National Post (National Edition)
How an accountant became a key player in saving lives in a pandemic
Lesley Gouldie, chief executive of Torontobased medtech company Thornhill Medical, was ready when the prime minister in March put out the call for businesses to help shore up personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies and ventilators.
The company's mobile intensive care unit was already being used by the United States Marine Corp. and other militaries around the world. The integrated device combines a ventilator, oxygen concentrator and vital signs monitor — tools that health-care teams could deploy in a variety of different environments.
“Whether it's surge requirements in an ICU or tents in hospital parking lots, we found ourselves with this technology that was uniquely suited to contribute to the fight against COVID-19,” Gouldie said.
The orders soon started coming as the global pandemic picked up steam, but Thornhill Medical was on a significant growth trajectory even before COVID-19. From 2016 to 2019, the early stage business grew 800 per cent, with that growth coming strictly from export sales since it had not cracked the Canadian market.
“One of the biggest challenges to medical device manufacturing in Canada is around commercialization. Without adoption, there's no commercialization,” Gouldie said. “In Canada, government procurement equals adoption, because provincial governments are largely the buyers of medical devices. It can take years before you get adoption in Canada.”
Gouldie said this homegrown lag creates doubts in the minds of buyers outside Canada.
“Why isn't your own country supporting you? Why aren't your local hospitals integrating this technology?” she said. “There are a lot of great companies, a lot of great skills, great technologies being developed here, but all levels of government need to focus on supporting and accelerating the adoption of those technologies on a far more substantive basis going forward.”
COVID-19 has forced just such an acceleration, at least temporarily. Within a twoweek period early in the pandemic, Gouldie received an order for 1,020 devices from the federal government and another for 40 devices from the Ontario government.
Almost overnight, she doubled the 40-person workforce to bulk up infrastructure in every functional area and signed Guelph, Ont.-based auto-parts manufacturer Linamar Corp. as a contract manufacturer to help out.
Prior to the pandemic, Thornhill Medical produced anywhere from 20 to 50 units a month. Today, the production capabilities have increased tenfold to 200 to 500 units a month.
“Linamar has incredible supply chain capabilities, without them I don't believe we would have been able to execute the orders,” Gouldie said.
Ontario's order has been fulfilled, and the company has produced and delivered about a quarter of the 1,020 portable ventilators for the federal government.
The pandemic has resulted in a huge demand for products that protect, treat and diagnose people, said Brian Lewis, chief executive of the national industry association Medtech Canada.
The companies that make those products represent about 25 per cent of the industry, he said, but the remaining 75 per cent have been impacted by the need to postpone and cancel procedures and surgeries.
Lewis anticipates the industry will continue to be impacted by COVID-19 for the next 18 months to two years.
“Governments and stakeholders are talking to us (the industry) more than ever. The Ministry of Health in Quebec just put a call out for solutions, products and even management practices so the backlog of patients and potential reduction of capacity gets fixed. There is a huge opportunity.”
But along with taking advantage of that opportunity, Gouldie has also spent the past several months focusing on keeping her people safe and informed, as well as being flexible and empathetic.
“Our people are focused on the mission: saving lives every day. The leap from that to serving the greater need was not a big one. That said, we never had to take personal risks to come to work before,” she said. “As often as I could, I tried to communicate, what we were doing, how we were doing it, how things were going.”
Gouldie also expanded the company's benefits plan to include an employee assistance program for employees and their families.
“I think everybody seeing we recognized these extraordinary circumstances rallied the troops, too,” she said. “And people are very proud that we had received this recognition from the government; that we were part of the solution.”
Gouldie's path to medical manufacturing was not an obvious one. She's a CPA who started her career in the education space before moving on to operate an online business.
Still, she said those experiences helped prepare her for the challenges she has faced and will face in 2021.
“Historically, as an exporter into many different markets, we drove revenue by attending trade shows and face-to-face meetings. We can't do that anymore,” she said. “Our business going forward is about educating, informing, differentiating and leveraging digital platforms in a way that is far more robust than we ever did previously. We have to take all the brand equity and traction we've built during the pandemic and convert it into a real business opportunity.”