With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1406705
16 BCBUSINESS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 READ THIS During the 1970s, Vancouver entrepreneur David Gold owned Western Canada's biggest textile store–Gold's Fine Fabrics on Granville Street. Like his wife, Aurelia, Gold was also a Jewish survivor of the Nazi genocide. In Two Pieces of Cloth: One Family's Story of the Holocaust, his son, former real estate developer Joe Gold, vividly and movingly recounts each parent's tale in the first person. For the Czechoslovakia-born couple, the horrors of war meant David's imprisonment at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen while Aurelia hid in Budapest with Joe's older brother, Andrew, under a false Christian identity. Somehow, David never lost his optimism, a quality that served him well as the Gold family started a new life in B.C. Page Two Books 208 pages, softcover, $21.95 • ( the informer ) The B.C. life sciences sector, which spans pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical de- vices, was gaining momentum even before COVID. A provincial government report found that it grew by 5.6 percent in 2018, more than double the indus- trial aggregate. The province's fastest-growing industry that year, it also outpaced its peers across the country. B.C. companies and re- searchers have developed several globally adopted inno- vations, including GlideScope, a video-equipped intubation assistant; and Prostalac, an antibiotic-loaded hip implant. Victoria-based Starfish Medical is a leading designer and maker of medical devices, and the province is Canada's No. 2 ex- porter of medical instruments. The shortage of PPE and ven- tilators early in the pandemic inspired several businesses to ask Paris for advice on joining the industry. "One of the big- gest takeaways is that you have to commit as a company to understanding and following the regulatory pathway that medical devices are developed under," she says. For instance, a gaming company came to her with a well-developed idea. But it hadn't built in the security features required for medical devices, so it had to start again. Most business that Paris worked with saw the challenges —including the need to hire spe- cialized employees to manage regulations and standards—and decided not to pivot. She says it was an easier shift for com- panies already working in the medical space. Starfish, which had never built a ventilator before, quickly brought one to market. TRIUMF, the particle accelerator facility at UBC, part- nered with scientists and labs in Canada, the U.S. and Italy to develop its own ventilator. COVID also improved the business case for other devices. Rostrum Medical Innovations' VQm Pulmonary Health Moni- tor will replace the standard slow, invasive blood test to mea- sure lung health with real-time monitoring. "It's important in- formation for doctors deciding if a patient needs a ventilator," says Awni Ayoubi, the Vancou- ver company's president and CEO. "The pandemic acceler- ated the need for the device." But it didn't make growing a company here any easier. Rostrum is the fourth medical device business that Ayoubi has built in B.C. Bureaucracy is the top stumbling block, he says. For example, getting a clinical trial approved in this province is so onerous that Ayoubi does all of his testing in the U.S. Complex regulations were just one hurdle that Life Sci- ences BC identified in a 2021 report looking at how medical device makers could help B.C.'s economic recovery, says Wen- dy Hulburt, president and CEO of the industry group. Other obstacles: recruiting and re- taining skilled staff, especially leadership; a critical short- age of commercial lab space; challenges accessing markets; fragmented data sources; and difficulty attracting capital. The latter has changed as quickly as the pandemic. "It used to be only specialized experts were interested in the life sciences," says Paul Geyer, CEO of Nimbus Synergies, a B.C. business accelerator program focused on the life sciences. "Now investors of all kinds are out in droves." B.C.-based life sciences com- panies raised a record $2 billion last year, according to Life Sci- ences BC and the Greater Van- couver Board of Trade. Venture capital investment quadrupled, says Geyer, who thinks the in- terest is here to stay. For Mustang Survival, the foray into medical had plenty of upside. The experience of pro- ducing something different will make it better at its core prod- ucts, president Leggatt thinks. But the biggest payoff was in company morale. "Making the pivot was the right thing to do," he says. "Everyone felt what we were doing was important. That pride is tremendously powerful." • G O F I G U R E Hot Desks, Cold Feet As a mostly vaccinated workforce casts its unsure eye over dust- covered cubicles, we look at a few ways work in B.C. may never be the same by Melissa Edwards 76.8% of British Columbians who shifted to remote work during the pandemic want to keep working at least half of their hours from home said they were at least as or more productive working remotely said they worked longer hours More than 1/4 of Canadian professionals say they're more likely to want to work for an organization that shares their personal values than they were before the pandemic Share of B.C. businesses likely or very likely to make pandemic staffing measures permanent: Online training: 27% Optional telework: 14.3% Required telework: 7.4% Shift work for increased distancing: 10.6% Reduced office/ workspace size: 8.1% Increased office/ workspace size: 13.4% In an April 2021 poll, 41% of employed British Columbians said they have the perfect work-life balance g 8 points from 2019 Almost 1/2 of British Columbians who worked from home during the pandemic would consider switching jobs to be able to continue remote work 85.5% 28%