Speaker 1:
On January 28th, 2026, BMO Commercial Bank brought together CEOs from leading and emerging MedTech companies across Canada and the United States for an exclusive discussion on innovation, investment, and cross-border collaboration. In this episode, the Honorable Scott Bryson, vice chair at BMO sits down with Frank Baylis, executive Chairman of Baylis Medical. Join us as they explore the forces shaping the future of MedTech.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to Markets Plus where leading experts from across BMO discuss factors shaping the markets, economy, industry sectors, and much more. Visit Bmocm.com/Marketsplus for more episodes.
Scott Bryson:
BMO is proud of the role we're playing in bringing all of you together. We've got a hinge moment as a country, and I think there's an opportunity for leadership in the MedTech sector to seize and build on that opportunity, and no one knows that growth and opportunity space better than Frank Baylis. Now, to understand Frank Baylis, it's kind of important to understand Frank's mother a little bit. Frank, I don't think too many people know that your mother actually started Baylis Medical and before that, very few people know that she took on one of the largest companies in the United States Hilton and won in a landmark I think it went Supreme Court judgment before that. I think it's really important to understand the timber that Frank is made of and the role your mother played in starting Baylis Medical, but also in shaping Frank Baylis.
Frank Baylis:
Sure. Yeah. So thank you, Scott. My mother did start the company, and because it says Baylis medical, people make that assumption right away that I started it. I did not. And if my mother was here, she would make sure to underline that fact, so I'll do it for her. My mother was a go-getter for sure, and what the case that Scott's referring to is back in the sixties, my mother is a colored lady. She's from Barbados. In the sixties, racial discrimination was very prevalent, and she had applied for a job and been denied, just suddenly dismissed. And it was a very interesting time because she had a friend, a good friend, and there was two placements in this at this place. And she said she'll go in the morning and her friend would go in the afternoon to apply for the job. She got there in the morning, they took one look at her and said, the jobs are filled.
Her friend went in the afternoon, said, "Hey, you look really good. Come back for a second interview." So there's obviously for young people today, there was a time you didn't have a cell phone, you didn't have email, you didn't have anything like that. So they got together that night to talk, and my mom said, "It's too bad the jobs are taken." And then her friend looked and says, "No, they're not. I'm going in the second round." And that's when the penny dropped. So to know my mother and I tell the full story, she got on the bus the next morning to go down and give that guy a peace of her mind. But on the bus, she ran into a friend from the Negro Association, Montreal Negro Association, and they said, hold on a second. We might be able to use this and make a precedent setting case.
And that's the case that went 12 years through the court systems. And after 12 years, the company was finally found guilty and fined the princely sum of $25. And it started in the sixties, ended in the seventies. And even in the seventies, 25 bucks wasn't that much, but it did set a precedent, which was that racial discrimination in employment would no longer be tolerated. That was my mother. And years later, she would start Baylis Medical, not me. And I want to say this for the female entrepreneurs in the business, she started in 83, just in the house incorporated in 86. I joined her in 89, and then my partner, Chris Shaw came right after that and we were three. So it was very small, but it was her genesis. We've grown, built, sold off pieces, but we've always kept those guiding principles. And her vision, that has been consistent. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to underline that fact about my mother. I'm very proud of that.
Scott Bryson:
So the strength and resilience, ambition and courage that I've seen you exhibit, you're not one to back down from a fight either, Frank. Baylis Medical started with no real external investment or funding. You didn't have a friends and family round with affluent folks in a network to help in the beginning. So you built something before sort of that later stage or even VC capital came into it. What advice would you give for small or startup med tech companies on these early steps and the importance of building you go seeking external capital?
Frank Baylis:
That's interesting because first of all, when we started, and I joined her in the early 1990s or 1989 to be precise, there was no venture capital in Canada. Added to that, we started as an importer new distributor. So we brought in products and we resold them. We were importing a very specialized catheter. That's how it started, a neuroembolization catheter. And this technology was developed in France. A French doctor had moved from France to Quebec, and they needed someone to buy this catheter in French francs, get it approved and sell it to this one doctor. This gentleman was difficult. And my mom said, "Why don't you guys, your engineers make your own our own catheter?" So I went to see the doctor and he said to me, I'll never forget this, "Frank, this is a peanut business." By then, there was five, six people in all of the Americas that were doing neuroembolization, and why would you get into this?
So I went to my mom and I said, mom, this is a peanut business. We're not going to do it. Well, a company in San Francisco decided to do it. And as you would know, five, six years later, they sold that business for over a billion dollars back then. So I learned a few lessons. I learned that it's not bad to start with his peanut business if it's growing. And I learned another lesson we've all learned, listen to your mom a bit more. But because of the fact that we were importing and reselling, we lived this life. And then one time Chris will remember this, our families were on vacation together. And when you're in the distribution business, what happens is you build up a line. Why is someone using a distributor? They're using a distributor because they don't want to set up their own sales force here for a couple of reasons.
If it's not a big market, it doesn't pay. So they'll use a distributor and then if they get really big, they'll say, thank you, did a great job. We'll take over or we get sold. And we were on vacation and we got a call from Matt Pruka. He was a big part of our business, and he was very happy. He was the young guy like us. He said, "Frank, I got great news. I just sold my business back then to General Electric, and I'm just letting you guys know on that." And we're like, yeah, we're happy for you, Matt. But we knew what that meant for us. And at that point, Chris and I said, okay, we don't want to live this life anymore. So we took all the money that we were making through the importing, reselling, and we poured it all into research and development.
At the same time, there was by then the beginnings of venture capital in Canada. And I would go and see this one gentleman that had one of the first telemetry systems in the hospital, and he was a really energetic guy, and I loved him, full of energy in that. And one time he got back then a big investment of $20 million, and he was super happy. Then I went to see him the next time around and he goes, ah, Frank, the life had gone out of him. He goes, "Ah, I'm just an employee." And I went, "Oh." So as we were growing and became more successful, a lot of venture capitalists would call us up. And so I would say, yeah, we don't need any financing now, but we have growth patterns and that we may need it in six, nine months. Can I call you in nine months? I always said yes.
Now I see companies that are too happy when they get the investment, and I understand that. It's you're a young entrepreneur. Someone said, "Hey, I believe in you," and you get a big investment, but then they feel rich, too rich. Be very tight with your money if I can say that. You do need in this business to go and raise money, but don't feel rich when you have it. Be judicious and very smart about it because the more you raise, it's great, but you dilute yourself.
Scott Bryson:
Look, you've had two really big exits in a sense with Kimberly Clark and Medtronic. What did you learn from those exits and how would they inform what you might do differently the next time?
Frank Baylis:
So we learned from every step, there's nothing I wouldn't do different. People say, I wouldn't change anything. Well, then you haven't examined your life or you haven't taken any chances. So every step along the way, we learned something and then we got better at it, and we changed. I would say that, for example, our first exit was Kimberly Clark, and when we cut the deal there, it was, they said, we're going to distribute for a little while. That was great. We didn't have the mind to build a US sales force. And they said, well, distribute for a while, and then if it goes good, we want the right to buy you and the number will be tied to the sales. But who controlled the sales? They did. So it was great for us because we had a number of minimum quotes, so we knew what they had to sell, and that gave us great visibility to invest in everything.
But could they have probably double the sales? Yeah, but did they? No, that's okay. We learned the lesson there. And to give you an example, the next time we were going to sell a company, we said, we are going to invest in building our own US-based sales force. So we don't have anybody when they come knocking again, we don't need them, and we can set the price. But I don't regret that first deal we did with Kimberly Clark. Because what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs who know this, you suddenly have something that's very valuable. You won't have a lot of money yourself, but you have a business that can go up or it could disappear on you. But we've learned a thousand of these lessons and we go back and reflect them. And we've actually, over the years, Chris and I have built five different exits we've had, and they've gone up and up in value.
And the last one was the big one that we did to Boston Scientific. But also we should mention we never built the business to be sold. We were building a business, and at a certain time, it made sense for this business to be sold. And we made business decisions all along the way. We did not make emotional decisions.
Scott Bryson:
Frank, you and Chris Shaw have quite a remarkable partnership, but 45 years longer than many marriages. And I think a lot of times when you're an entrepreneur and you're starting up a business and you're building a business, it's kind of lonely and you want to partner to work with, and perhaps like other relationships, we're not always drawn into the best partnerships early on. You and Chris have built a really great partnership, but what are the qualities and what are the traits that are important in terms of a business partner? With that kind of long-term success, what should people look for and what are the traits with you and Chris that have been foundational to what is an extraordinarily successful partnership?
Frank Baylis:
So I'll start off by telling about partnership that's not been as good or whatnot, that it's not been good or whatever. I've always had an entrepreneurial bent. Chris and I met at University of Waterloo. We didn't meet, even though we're in class together, we only met in our first work term. Why is that? Because he was always at the front of the class. I was always at the back of the class, but we met and became friends at our first work term, and he had the same entrepreneurial bent, the same drive in that, and we worked good together. So it's like any marriage, it's like any strong relationship. If you don't have mutual respect, if you're not both adding value, if you're not foundationally cohesive, it's not going to work. Do not try and become partners with your best friend. It's not a good idea because it may become your best friend.
There's no problem with that, but it's someone that complements you. And then you need to know what your strengths are, that you also need to know what your weaknesses are. And if you don't have any weaknesses, then you're lying to yourself and you're not going to find a good partner. So in our case, Chris is very strong in a number of areas, technically, very organized. I'm maybe more in the sales, more in the entrepreneurship. And over the years, when I went and joined in politics and I stepped away, Chris took over. And it's really good that he took over, I think, because as the company got bigger, you go from three people to 10 to 20. It's a different company. When you hit 50, you've got to change again. When you hit 250, you can't run it like you hit 50. When you hit a thousand, it changes again. And I actually believe Chris being more structured, it was very good that he stepped up more. And I think then that he brought more structure that we needed as we got bigger and bigger.
Scott Bryson:
Well, Frank, you and I aren't 25 years old anymore, but if you were giving advice, given what you know now and what you've experienced to the 25-year-old Frank Baylis, what would be a couple pieces of advice you'd give to 25-year-old Frank Baylis?
Frank Baylis:
I have one thing that we all reflect back what would I do differently in that. There's only one thing fundamental that I'd do differently is I would make more of an effort in everything I'm doing. I would strive and hold myself higher up, whether it's... I'm not bragging, but when I went to school, it was very easy for me. I just happened to be someone that learned very quickly, but I didn't push myself then. So I don't know how far I could have gone because I went through, I got through school, no problem. And so now I try and hold myself accountable. Make whatever you choose to do, just do it. But really, really do it. Don't do it half-heartedly.
Scott Bryson:
Great advice. Thank you, Frank. I want to thank all of you for joining us today.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for listening. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. For more episodes, visit bmocm.com/marketsplus.
Speaker 1:
The views expressed here are those of the participants and may not necessarily represent those of BMO capital markets, it's affiliates or subsidiaries. For BMO disclosures, please visit bmocm.com/podcast/disclaimer.
