corporate Development.
And that’s where the RDA comes in. The test can accurately
predict, through the analysis of a patient’s ribosomal RNA,
whether the treatment path they’re on will help that patient
achieve full pCR.
“We have the first real time chemotherapy guidance tool to
address this problem,” says Connolly. “It’s the first test on the
market that measures response to chemotherapy early during
therapy—early enough so that the clinical pathway can be adjusted
depending on whether we can detect that the patient is
responding or not.”
After the patient has had her infusion of chemotherapy, she’ll
be back to see her physician—about two weeks after the treatment
—and a fine needle aspiration biopsy will be taken of the tumour.
After the biopsy is taken it’s immediately put in an RNA stabilization
reagent and a test tube is then sent to a central lab. The
RNA is isolated and analyzed to produce an RDA score. Rna gets
the tally by looking at the ribosomal RNA of the patient’s tumour.
If there is a high level of ribosomal RNA disruption it means that
the therapy is working and that the patient should continue along
that regimen. If there is an inadequate level of RNA disruption it
means that the therapy is not working and that continued cycles
will not lead that patient to success. The results are then sent back
to the ordering physician.
“This is a very strong diagnostic tool to identify non-responders.
It’s not as strong to identify—we can’t say categorically that
you are responding,” says Connolly.
Rna is hoping to be able bring its product to market by the end
of 2013 in part because it isn’t selling the device as a product, but
as a service.
Pritzker believes the RDA has the capacity “at its ultimate to
increase survival of breast cancer by 10 per cent.”
“Our [key opinion leaders] are saying we prove this out this
should become a standard of care in treating breast cancer patients
with the range of
breast cancer
drugs available,”
adds Connolly.
With the
number of new
chemotherapy
drugs hitting the
market, the test
is timely. “The
whole idea is to
give the appropriate
therapy,
not the most
therapy,” says
Pitzker. “So this
is truly personalized
medicine.
We’re talking
now, individual
patients and the
outcomes of
individual
patients as seen
as guided by
individual
response to this
test on their own
tumour.” BB
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www.biobusinessmag.com 19

Making Profound Steps in
Prostate Cancer Treatment
By Nicolas Heffernan
Steven Plymale believes Profound Medical can revolutionize
prostate cancer treatment.
The Toronto-based company is bringing to human trials
a device it says will allow practitioners to precisely eliminate
cancer by ablating the entire prostate gland, removing the tissue
but without causing the side effects that current treatments are
grappling with.
“The potential for a big success here exists and the potential
for having an impact—a major impact on this disease—exists,”
says Plymale. “We’re not doing something that’s a small incremental
add to a long list of treatments. This therapy has the
potential, I believe, of becoming the new gold standard for how to
treat prostate cancer.”
The issue with prostate cancer isn’t the mortality rate, as the
five-year survival rate is nearly 100 per cent. After 10 years it
drops to 98 per cent and after 15 years it falls to 91 per cent. “The
issue with prostate cancer isn’t mortality, its morbidity,” says
Plymale. “And by that we mean the quality of life that comes with
the side effects of treatment because once you intervene, men are
being almost guaranteed that they will be cured. But, and it’s a big
but, many men are experiencing significant quality of life issues
which is really what we’re trying to resolve with our technology.”
The side effects include short-term constipation, incontinence,
erectile dysfunction, infertility and urinary problems. Currently,
Profound Medical’s
mimimally invasive
device will treat
prostate cancer.
Steven Plymale, CEO
there are number of different treatment options including surgery,
radiation therapy, brachytherapy, radical prostatectomy, HIFU
(high-intensity focused ultrasound), and cryotherapy. Many of
these techniques are time-intensive and invasive.
“We find ourselves in the sweet spot. The actual energy delivery,
the actual time it takes to ablate your prostate with our device
is only 30 minutes,” says Plymale.
“We just want to have the ability to bring an alternative to the
table that would reduce side effects and we believe we’ll be able to
accomplish that.” The only critical side effect, he says, is that the
patient will be unable to have children. “Beyond that... it’s a gland
that can be sacrificed and if it’s a gland that’s become cancerous,
any man would quickly step up and volunteer to take it out and
do everything [they could] to eliminate their risk of that cancer
metastasizing.”
Preclinical trials were done in a nine-canine study at the
University of Western Ontario and the results should be published
soon. Human trials will follow.
Plymale sees this procedure as a simple outpatient procedure.
After a patient is prepped a probe is inserted into the penis,
snaked through the urethra into the prostate and lined up with
images that have been taken and monitored via computer. A software
algorithm controls 10 transducers which emits a rotating
beam of energy that can be contoured, heating to the edge of the
prostate at 55 degrees—the point where cell death occurs.
The MR images show the diagnostic information and thermometry
in real time. Every five seconds the MR relays how hot
20 Bio Business January/February 2013

Medical Devices
the tissue is and when the target boundary reaches 55 degrees, it
moves. Unlike some other treatments that don’t have this feedback,
the surgeons are pointing and shooting and don’t know until
sometime in the future whether or not they were successful in
achieving the result they wanted.
“We will know in real time how we heated the tissue and that
allows us to precisely deliver energy where we want but more
importantly, it allows us to precisely not to deliver the treatment
where we don’t want to,” says Plymale.
“The potential for a big success here exists and
the potential for having an impact—a major
impact on this disease—exists.”
Once the tissue is heated to the point of cell death it sloughs
off and is absorbed into the body. Eventually, it shrivels up, scars,
and is no longer cancerous.
Following the procedure, the patient would be monitored to
ensure any pain, discomfort or bleeding is being managed. “To be
quite honest, we need to learn a lot about this through formal
clinical studies and that’s the objective of our safety study... to
demonstrate that we can insert this device to treat safely and then
send these patients home,” says Plymale.
Profound Medical began as a six-person team and did much
of the proof of concept work out of Sunnybrook Hospital. The
company was tight on funds so in late 2010 started an effort to
raise money and add staff. Plymale joined the board late in
2008 as an independent director and was named CEO in
November 2011.
Profound should have the device—at least an early version of
it—ready in two to three years. Plymale is planning for the initial
launch to take Profound through Canadian and European markets
before the U.S. because of the long and labour intensive
regulatory path. BB
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www.biobusinessmag.com 21

Business Leadership
Mark
Poznansky
President and CEO of the Ontario Genomics Institute credits his
success to his team’s abilities, not just his ideas
By Nicolas Heffernan
After being awarded the Order of Ontario and the Order
of Canada, there’s not much room for improvement, but
Mark Poznansky, President and CEO of the Ontario
Genomics Institute (OGI), couldn’t hide his pride at being
awarded a lifetime achievement award from Life Sciences
Ontario.
“It’s different,” he says. “First of all, it’s pretty Toronto-centric
and I’m not from Toronto so that was kind of neat. And it’s more
of an industrial award so it probably a little more directly answers
what my objectives are here at OGI. My objectives were never to
get an Order of Canada or to get an Order of Ontario but my
objectives are for making life sciences strong in the province. So if
these folks associated with it decide to give
me this honour I’m absolutely tickled. The
other thing is to think that I’m even in
similar shoes to people like Joe Rotman and
Lou Siminovitch and Cal Stiller I think
well maybe they made a mistake.”
Poznansky has been involved in the life
sciences for decades, in public, private and
teaching capacities. Retired from his position
as President and Scientific Director of
Robarts Research Institute, in 2007, he
started his own consulting company, G2G
Consulting Inc. He served on the board of
the OGI but when the former president
stepped down, Poznansky jumped at the
opportunity to work with “a bunch of
really bright young people with PhDs and MBAs who wanted
to make things happen and specifically business happen in the
province,” he says.
And the president and CEO cannot put enough emphasis on
“The potential is enormous
and we’re really at the
cusp; we’re really at the
start of this revolution.
Some people call it the
genomics revolution. I call
it the life sciences
revolution.”
the change genomics will have on health care, agriculture and
food, and the environment. “The potential is enormous and we’re
really at the cusp; we’re really at the start of this revolution. Some
people call it the genomics revolution. I call it the life sciences
revolution.”
Poznansky’s main goal is to make Ontario a major force in the
life sciences industries. “We are currently a force in academia in
life sciences—one of the best in the world,” he says. “But we have
not translated much of that into real jobs, real wealth creation.
So… virtually everything I do now is aimed at job and wealth
creation in the life sciences sector.”
Poznansky has a depth of leadership experience at both public
and private institutions where he learned
there is no difference in terms of how they
should be run. “There’s a huge difference in
terms of the products but running an institute
and running a business and running a
department, it should be the same: basically
getting people to be productive and effective.”
Poznansky takes a lot of his leadership
strategy from the “type five leader” described
in Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great. “A
leader who has a huge ambition for the
cause or the company or the institute… that
ambition is really hot… It’s passion for the
organization and the cause, and not for him
or herself.”
He believes the quality of the team dictates the success you will
have. “It doesn’t matter how good a ‘team manager’ or ‘leader’ you
are,” he says. “If your kids can’t play hockey, you’re not going to do
well.” BB
22 Bio Business January/February 2013