Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
GVPOD is the podcast of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. President and CEO Bridgitte Anderson talks to leaders in the business community about the challenges and opportunities they experience, as well as issues impacting our region.
0:00:02.1 [BRIDGITTE]: Welcome back to GVPOD everyone, Greater Vancouver's business podcast. I'm Bridgitte Anderson, President and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. We are launching a new series today on labour, sponsored by the British Columbia Institute of Technology - education for a complex world. BC has over 150,000 existing job vacancies and projected 700,000 people are such retired in the next decade. Businesses in metro Vancouver tell us attracting, recruiting and retaining talent is one of their biggest challenges. In February, we released a report called Solving B.C.s workforce challenges that outlines 65 recommendations to address the labor challenges over the short and long-term. One fast-growing sector that is grappling with this very issue is the life sciences sector. Today we're joined by Gordon McCauley, the President and CEO of AdMare Bio Innovations. A venture that works with industry venture capital, research, academic and public policy to build companies, ecosystems and talent. Welcome, Gordon.
0:01:14.1 [GORDON]: Thank you, it's nice to be here.
0:01:15.8 [BRIDGITTE]: So let's first start off about you, your background and tell us more about AdMare Bio Innovations.
0:01:23.6 [GORDON]: So my background is in the life sciences industry. I've either been the CEO of a handful of BioTech companies or a venture capitalist for 20 plus years and have some scar tissue to show for it, and have got a little bit of success to show for it as well, and about almost seven years ago now, I became CEO of what became AdMare Bio Innovations, which exist for a really simple reason, and that is that Canada has this extraordinary research enterprise on any objective measure, we punch well, above our weight in terms of the kind of science that we produce, what we've historically done a pretty lousy job of is translating that into a sustainable industry, and all of us can remember other times when there were big companies, QLT is the obvious example…
0:02:14.8 [BRIDGITTE]: That’s the one that came to mind for me..QLT..
0:02:15.5 [GORDON]: …and others across the country for surea nd they went away because one of the things that happens for the regularly in this industry is M and A, it is a classic industry of consolidation, and so about five or six years ago, a bunch of us in the ecosystem, certainly in Vancouver and across the country really let a charge to say, we need to think about building companies that will become anchor companies, because at the time, Canada was the only advanced pharma market in the world without a research-based anchor company. And there's no good reason for that. Frankly, we looked through every single potential reason, and it comes down to aspiration.
0:03:01.1 [BRIDGITTE]: So how did we get to the point that we didn't have a big anchor company and the emerging life sciences sector.
0:03:08.8 [GORDON]: We all live through a... We all lived through an economic downturn, and frankly what happened is companies were forced to bootstrap themselves, and this is an expensive industry, it's a capital-intensive industry, and when you bootstrap, you figure out ways to move on quickly, and so companies would get acquired much earlier, and then some people created the strategy of - I'm gonna build it until I demonstrated human efficacy and sell it off to somebody else. The problem with that is that it's a strategy where all the important parts are controlled by externalities, you have no influence over. So infact, a bunch of us led this charge and we're at the place today that we have a handful of anchor companies today in Canada, and a growing list of about 12 or 15 potential anchors, depending on how you wanna count them, but AbCellera in Vancouver is a terrific example of a company that has a substantive research infrastructure, a 2.5 billion dollar valuation on Nasdaq, employs 500-600 people, something like that, with a leadership team, clearly with a clear objective of continuing to build that company in Canada and in fact selling a product.
0:04:26.7 [GORDON]: Of course, famously, their product to help treat symptoms of covid.
0:04:32.7 [BRIDGITTE]: It does really feel like from an outsdiers perspective here, granted, but it feels like we're at a tipping point in Vancouver for life sciences. That we are really at this point where we're able to really get some momentum and achieve big things.
0:04:48.7 [GORDON]: Bridgitte, we're in the middle of a generational moment without question, this is an opportunity for this ecosystem in Vancouver, and frankly, it's an opportunity for Canada to finally build the kind of life sciences industry that will be commensurate with the research enterprise that we have. It’s absolutely a generational moment, and frankly, governments at every level have been really responsible and really responsive. British Columbia is sort of poorly kept secret intends to launch a Life Sciences strategy and the not to distant future. Having been involved in some of those conversations along with many other people in the ecosystem, I'm very encouraged by what the province is thinking about, the federal government has a very clear strategy and has spent a lot of capital investing in basic infrastructure that will respond to the needs of the industry going forward, so I think it's absolutely a generational moment. To me, it's very exciting.
0:05:50.1 [BRIDGITTE]: It's super exciting, and there are a number of components that need to be in place for this sector to really take off, and one of them is people, you can't have a really thriving sector unless you've got the people who are working in the sector and given that this series is gonna be focused on labour, let's turn our eye to that, how has the life sciences sector been grappling with the labor shortages and challenges that we've been feeling across... well, across Metro Vancouver, but across the whole of Canada really is there are serious workforce challenges, and so what are you seeing in your sector?
0:06:26.6 [GORDON]: So it's a huge issue without question, and our strategy is fairly simple, and my colleagues had a great track record, so we build companies, we build ecosystems, and we build talent, as you said, and my colleague have great track record on each of those fronts. On the people front, the talent part of our business, we do through what we call the AdMare Academy, which focuses on providing high impact, high value training at very specific pain points in the industry, as you said, there is a monster talent deficit in this sector, something in the order of... But let me check my number, 65,000 jobs over the course of the next five years, so
0:07:16.0 [BRIDGITTE]: In the life science sector alone.
0:07:17.9 [GORDON]: In the life science sector alone... And we're in a position to respond to about 25% of that, so what we do is focus on very specific areas, first at the executive level, we have something we call The Executive Institute, which focuses on identifying mid-career people with tons of potential, their CEO has to say that they believe that person is going to be in the C-suite in the not too distant future. And it's a 10-month program that meets for three days each, alternate between Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, and we're just nearing the end of the fifth cohort, it's a spectacularly successful program. Something I'll say just en passe is that from the outset, 50% men and 50% women. And this year in fact, there are more women than men. And while I'm not involved in the selection process, my colleagues tell me it was harder to choose the women this year because of the quality of the candidates, so it's a spectacular successful program we're really proud of, and I should say our colleagues, advisor have been very helpful sponsors of that program and helped us get it along the way, we have another program that's focused at the other end, so what we call the bio-innovation scientist program, this is focused at recently graduated Master's and PhD students to help them understand how to apply that expertise in a commercial context, because academic science is very different from commercial science, there's no judgment to that they just have different objectives, and it's really important for the industry as you're trying to recruit highly qualified people that if you can bring them into the organization with that appropriate context and mindset, it's a hugely successful endeavor, so that program now has more than 500 alumni and going very, very well.
0:09:11.0 [GORDON]: We have as well, experiential learning with postdocs and co-ops, when you put those together, it's just shy of 600 in total – more than that, 625 think something like that. Participants, 95% of them work in the life sciences industry today.
0:09:28.1 [BRIDGITTE]: Well, I'm interested that you... that AdMare crafted these programs really focused on the industry itself, that there wasn't something that was already that existed outside of the sector, or perhaps something that could have been tailored, what was the thinking that you really needed to be focused on the specific skillset that you were trying to build and really focused on, I guess, on identifying those people at both ends of the spectrum, whether their executives or you know, those ones who are more emerging leaders.
0:10:01.4 [GORDON]: Bridgitte, we have the pain points in our own business, as I say, we are focused on creating companies, and so... And again, my colleagues have a terrific track record in doing that, and so then you think about, Okay, we're going to create these companies where we gonna house them, Where is the emerging company wet lab space for them to exist in? And we have some of that, and then you say, Okay, I'm creating this company, I got somewhere for them to grow, I need people to drive them, so we experience that pain very directly and got together with colleagues in the industry and said, Okay, let's understand specifically where the real need is and design a program for that. And that's not to say there are all sorts of other programs that are really successful, the universities do a terrific job of training folks, these are just very specific needs within a life sciences industry, and I'll give you one example you actually brought to mind in your initial comments, we're the lead National sponsor of a program called Castle, which is the Canadian Alliance for skills training and life sciences, which focuses on bio-manufacturing trainings, that's a little bit different from where we are, but this is actually hands-on people in a bio-manufacturing facility, helping them understand the work that they need to do.
0:11:12.0 [GORDON]: And they recently announced a partnership with BCIT to launch a castle hands-on training facility in Vancouver. It is very, very excellent.
0:11:23.0 [BRIDGITTE]: That seems to be the way of the future for industry, is to partner with post-secondaries to really create the kinds of training programs that are required specific to your needs, that to me seems like that's one of the answers to the workforce challenges that we're seeing.
0:11:41.3 [GORDON]: Absolutely, it's just... The data are so clear of how effective those programs are, BCIT obviously has a bunch of other programs like that, and again, in our case, the kind of program that we develop, one of the things that has... We've learned along the way, we needed to bring in expertise, pedagogical expertise that could help us design those programs more effectively, and in fact around the Executive Institute, we partnered with the Center for Creative Leadership, which is the number one or number two provider of executive leadership training in the world to help us with that. So totally, I think that kind of partnership is critical.
0:12:25.4 [BRIDGITTE]: This reinforces what we heard over and over again as we were producing our Labour report that we deliver to government in February is that there needs to be a wholesale change in the kind of relationship between industry and post-secondary to make sure that we are training the people for the jobs of today and tomorrow. So really good to hear that. I do wanna pick up on something else you said, because the other component about a really successful... To ensure there is a successful sector is around wet labs, and we know that Metro Vancouver has one of the tightest markets for industrial land in Canada, and wetlabs are one of those kinds of facilities that are in big demand, so maybe give us some perspective about what you're seeing and how you're tackling that big challenge.
0:13:13.8 [GORDON]: So... It is absolutely a challenge. And the pandemic taught us a lot of things. And one of the things that it taught us that will be a positive at the end of the day is building this kind of infrastructure is critically important, and in fact, I just finished a session earlier today with this whole discussion about how to prepare for health security in the future... And my argument was, to build health security in the future, you need to have a secure, stable, sustainable health industry it’s really not that complicated. Frankly... And so one of the challenges has been the availability of commercially focused wetlab space. Our academic colleagues, again, I'm totally strapped in their space as well, but the needs of our commercial organization are very different, one of the things that we do is provide space for emerging companies, so we have 40,000 square feet at UBC. Our facility in Montreal has 150,000 square feet. It's kind of purpose-built that way in a thousand square foot lab units.
0:14:21.9 [BRIDGITTE]: And the purpose builds really important on wetlabs. For those who are listening that are like, well, what is a wet lab? It might be a good place to just talk a little bit about what the specific requirements are because you can't just throw them in an office building that might happen to have a little extra space...
0:14:36.4 [GORDON]: No, it doesn't work that way to the HVAC needs and the infrastructure needs with the facility are dramatically different, if you think about the kind of laboratory equipment you need, fume hoods you need, all of the sorts of pure science infrastructure that you need is very, very different. So you can't even say, Hey, here's an empty... Either an empty office building, even empty warehouse kind of space is not necessarily going to work for you because the physical needs are completely different, if you think about the need for purity and air exchange and all of those sorts of things are very specialized. So we design them in, as I say, 1000 square foot unit, so a young company can come along and say, We've got this interesting idea, we need to test it out, and then they can go from one lab to two labs to three labs and so on, and the challenge is for those kinds of companies, they can't make a long-term commitment to a landlord, right. And so what's really interesting in Vancouver right now is you see some of the anchor companies, so AbCellera being a great example, doing significant redevelopment, really exciting redevelopment in the flats...
0:15:51.3 [GORDON]: I actually told Carl Hansen, last week, the CEO that we're gonna start calling it the AbCellera Flats.
0:15:56.0 [BRIDGITTE]: We just did a series on the False Creek Flats, it's such an exciting area and so much potential.
0:16:02.8 [GORDON]: It's really exciting what's happening there, so in a way, the market's responding to the folks that can make a big commitment, but of course the AbCelleras of tomorrow can't make that kind of commitment...
0:16:13.6 [BRIDGITTE]: They might be there for six months or 12 months, and so some of their tests are working out and maybe they are, and so then they need to reconfigure and try something new and might be need a different kind of space the next time.
0:16:25.1 [GORDON]: That’s exactly right. And so that's where we come along, and I think there is absolutely a need here to do more of that, and again, as I say, I think that the provincial government is pretty much seeds with this issue, and I'm pretty confident that they're going to respond in the not too distant future. And I think that has real potential for the ecosystem because the AbCelleras of tomorrow are out there, and we need to make sure that we find this space for them to grow, and the other thing that's really cool Bridgitte is it is not just the space... We have a team of 65 commercially trained drug developers and the knowledge that they can share, and it's funny, I use an expression for our facilities that you know the city of Montreal has big companies and little companies, and there is something about the situational alchemy that happens when a small company is chatting over coffee with somebody who's going in development with a big company, the knowledge and it goes both ways, it's not just the little company getting..
0:17:33.6 [BRIDGITTE]: …and the little company is nimbler and the bigger company has some knowledge that you put those two together and its magic sauce.
0:17:39.4 [GORDON]: It's absolutely... It's really, really cool to watch. And so that's one of the things that I think is important. And frankly, our colleagues in the real estate business in Oxford and Alexandria and others do really good work in this area, like you need that expertise as well as space for the young companies, 'cause otherwise you don't really get the output that you want...
0:18:01.9 [BRIDGITTE]: So Gordon, maybe final question here as we wrap up this conversation, a couple of challenges around space and trying to get the people, but you've got some fantastic solutions that you're working through with the programs of the training mechanisms that you've got... Now, if you look at the potential for Vancouver and for British Columbia's life sciences sector comparative to other regions, either within Canada or elsewhere, give us a sense of where we could go.
0:18:32.1 [GORDON]: So the vision for our organization is Canadian life sciences is leading the world, and that sounds wonderfully UnCanadian.
[Bridgitte]: I love it!
[Gordon]: It's unabashedly proud, it’s not just a slogan or a bumper sticker because... Go back to where we started this conversation Bridgitte, we have an extraordinary research enterprise in this country, it is globally recognized, we have all the elements that an ecosystem needs in terms of high quality universities, high quality research institutes, substantive output, we've got an active and engaged biotech industry, we've got a large pharma industry that has shown tremendous promise and demonstrated their value during the pandemic without question, and if you doubt any element of that Bridgitte, just be reminded that virtually every vaccine in the world for covid is driven by a piece of Canadian technology.
0:19:37.0 [BRIDGITTE]: I know that’s something we should be very, very proud off.
0:19:42.1 [GORDON]: What's so much fun about this industry is you get the privilege of working with people who want to make the world a better place, that I usually joke though, they've got the genetic default of the Public Service gene, they need to make the role... And can you just imagine the extraordinary and well-earned pride of our friends at Acquitas to be able to look at each other and say, billions of people in the world have been treated with their technology.
0:20:14.8 [BRIDGITTE]: So inspiring. We need more people in the life sciences sector, we need people all throughout every sector and industry that you can mention, but we really need people in the life science sector. It's so great to hear about some of the programs that you have to really... to develop talent. Gordon, thanks so much for chatting today. I really enjoyed it.
0:20:34.5 [GORDON]: Thanks for the opportunity. My privilege. Thank you.
0:20:36.5 [BRIDGITTE]: The series on labor sponsored by the British Columbia Institute of Technology - education for a complex world.