Learning from PEI's godfather (at least of the biotech sector)

Don and I just recorded a fantastic conversation with Dr. Regis Duffy, the guy who founded a company called Chemical Diagnostics Limited in 1970 that went on to become BIOVECTRA and, as Duffy reminded us, Sekisui Diagnostics which is another big player in the Island’s bioscience’s cluster with nearly 200 employees. He tells us BIOVECTRA now has something like 700 employees (likely includes the plant in Nova Scotia).

My romantic notion of economic development takes a hit once in a while. The classic story is simple: an entrepreneur has an idea, starts a company and builds it starting with local clients. There had to be an initial Hakim Optical store or Papa John’s pizzeria. You build your company with local clients and then when you get really good, you start selling into national and international markets.

Duffy’s new company had essentially no local clients. They took out an ad in a New York paper and essentially said they were open for business. Initial clients were in places like New Jersey and central Canada.

This doesn’t mean the original hypothesis has no merit but it does seem to me that maybe I need to put more focus on the entrepreneur rather than the business idea. In other words, my hypothesis was that local markets act as sources of raw materials/inputs and incubators for high growth potential entrepreneurs. Maybe for some that is not the case. They have the big ambition right out of the gate and their ideas have nothing to do with raw materials or local markets. The main thing that ties them to the local community is that they are from there or they live there and like it.

Should we be trying to attract entrepreneurs to take advantage of specific assets and attributes in the local area (think potatoes/McCain or IT firms and tech talent) or should we just try to be a really great place for entrepreneurs to want to be and they might go off in directions not based on any specific asset or attribute in the local community - other than the dangerously ephemeral ‘they like living here.’

I’d rather they be stuck here because the potatoes are here rather than they ‘want’ to be here.

But Duffy, an early case, and many other entrepreneurs set up here for no other reason than this is where they went to school, or their spouse has a job here or they have family here.

That is a more complicated proposition that I need to ruminate on.

You are going to love the conversation with Duffy - filled with anecdotes and pearls of wisdom. He’s in his 90s and doesn’t seem to be interested in retiring any time soon.

It should drop in the next couple of weeks.