May 30, 2025 • 35 mins
What is 3D printing, how does it work, and how is it changing the game when it comes to Canadian healthcare?
Karen is joined by Margaret Palmeter, Director of Business Development at Nova Scotia Health's Innovation Hub, and together they chat with PolyUnity's CEO, Jacqueline Lee, and President, Mark Gillingham, the leadership at the helm of the Newfoundland-based company that’s changing the healthcare equipment and parts game through 3D printing.
Links:
- St. John’s tech company creating custom casts with an iPhone | CBC.ca
- PolyUnity partners with Nova Scotia Health to launch 3D printing project | Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hi everybody. Why do we have a great group of
folks here to today to talk about a very amazing medtech?
That's what I call it. You may call it something else.
The company is Pauli Unity and Pauli Unity, it's Canadian
company, it's a health tech company.
It has a mission to make additive manufacturing services
(00:29):
accessible to all healthcare workers, from custom lab
equipment to cancer radiation therapy devices, scan to print,
cast repair parts. We're going to talk about what
all that means because that is alot which we need to break down
and really understand. But you know, it's important to
know Polyunity has been recognized by Can Health Does
(00:51):
2023 Company of the Year. It's an award-winning company.
Atlantic Business has noted themTech, Newfoundland and Labrador
and many others following Paul Unity for innovation, for growth
and for a very inclusive culture.
So really excited to welcome Jacqueline Lee.
Hi, Jacqueline, How are you today?
(01:13):
Awesome. How are you, Karen?
Very good. Jacqueline is CEO of Paul Unity.
Proud Alam Ahman, an accountant by trade.
That's OK, I'm a lawyer so I getit.
But Jacqueline spent the 1st 13 years of her career in Nova
Scotia before returning to her home province.
(01:33):
And we have Mark Gillingham. Hi Mark, how are you today?
I'm. Great.
Good marks the President and having joined the company in
2021, also an alumnus of Munn, graduating from the electrical
engineering and the MBA programs.
And I have our very own MargaretPalmiter, who's the Director of
(01:57):
Business Development at the research and innovation for Nova
Scotia's Innovation Hub. And Margaret, I don't know if I
knew this, Margaret, that you'reone of the founding directors of
the Amira Idea Hub and that was the first university LED startup
incubator in Nova Scotia. It was, and we had a lot of 3D
(02:18):
printers there. OK, so are we going to talk
about 3D printing today, guys? I hope so.
OK. So could somebody please explain
what it is? So I want, I want who who knows
this best You Mark, you Jacqueline.
We'll, we'll let, we'll let the company describe their version
or, or what 3D printing is. What's it all about?
(02:42):
So I guess on the technical sideof what it is, 3D printing falls
under a category that's we, we use the term 3D printing because
not as many people are familiar with additive manufacturing.
So 3D printing is a type of additive manufacturing.
And ultimately it's a, it's an advanced manufacturing
technology or type that allows you to build 3 complex 3
dimensional products kind of layer by layer and bring them
(03:05):
up. And you can have them made out
of metals, plastics, polymers, resins.
There's, there's a whole host ofdifferent materials and the
materials engineering side is really exploding and expanding
around this. And ultimately, it allows you to
produce things at or close to the point of consumption.
And in the healthcare world, those things can be, you know,
(03:27):
anatomical models, they can be replacement parts, as you talked
about before. They can be healthcare
equipment, tools, surgical guides, and the list goes on and
on. And so the technology itself is
really transforming healthcare and not only in what it's doing
today, but where it's going and you know, with the advent now of
AI and how it's influencing, youknow, all aspects of our world,
(03:50):
I would say, but also specifically around the
platforms that we do. So the ability to take a concept
and turn it into a three-dimensional model of
something that you may want, whether it's an innovation or
it's a scan duplicate of an existing product that you might
want to create is occurring very, very rapidly.
The software tools that allow you to model those things and
(04:10):
then the ability to actually useout of manufacturing or 3D print
technology to produce and manufacture them is, has
shortened the innovation path and the production path from
what is months and years now to hours, days and, and, and weeks.
And so, you know, the big challenge, as Margaret has said,
(04:32):
is that people are using 3D printing throughout most
industries in the world at this point right now, but also every
healthcare organization that we've encountered throughout
Canada has 3D printers inside them.
The challenge typically is that they're siloed inside specific
departments. They're not maybe being used
under direct quality management or regulatory guidelines.
(04:54):
And ultimately, they're also notproviding standard access of
care. And I guess the last piece would
be the types and numbers of things that you could do with
those machines are not accessible to most organization.
Yeah. So it's not being leveraged at A
at an enterprise level. Well, we're going to come back
(05:15):
to that. We're going to come back to
quite a few of the elements thatyou just mentioned.
But I'll just maybe turn it to Jacqueline.
Anything you wanted to add to that, Jacqueline?
Yeah. I mean, the things that we
couldn't do two years ago, we'renow doing this, the technology.
Example example. Oh my gosh, some of the high
temperature things and having the strength and compliance
(05:38):
there. I mean, there's companies now in
the world doing pharmaceuticals.So instead of taking 30 pills a
day, you take one pill a day that was customized for you.
There's companies printing food prosthetics.
So some of the scan to print applications that we couldn't do
two years ago, for example, the cancer treatments is now a daily
(05:58):
practice of ours. So something that took days and
involved the patient doing plaster moles of their face.
We now use an existing CT scan and we can produce a mole 4 to 8
hours. It's more accurate than the
plaster and we don't need to seethe patient.
So it's amazing. Forms, workflows.
So, OK, help me, help me you. I haven't seen your plant.
(06:23):
I haven't been over to Newfoundland and Labrador for a
while. So what I'd really appreciate
is, you know, paint the picture of what happens when you open
the door of your plant. Like what do what, what would a
person be walking into? You know what?
What would I see as as you take me on a tour of that facility
(06:44):
and where is it and where are you?
Well, they're, they're everywhere.
That's the point. We want to be regionalized.
We want to be ideally embedded inside hospitals at closest to
the point of consumption or in regional areas.
So yes, of course we have our biggest print from here in
Newfoundland. We have one in Ottawa.
We have machines in in New Brunswick as well and hopefully
(07:06):
soon in Nova Scotia. But yeah, we have a, I don't
know, maybe 25 machines here offof various capabilities and
sizes. And what are the machines,
Jacqueline? Like what, what are we talking
about? You know, people say 3D
printing, you're thinking it's aprinter.
You take the piece of paper to the machine and it prints out a
a cast. But that's not really what we're
(07:27):
talking about. So what are the different kinds
of machines? Yeah, we're on our third suite
now in just four years and the speed of what we just replaced
is like 5 times faster than whatwe purchased two years ago.
It's wild. So right now we're mainly
focused on the bamboo lab machines, high quality, very
(07:48):
fast, can do four types of material inputs all at once.
We have a larger printer that can have a bigger build plate,
but so hospitals traditionally have spent maybe too much and,
and purchased higher and very use case specific machines.
And it's hard to find those, those specific use cases to make
(08:08):
it worth it to print on them andto get the and to get the value.
So the quality of machines and the affordability of them for us
to have a manufacturing print firm in each province is it's
becoming easier and easier and far more accessible.
Anything to add Mark I miss? I'm still, like trying to.
(08:29):
Yeah. So paint, you know, paint a
picture for me, Mark. Like, I walk, I open the door, I
walk into one of your machines. What?
What does it look like? So it's, it's, it's a, it's a 3
dimensional, you know, machine that has essentially like a
robotic arm that works to, to lay down material in a very
(08:52):
specified format. So the, the programming of what
that product is. So the whole concept of holding
things in digital inventory allows you to send these things
to machines wherever they may be.
But you know, to maybe step backand answer your question, when
you walk into our office, we have a couple of components.
So we have a design team that takes new ideas in.
(09:14):
So our production and design team are in their own kind of
pod and they're sitting there and they're the group that's
creating the new products and the new designs and the new
innovations. Our digital platform is
ultimately the the glue and the application layer that brings
everything together. So we have a team of very
talented software developers that's also creating all the
software that allows frontline users to access it.
(09:36):
And then obviously the part thatyou're asking well for as well
is, is the print production capacity.
So there's a specialized production room that you would
walk into with racks of machinesand each one of those machines
could be producing the same product or they all could be
producing something different. And that's the beauty part of 3D
printing or out of manufacturingis that it's not like
(09:57):
traditional production or manufacturing production in the
fact that you have to spin up. Your line set up to do a bar.
Exactly where you have to run the exact same thing over 1000
units? Yeah, we can.
Literally every other. Do 5 of this, 10 of this, 25 of
this, 3000 of this. Yep, yeah.
And it's getting so diverse. We have a command center
(10:19):
somewhat analogous to what you're operating there that has
everything in the queue lined upby client and you can shift it
around depending on priorities. It's it really broadens our
operation. One more question, which is the
tech? So you know, where is their IP?
(10:41):
Where's the IP is it, you know, have you, you buy the machines,
you buy parts of the machines, you develop the software like
what's the magic? And, you know, where's the
award-winning components of of Polyunity?
Yeah. So I'd say it's in two different
places. Our digital platform, I3D dot
(11:03):
Health is, I would say, the centrepiece of what we do.
However, ultimately all the things that get manufactured
through that platform are the things that often people like to
talk about, right, Because you can physically and tangibly hold
them. But you know, if you look at how
we're positioned and you know, you talk about our opening
mission statement about how we make this accessible to
(11:27):
healthcare workers across the country and hopefully beyond the
platform itself. So we've established the fact
that 3D printing is in use through healthcare organizations
across the country. It's also transforming
healthcare in the number of applications and the types of
things that you can do. So it's it's cast and splints
and prosthetics and orthotics and cancer care applications and
(11:50):
surgical planning tools and preoperative planning tools and
and so on and so forth. So the question becomes for
healthcare organizations is thathow do you actually procure all
those applications? How do you onboard them?
How do you have the staff to runthem and ensure that you're
compliant with the products thatare being produced by these
machines? And that's not a simple
(12:12):
undertaking. And then, you know, across the
country, you have specialized siloed centers where people are
experimenting with these. And how do we bring connectivity
across the innovation landscape in Canadian healthcare?
And I think one of your last podcast members, Mr. Picard, I
(12:33):
think it was talked about the fact that there's been pilot
systems ran across the country right now that probably have
solved all the Canadian healthcare problems 10 times
over. And you know, I know it's
probably a little bit of a cheeky statement, but what we've
done within our software platform is we've opened up a,
an ideas portal that allows frontline healthcare workers to
(12:55):
either come to us with their idea and, or a brand new
innovation. And now with all of the
advancements in these technologies, as we said before,
you can actually create these products more efficiently faster
than ever before. The question is how do you take
them and actually get them approved?
Yeah, so I love that. So we'll make sure we note that
in the in the notes because, youknow, for we have to make sure
(13:17):
that people are well aware of itand can just send their ideas.
And then you pick and choose or you know, how do you select from
amongst the we? Want the engagement?
With your economist. Oh, excellent.
To do the ROII. Love it, I love it, love it.
So smart. Yeah, exactly.
(13:37):
We, we engaged a healthcare economist to help us design like
a criteria system of how to evaluate these things because
it, it makes no sense if it doesn't add value.
So environmental impacts, cost savings, workflow efficiencies
and just workflow impacts. So it's, yeah, I love it.
If it doesn't pass all those criteria, it doesn't even get to
(13:58):
the to go stage. I think that's really great.
So let me just try to get Margaret into this conversation.
So Margaret, I always, I think Paul Unity, one thing they do
well and then listen, I'm not a social media person.
I only do one thing. It's LinkedIn, but does but Paul
Unity does a good job of LinkedIn.
(14:19):
So I'm constantly, you know, I see it poking up here and there
and everywhere. So anytime there's something on
the feed, I'm usually sending itto Margaret saying like, why
aren't we doing this? What about this?
Chase this down? So you ended up doing some
things we did. So why don't you talk about
that, how a partnership came together or how we ended up
(14:42):
doing some work with Paula Unity?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, what's interesting is our
clinical engineering team here at Nova Scotia Health has got
some incredible expertise and some great minds that are always
pushing boundaries on it. And I think it was Alan Spurway
and maybe Michael Hamilton that originally connected from our
clinical engineering with Pauli Unity just for being in the
space of the interest. Who knows, maybe LinkedIn
(15:04):
reached them too. And so it's often fantastic when
there's a grassroots alignment and interest in a new solution
and an innovative company. But what also helps is our model
for innovation, for testing and trying new innovative solutions.
So at the Health Innovation Hub,we look to run comprehensive
diligence on these types of opportunities, on the cool
(15:24):
things that you see and the other things that come across
that our radar and our desk. The the solutions that are
brought forward to us by our kind of innovation community
within the health system, anybody within the health
system, we consider part of our entrepreneurs.
Our researchers or other stakeholders?
Absolutely. Partners at the Hub.
Everybody can have an idea and all ideas need to be assessed
and look for that value. So in the case of of Polyunity,
(15:47):
we were looking at validating that that user interest from
Nova Scotia Health and who woulduse the product, How would they
use the service? Well, at the service, yeah, at
what product and and what service and what products should
we focus on? Because Polyunity, I mean, even
in this chat has covered a lot of ground for, for what the
types of things are that their company is able to do and that
(16:09):
the the sector in the industry is moving forward with.
And Healthcare is highly regulated and for very good
reason. You know, this is patient safety
and this is health. And so we had to be very
deliberate when working with Polyunity around what are we
going to focus on, where can we move fast and where is that
aligned with our teams. And so we actually did an art of
the possible session focused on 3D printing.
(16:29):
So we hosted that at our health innovation hub and we invited
Paul Unity alongside other localcompanies, alongside thought
leaders and people working in 3Dprinting at the academic sector.
And we did a day of exploration.And so we invited everybody from
within the health system who wanted to come to come.
It was completely open and it was come explore and think about
what we could do coming out of that and and following up
(16:51):
conversations with you and and others.
It was we've identified that we had a real opportunity here with
Polly Unity to focus on printingand and specifically focus on
the challenge of equipment or pieces of infrastructure that
we're not operating at full use for the health authority.
So were they sitting on a shelf,were they not being used because
(17:11):
they weren't user interface accessible to our patients or to
our care providers. And so we defined that as a
project scope under a test and try.
And Polly Unity had already beenworking with the Can Health
Network in Newfoundland and we're a member of of CAN Health
and happy to share about what they do, but they came on board
as well. And so the partnership with
(17:32):
Polyunity and Can Health and ourclinical engineering team is
what we brought to life. And we actually just concluded
the deployment of the test and try on March 31st.
And we're now assessing all of the evaluation of everything
that we did to help us inform goforward.
And during that test and try, weidentified numerous additional
(17:52):
areas of our opportunity and we are running diligence into all
of those right now to see what else we can do.
So I did again, going back to mysocial odyssey, social media
odyssey on LinkedIn, I saw whereone of your colleagues guys came
over to Nova Scotia to basicallymeet with Margaret and team, but
also to tour some of our rural sites to, you know, see for his
(18:16):
own eyes what what's the art of the possible?
And so I don't know what came out of that.
It's probably in your list of things.
But listen, that's not rocket science.
It but it's what you're doing isa little bit of rocket science.
But but you know, finding the uses and making it come to life
(18:37):
is, you know, that's something that we should and could be
doing if it works for us. I'm sure it works for other
provinces. Are you doing business in every
province? And if not, why not?
And I need to know, no, I'm kidding.
Are you pretty much across the board now or or how's that?
Not not full out like pilots andpre contract, but yeah we've
(19:00):
we've done products and servicesfor 8 provinces in one territory
so far. Great.
And I think you know you. To me, it's a real success
story. So I, I want to know how you
know, I personally and how Nova Scotia Health can can help you.
Margaret mentioned that you are partnered with Can Health.
(19:22):
We are as well. I'm not really sure how that
works from a, a company's perspective.
I know it works from our perspective as a buyer and also
as a partner, but not necessarily as a company selling
a service and a product products.
Well, I, I think like this is a good opportunity to maybe just
(19:43):
step back and take a look at Canadian healthcare from a
higher level. And, and, and I'll bring it back
into a polyunity lens maybe in, in one second.
But you know, if you look at howhealthcare typically procures,
you know, we have GP OS general purchasing organizations.
So if you're looking for bandages and nitrile gloves and
things that are consumables and and you know, other more complex
things as well. They've consolidated procurement
(20:06):
to make it more efficient so that every healthcare
organization doesn't have to figure it out on their own right
when you can select. Off a menu, which is what you
know we do with the health the pro can.
This is our part Yeah, exactly. Mohawk head by and and and all
these groups. But when it comes to innovative
technologies, there is no standard place to go to get
(20:27):
these things. And you know, if you look just
in our sector and, and, and well, let's take the Canadian
healthcare, I'd say arena just for a second.
And so you know, we have provincially jurisdicted
healthcare organizations where there's one healthcare
organization kind of in a province.
We have been healthcare organizations, provinces with
multiples. So Nova Scotia would have two
(20:49):
with IWK and Nova Scotia Health,New Brunswick would have two.
But when you get to Ontario, it's its own beast in itself and
it has about 150 hospital corporations.
So across Canada, we have about 200, there's about 50 and all
the other provinces put togetherand then Ontario has about
another 150 together. So we have about 200 healthcare
(21:10):
organizations that are responsible for procurement.
And so you know what Nova Scotiahelped.
And I would say you're the exception and, and, and not the
standard in the fact that you actually have an innovation hub
and an arm where you have a means of integrating and
interfacing with advanced technologies.
And so congratulations and, and kudos to you for doing that
(21:33):
because we think it's really, really important and your team
has done that. They've been phenomenal to work
with and, and you've done a really great job there.
But if you take within our sector, so let's say there's 100
3D printing applications across all the spectrums that we talked
about that could be procured. If Nova Scotia Health has to go
through 100 different procurements of innovations,
(21:54):
you're on average a year doing them.
It's close to 100K, let's say ballpark to do each one.
If you spread that across the country to get just the
technologies in our sector into the Canadian healthcare
ecosystem, it's a billion dollars plus in just
administrative and procurement costs.
(22:15):
It's not the cost of the technology.
And so you know, Nova Scotia Health is going through, you'll
do your own evaluation, you'll procure, the next group will do
the same. And what the amount of
repetitiveness and that that's currently in the Canadian
healthcare system means that we're decades trying to acquire
technologies that we should be getting much, much faster.
(22:37):
And we need to, you know, with staffing shortages and, you
know, increasing expenses and, and budget restrictions.
So with with all that to say, what we have done is built a
digital marketplace and an ecosystem where you can procure
once and then we can bring best of breed innovations and
technologies into that marketplace.
(22:59):
And what can health is ultimately ultimately trying to
do as well is is kind of standardized that procurement
process across the country. And they've made good head
roads. There's still lots of work to
do, but so that if Nova Scotia goes through a validated public
procurement process, why does every other healthcare
organization, what the country have to do it?
Yeah. It's, I mean, you know, you've
probably heard our premier certainly we have Margaret that
(23:21):
basically, you know a very simple mantra starting with
positions, you know, good enoughfor British Columbia, good
enough for Nova Scotia, good enough for for UK, good enough
for Nova Scotia. And so we are continuing that
when it comes to interprovincialprocurement and procurement of
(23:42):
medtech like you know either thebarriers come down or or why
not. And I think that the recent
impetus, certainly even yesterday, I guess the our
Premier and also Premier Ford signing like a free trade
agreement, you know, with with New Brunswick and PEII mean
(24:04):
that's great and more to come. But you can't do it in one
sector. Like it's not just about beer as
an example, because that's always talked about.
But you know, when it when it comes to what you're talking
about this, it should be very easy.
It's just not right yet yet. OK, let's let's come back to
(24:25):
some of these examples. The 1 I loved you had an you had
a story not too long ago. Hasn't been on LinkedIn, but
there was a story about a scan to print cast.
So. Oh, you got it.
Yeah. Can you tell us about this?
I love this. How did this all come about?
(24:45):
What's the material and what areyou doing about that particular
product? Yeah.
I mean, Mark, Mark can say the technical things, but yeah, we
partnered with a company that's figured out how to scan it to a
file really, really easily. So now we can do it with a
simple iPhone. So this is my turn.
We we're doing this with all of our staff so they can wear it
(25:06):
all the time and talk about it cuz it's a conversation we
should get. One I want one, yeah.
We should get one too. Yeah, yeah.
Next time we're there. Sorry.
Leaving that aside, yeah, go ahead.
Sorry. And then it's a 6 to 8 hour
print and we have a customized solution for you.
So this thing is really easy to do.
(25:27):
It's the workflow that we got tofigure out for whoever we
because there's a window of timewith the, with the if a child
breaks their arm to cut the castto, to get the scan done and to
put it back on and then to avoidthe swelling and whatnot.
But it's as a alternative to plaster and fiberglass like this
(25:47):
is the way to go. You can shower with it.
You can play sports with it, Youcan work the the doctor can
assess the wound better, you cantake it off and on easily, and
it's it's just as good or betterthan a fiberglass or plaster
cast. So not ideal for every use case,
but for some this is a better treatment option for sure.
(26:09):
So Jacqueline, great. So you've done that.
That's amazing. How does Paul Unity, how do you
how do we, how do you how do youscale that right?
Like what are you actually selling in the marketplace?
I think you're selling a serviceis one thing.
(26:30):
I heard Mark say that and I wrote that down because I
actually, it's a different way of looking at the company.
But what are you actually selling?
And then how do you scale that? So yeah, I want your casts.
I want those where they're applicable.
So. So what do we do to get from
this conversation to actually buying those casts, so to speak?
(26:53):
Well, that's the whole concept of what I guess I just went
through with the digital marketplace and you know, the
platform. This is a technology actually
that the scanning technology originates from the US, but it's
not present in Canadian healthcare, public health care
anywhere. And So what we've done, this is
1 product and one service amongst others that are
available now through the marketplace.
(27:14):
So basically a subscription to the service and so there.
Is so it's a subscription based.It is.
And so that's kind of 1 component to it.
When you get access to the platform and it gets integrated,
but then ultimately, it's just consumption.
So like how many of these are you producing and you're paying
per item kind of as you're consuming them.
So it's very, you can start very, very small, you know, kind
(27:37):
of out of the gate and then as you grow and on board.
So you'll probably want to startthis in, you know, one
orthopedic center, get it integrated, understand how it
works, and then roll it out across your organization.
And the same goes with, you know, what we did with clinical
engineering through our, you know, clinical.
Yeah, we had, we had some of ourtechnicians, you know, go from
(28:00):
Yarmouth to Cape Breton and and all the centers in between.
We started in, you know, in the Halifax area.
But ultimately then we were ableto go out and engage, you know,
people across the whole province.
And so that's the beauty part. The platform is web-based, it's
secure, it's easy to access and you don't need to be a
specialist to get access to these technologies.
(28:21):
You can literally point and click request service and it
gets manufactured and. The.
Old part about these tariffs, right, Is, is that this is Yeah.
Let's talk about these tariffs. So, you know, disaster or
opportunity. Opportunity.
Let's talk about it. Yep, talk about the opportunity.
(28:43):
Well, I mean, this, what I've been advocating for for five
years on how to fix Canadian innovation and healthcare
together is now part of everydayconversation.
So folks I could not get meetings with are now excited to
talk about it and the nonpartisan conversations that
are happening and how to breakdown barriers and buy
(29:03):
Canadian. Like it's shocking that this had
to happen to have that be a priority, but here we are.
So we had a wake up call with the pandemic 4 years ago about
how fragile our supply chains are and how dependent we are in
foreign markets. And we shifted and pivoted and
did some incredible partnershipswith private and public sector
(29:25):
and then we forgot it all and here we are again.
So. It's, I find it really
interesting that you say that Jacqueline, because like to me,
you know, I just see massive opportunity for you.
It's like massive opportunity and you know, done properly, the
issue is going to be getting thecapital quickly enough to grow
(29:48):
fast enough to meet demand. So I think.
That's going to be a. Pardon.
Yeah, we just came out of a conference in Germany, a world
fair, one of the largest technology industry shows on the
planet, 140,000 participants, and we got to do a tour with
Accenture. You know, they're an 800
thousand person technology consulting company and their
(30:10):
projection out to 2040 right nowshows that, you know, the world
is going to an advanced distributed manufacturing
sector. So you don't need these monsters
plants in one location and then you just ship things all over
the world. And the whole concept of digital
inventory means we can move those electrons at the speed of
light and we can then put them into a specialized advanced
(30:33):
manufacturing center and in thiscase throughout Canada at or
where or near the point of consumption.
And so then we can pull in real time as we need.
And what they're saying is that that automation, distributed
manufacturing, AI is going to allow the world like this is
where the world is headed. And.
So this is all. Polyunity is building into our
(30:54):
model and what we've seen Karen and and it's been amazing like
the circular economy once we canget more advanced manufacturing
of these technologies integratedinto our local environments.
We've seen two instances now where Polyunity has worked with
other health tech organizations and the ability for them to come
to us and get products prototyped and get ready for
(31:18):
mass production has speed up their time to market, I would
say by months at a minimum. And ultimately it's reduced
their cost, it's got them out the market, it's made them more
competitive. And that's because a company
like Polyunity is, is here. And then, you know, so those
things snowball on top of each other.
And, and we really do believe, you know, you asked the question
(31:39):
and Jacqueline and I answered opportunity simultaneously.
But we we're seeing it first hand daily.
So good to hear. I mean, I love the story, always
have. You know, your company and the
two of you, Jacqueline, whom I met before, before you, Mark.
But, you know, you caught my imagination from day one because
(32:01):
there's just so much potential and I'm I'm really glad that we
were able to find a way to work together.
And I I don't see that changing.I see that accelerating.
So again, you know, I make sure that Ioffer any help that I can
personally and, and with Nova Scotia help.
And back to you, Margaret, because we're kind of coming to
(32:21):
time here, but you know, thoughts on what we've talked
about here today and, and what are your next steps would you
say with respect to the company?We're keeping him busy as always
for next steps. Proper thing, proper thing.
Absolutely. Well, big success of the test
and try that we've included and are now in the evaluation phase
of, again, I mentioned Alan Spurway, he's been an incredible
(32:42):
champion internally with incredible support from Leila
McLean behind him. And I believe Mark and
Jacqueline, he's going to be speaking at a national
conference with two of you coming up to speak about that
experience with Paul Unity. And via the Can Health Network,
we're also going to be sharing, So CAN Health is a network of
numerous hospitals across Canadaand they financially offset some
(33:03):
costs for us to do some of thesetest and try projects.
And then they provide the platform for us to share with
all of those other hospitals what success we had, what that
looked like. And so we're going to be doing
that presentation alongside PaulUnity later this month.
Now Margaret, you know, we've, we've wrapped up I guess phase
one, if you like, of our work with Paul Unity.
Now we got to do some evaluationand figure out where to from
(33:25):
here. But that doesn't mean progress
should stop. So, you know, an entrepreneur or
a healthcare worker with a greatidea, what can they do if
they're here in Nova Scotia vis A vis the hub, What's, what's
the next step for them if they wake up in the middle of the
night and say, Oh my gosh, we should do this or what about
(33:45):
this? We want to hear from them.
We want to hear from them right away.
And so we do have an inquiry form for any new ideas.
So whether that's something related to 3D printing and an
interest aligned with the, the chat zone change today with Paul
Unity or it's something else. You're a problem solver and you,
you, you think you've got an idea of how to solve it or
you've come across an innovativesolution that you would love to
(34:06):
access and want to try to figureout how to do that.
We're the group to come talk to.And so we do have an intake form
on our website at the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub
website. And you can also e-mail us.
And so we have a an e-mail inboxthat we monitor every single day
for everything coming in, which is SPO at Nova Scotia Health dot
at nshealth.ca. You know, I it occurs to me that
(34:31):
I was talking earlier today. I am as your as your new head
of. Oh my gosh, Newfoundland Health.
I'm sorry, it just got out of myhead.
But Doctor. Yeah.
Doctor Palfrey? No, I knew his name.
But what are we from? N laboratory health services.
Health services, yes. NLHS.
(34:53):
NLHSI mean there's so many NH s s and NLHS.
OK. Anyway, Doctor Palfrey and I
both are involved with Healthcare Can, and I think
Healthcare can is a national organization, you know, like can
Health, but in a slightly different context.
But you know, they're talking about health tech and Med tech.
(35:17):
And making sure that every one of the board of directors and
the members of that organizationare aware is a small thing that
we can do to, you know, help you.
I'm sure you don't need that much help, but I think word of
mouth is always good. And you know, we certainly have
had excellent experience and I really wish you all the best as
(35:39):
we go through, you know, meet opportunity together.
So thanks a lot guys, really appreciate your time and nice to
see you both again you. Too.
All right, talk soon. Bye.
Bye. Thanks.
Hi everybody. Why do we have a great group of
folks here to today to talk about a very amazing medtech?
That's what I call it. You may call it something else.
The company is Pauli Unity and Pauli Unity, it's Canadian
company, it's a health tech company.
It has a mission to make additive manufacturing services
(00:29):
accessible to all healthcare workers, from custom lab
equipment to cancer radiation therapy devices, scan to print,
cast repair parts. We're going to talk about what
all that means because that is alot which we need to break down
and really understand. But you know, it's important to
know Polyunity has been recognized by Can Health Does
(00:51):
2023 Company of the Year. It's an award-winning company.
Atlantic Business has noted themTech, Newfoundland and Labrador
and many others following Paul Unity for innovation, for growth
and for a very inclusive culture.
So really excited to welcome Jacqueline Lee.
Hi, Jacqueline, How are you today?
(01:13):
Awesome. How are you, Karen?
Very good. Jacqueline is CEO of Paul Unity.
Proud Alam Ahman, an accountant by trade.
That's OK, I'm a lawyer so I getit.
But Jacqueline spent the 1st 13 years of her career in Nova
Scotia before returning to her home province.
(01:33):
And we have Mark Gillingham. Hi Mark, how are you today?
I'm. Great.
Good marks the President and having joined the company in
2021, also an alumnus of Munn, graduating from the electrical
engineering and the MBA programs.
And I have our very own MargaretPalmiter, who's the Director of
(01:57):
Business Development at the research and innovation for Nova
Scotia's Innovation Hub. And Margaret, I don't know if I
knew this, Margaret, that you'reone of the founding directors of
the Amira Idea Hub and that was the first university LED startup
incubator in Nova Scotia. It was, and we had a lot of 3D
(02:18):
printers there. OK, so are we going to talk
about 3D printing today, guys? I hope so.
OK. So could somebody please explain
what it is? So I want, I want who who knows
this best You Mark, you Jacqueline.
We'll, we'll let, we'll let the company describe their version
or, or what 3D printing is. What's it all about?
(02:42):
So I guess on the technical sideof what it is, 3D printing falls
under a category that's we, we use the term 3D printing because
not as many people are familiar with additive manufacturing.
So 3D printing is a type of additive manufacturing.
And ultimately it's a, it's an advanced manufacturing
technology or type that allows you to build 3 complex 3
dimensional products kind of layer by layer and bring them
(03:05):
up. And you can have them made out
of metals, plastics, polymers, resins.
There's, there's a whole host ofdifferent materials and the
materials engineering side is really exploding and expanding
around this. And ultimately, it allows you to
produce things at or close to the point of consumption.
And in the healthcare world, those things can be, you know,
(03:27):
anatomical models, they can be replacement parts, as you talked
about before. They can be healthcare
equipment, tools, surgical guides, and the list goes on and
on. And so the technology itself is
really transforming healthcare and not only in what it's doing
today, but where it's going and you know, with the advent now of
AI and how it's influencing, youknow, all aspects of our world,
(03:50):
I would say, but also specifically around the
platforms that we do. So the ability to take a concept
and turn it into a three-dimensional model of
something that you may want, whether it's an innovation or
it's a scan duplicate of an existing product that you might
want to create is occurring very, very rapidly.
The software tools that allow you to model those things and
(04:10):
then the ability to actually useout of manufacturing or 3D print
technology to produce and manufacture them is, has
shortened the innovation path and the production path from
what is months and years now to hours, days and, and, and weeks.
And so, you know, the big challenge, as Margaret has said,
(04:32):
is that people are using 3D printing throughout most
industries in the world at this point right now, but also every
healthcare organization that we've encountered throughout
Canada has 3D printers inside them.
The challenge typically is that they're siloed inside specific
departments. They're not maybe being used
under direct quality management or regulatory guidelines.
(04:54):
And ultimately, they're also notproviding standard access of
care. And I guess the last piece would
be the types and numbers of things that you could do with
those machines are not accessible to most organization.
Yeah. So it's not being leveraged at A
at an enterprise level. Well, we're going to come back
(05:15):
to that. We're going to come back to
quite a few of the elements thatyou just mentioned.
But I'll just maybe turn it to Jacqueline.
Anything you wanted to add to that, Jacqueline?
Yeah. I mean, the things that we
couldn't do two years ago, we'renow doing this, the technology.
Example example. Oh my gosh, some of the high
temperature things and having the strength and compliance
(05:38):
there. I mean, there's companies now in
the world doing pharmaceuticals.So instead of taking 30 pills a
day, you take one pill a day that was customized for you.
There's companies printing food prosthetics.
So some of the scan to print applications that we couldn't do
two years ago, for example, the cancer treatments is now a daily
(05:58):
practice of ours. So something that took days and
involved the patient doing plaster moles of their face.
We now use an existing CT scan and we can produce a mole 4 to 8
hours. It's more accurate than the
plaster and we don't need to seethe patient.
So it's amazing. Forms, workflows.
So, OK, help me, help me you. I haven't seen your plant.
(06:23):
I haven't been over to Newfoundland and Labrador for a
while. So what I'd really appreciate
is, you know, paint the picture of what happens when you open
the door of your plant. Like what do what, what would a
person be walking into? You know what?
What would I see as as you take me on a tour of that facility
(06:44):
and where is it and where are you?
Well, they're, they're everywhere.
That's the point. We want to be regionalized.
We want to be ideally embedded inside hospitals at closest to
the point of consumption or in regional areas.
So yes, of course we have our biggest print from here in
Newfoundland. We have one in Ottawa.
We have machines in in New Brunswick as well and hopefully
(07:06):
soon in Nova Scotia. But yeah, we have a, I don't
know, maybe 25 machines here offof various capabilities and
sizes. And what are the machines,
Jacqueline? Like what, what are we talking
about? You know, people say 3D
printing, you're thinking it's aprinter.
You take the piece of paper to the machine and it prints out a
a cast. But that's not really what we're
(07:27):
talking about. So what are the different kinds
of machines? Yeah, we're on our third suite
now in just four years and the speed of what we just replaced
is like 5 times faster than whatwe purchased two years ago.
It's wild. So right now we're mainly
focused on the bamboo lab machines, high quality, very
(07:48):
fast, can do four types of material inputs all at once.
We have a larger printer that can have a bigger build plate,
but so hospitals traditionally have spent maybe too much and,
and purchased higher and very use case specific machines.
And it's hard to find those, those specific use cases to make
(08:08):
it worth it to print on them andto get the and to get the value.
So the quality of machines and the affordability of them for us
to have a manufacturing print firm in each province is it's
becoming easier and easier and far more accessible.
Anything to add Mark I miss? I'm still, like trying to.
(08:29):
Yeah. So paint, you know, paint a
picture for me, Mark. Like, I walk, I open the door, I
walk into one of your machines. What?
What does it look like? So it's, it's, it's a, it's a 3
dimensional, you know, machine that has essentially like a
robotic arm that works to, to lay down material in a very
(08:52):
specified format. So the, the programming of what
that product is. So the whole concept of holding
things in digital inventory allows you to send these things
to machines wherever they may be.
But you know, to maybe step backand answer your question, when
you walk into our office, we have a couple of components.
So we have a design team that takes new ideas in.
(09:14):
So our production and design team are in their own kind of
pod and they're sitting there and they're the group that's
creating the new products and the new designs and the new
innovations. Our digital platform is
ultimately the the glue and the application layer that brings
everything together. So we have a team of very
talented software developers that's also creating all the
software that allows frontline users to access it.
(09:36):
And then obviously the part thatyou're asking well for as well
is, is the print production capacity.
So there's a specialized production room that you would
walk into with racks of machinesand each one of those machines
could be producing the same product or they all could be
producing something different. And that's the beauty part of 3D
printing or out of manufacturingis that it's not like
(09:57):
traditional production or manufacturing production in the
fact that you have to spin up. Your line set up to do a bar.
Exactly where you have to run the exact same thing over 1000
units? Yeah, we can.
Literally every other. Do 5 of this, 10 of this, 25 of
this, 3000 of this. Yep, yeah.
And it's getting so diverse. We have a command center
(10:19):
somewhat analogous to what you're operating there that has
everything in the queue lined upby client and you can shift it
around depending on priorities. It's it really broadens our
operation. One more question, which is the
tech? So you know, where is their IP?
(10:41):
Where's the IP is it, you know, have you, you buy the machines,
you buy parts of the machines, you develop the software like
what's the magic? And, you know, where's the
award-winning components of of Polyunity?
Yeah. So I'd say it's in two different
places. Our digital platform, I3D dot
(11:03):
Health is, I would say, the centrepiece of what we do.
However, ultimately all the things that get manufactured
through that platform are the things that often people like to
talk about, right, Because you can physically and tangibly hold
them. But you know, if you look at how
we're positioned and you know, you talk about our opening
mission statement about how we make this accessible to
(11:27):
healthcare workers across the country and hopefully beyond the
platform itself. So we've established the fact
that 3D printing is in use through healthcare organizations
across the country. It's also transforming
healthcare in the number of applications and the types of
things that you can do. So it's it's cast and splints
and prosthetics and orthotics and cancer care applications and
(11:50):
surgical planning tools and preoperative planning tools and
and so on and so forth. So the question becomes for
healthcare organizations is thathow do you actually procure all
those applications? How do you onboard them?
How do you have the staff to runthem and ensure that you're
compliant with the products thatare being produced by these
machines? And that's not a simple
(12:12):
undertaking. And then, you know, across the
country, you have specialized siloed centers where people are
experimenting with these. And how do we bring connectivity
across the innovation landscape in Canadian healthcare?
And I think one of your last podcast members, Mr. Picard, I
(12:33):
think it was talked about the fact that there's been pilot
systems ran across the country right now that probably have
solved all the Canadian healthcare problems 10 times
over. And you know, I know it's
probably a little bit of a cheeky statement, but what we've
done within our software platform is we've opened up a,
an ideas portal that allows frontline healthcare workers to
(12:55):
either come to us with their idea and, or a brand new
innovation. And now with all of the
advancements in these technologies, as we said before,
you can actually create these products more efficiently faster
than ever before. The question is how do you take
them and actually get them approved?
Yeah, so I love that. So we'll make sure we note that
in the in the notes because, youknow, for we have to make sure
(13:17):
that people are well aware of itand can just send their ideas.
And then you pick and choose or you know, how do you select from
amongst the we? Want the engagement?
With your economist. Oh, excellent.
To do the ROII. Love it, I love it, love it.
So smart. Yeah, exactly.
(13:37):
We, we engaged a healthcare economist to help us design like
a criteria system of how to evaluate these things because
it, it makes no sense if it doesn't add value.
So environmental impacts, cost savings, workflow efficiencies
and just workflow impacts. So it's, yeah, I love it.
If it doesn't pass all those criteria, it doesn't even get to
(13:58):
the to go stage. I think that's really great.
So let me just try to get Margaret into this conversation.
So Margaret, I always, I think Paul Unity, one thing they do
well and then listen, I'm not a social media person.
I only do one thing. It's LinkedIn, but does but Paul
Unity does a good job of LinkedIn.
(14:19):
So I'm constantly, you know, I see it poking up here and there
and everywhere. So anytime there's something on
the feed, I'm usually sending itto Margaret saying like, why
aren't we doing this? What about this?
Chase this down? So you ended up doing some
things we did. So why don't you talk about
that, how a partnership came together or how we ended up
(14:42):
doing some work with Paula Unity?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, what's interesting is our
clinical engineering team here at Nova Scotia Health has got
some incredible expertise and some great minds that are always
pushing boundaries on it. And I think it was Alan Spurway
and maybe Michael Hamilton that originally connected from our
clinical engineering with Pauli Unity just for being in the
space of the interest. Who knows, maybe LinkedIn
(15:04):
reached them too. And so it's often fantastic when
there's a grassroots alignment and interest in a new solution
and an innovative company. But what also helps is our model
for innovation, for testing and trying new innovative solutions.
So at the Health Innovation Hub,we look to run comprehensive
diligence on these types of opportunities, on the cool
(15:24):
things that you see and the other things that come across
that our radar and our desk. The the solutions that are
brought forward to us by our kind of innovation community
within the health system, anybody within the health
system, we consider part of our entrepreneurs.
Our researchers or other stakeholders?
Absolutely. Partners at the Hub.
Everybody can have an idea and all ideas need to be assessed
and look for that value. So in the case of of Polyunity,
(15:47):
we were looking at validating that that user interest from
Nova Scotia Health and who woulduse the product, How would they
use the service? Well, at the service, yeah, at
what product and and what service and what products should
we focus on? Because Polyunity, I mean, even
in this chat has covered a lot of ground for, for what the
types of things are that their company is able to do and that
(16:09):
the the sector in the industry is moving forward with.
And Healthcare is highly regulated and for very good
reason. You know, this is patient safety
and this is health. And so we had to be very
deliberate when working with Polyunity around what are we
going to focus on, where can we move fast and where is that
aligned with our teams. And so we actually did an art of
the possible session focused on 3D printing.
(16:29):
So we hosted that at our health innovation hub and we invited
Paul Unity alongside other localcompanies, alongside thought
leaders and people working in 3Dprinting at the academic sector.
And we did a day of exploration.And so we invited everybody from
within the health system who wanted to come to come.
It was completely open and it was come explore and think about
what we could do coming out of that and and following up
(16:51):
conversations with you and and others.
It was we've identified that we had a real opportunity here with
Polly Unity to focus on printingand and specifically focus on
the challenge of equipment or pieces of infrastructure that
we're not operating at full use for the health authority.
So were they sitting on a shelf,were they not being used because
(17:11):
they weren't user interface accessible to our patients or to
our care providers. And so we defined that as a
project scope under a test and try.
And Polly Unity had already beenworking with the Can Health
Network in Newfoundland and we're a member of of CAN Health
and happy to share about what they do, but they came on board
as well. And so the partnership with
(17:32):
Polyunity and Can Health and ourclinical engineering team is
what we brought to life. And we actually just concluded
the deployment of the test and try on March 31st.
And we're now assessing all of the evaluation of everything
that we did to help us inform goforward.
And during that test and try, weidentified numerous additional
(17:52):
areas of our opportunity and we are running diligence into all
of those right now to see what else we can do.
So I did again, going back to mysocial odyssey, social media
odyssey on LinkedIn, I saw whereone of your colleagues guys came
over to Nova Scotia to basicallymeet with Margaret and team, but
also to tour some of our rural sites to, you know, see for his
(18:16):
own eyes what what's the art of the possible?
And so I don't know what came out of that.
It's probably in your list of things.
But listen, that's not rocket science.
It but it's what you're doing isa little bit of rocket science.
But but you know, finding the uses and making it come to life
(18:37):
is, you know, that's something that we should and could be
doing if it works for us. I'm sure it works for other
provinces. Are you doing business in every
province? And if not, why not?
And I need to know, no, I'm kidding.
Are you pretty much across the board now or or how's that?
Not not full out like pilots andpre contract, but yeah we've
(19:00):
we've done products and servicesfor 8 provinces in one territory
so far. Great.
And I think you know you. To me, it's a real success
story. So I, I want to know how you
know, I personally and how Nova Scotia Health can can help you.
Margaret mentioned that you are partnered with Can Health.
(19:22):
We are as well. I'm not really sure how that
works from a, a company's perspective.
I know it works from our perspective as a buyer and also
as a partner, but not necessarily as a company selling
a service and a product products.
Well, I, I think like this is a good opportunity to maybe just
(19:43):
step back and take a look at Canadian healthcare from a
higher level. And, and, and I'll bring it back
into a polyunity lens maybe in, in one second.
But you know, if you look at howhealthcare typically procures,
you know, we have GP OS general purchasing organizations.
So if you're looking for bandages and nitrile gloves and
things that are consumables and and you know, other more complex
things as well. They've consolidated procurement
(20:06):
to make it more efficient so that every healthcare
organization doesn't have to figure it out on their own right
when you can select. Off a menu, which is what you
know we do with the health the pro can.
This is our part Yeah, exactly. Mohawk head by and and and all
these groups. But when it comes to innovative
technologies, there is no standard place to go to get
(20:27):
these things. And you know, if you look just
in our sector and, and, and well, let's take the Canadian
healthcare, I'd say arena just for a second.
And so you know, we have provincially jurisdicted
healthcare organizations where there's one healthcare
organization kind of in a province.
We have been healthcare organizations, provinces with
multiples. So Nova Scotia would have two
(20:49):
with IWK and Nova Scotia Health,New Brunswick would have two.
But when you get to Ontario, it's its own beast in itself and
it has about 150 hospital corporations.
So across Canada, we have about 200, there's about 50 and all
the other provinces put togetherand then Ontario has about
another 150 together. So we have about 200 healthcare
(21:10):
organizations that are responsible for procurement.
And so you know what Nova Scotiahelped.
And I would say you're the exception and, and, and not the
standard in the fact that you actually have an innovation hub
and an arm where you have a means of integrating and
interfacing with advanced technologies.
And so congratulations and, and kudos to you for doing that
(21:33):
because we think it's really, really important and your team
has done that. They've been phenomenal to work
with and, and you've done a really great job there.
But if you take within our sector, so let's say there's 100
3D printing applications across all the spectrums that we talked
about that could be procured. If Nova Scotia Health has to go
through 100 different procurements of innovations,
(21:54):
you're on average a year doing them.
It's close to 100K, let's say ballpark to do each one.
If you spread that across the country to get just the
technologies in our sector into the Canadian healthcare
ecosystem, it's a billion dollars plus in just
administrative and procurement costs.
(22:15):
It's not the cost of the technology.
And so you know, Nova Scotia Health is going through, you'll
do your own evaluation, you'll procure, the next group will do
the same. And what the amount of
repetitiveness and that that's currently in the Canadian
healthcare system means that we're decades trying to acquire
technologies that we should be getting much, much faster.
(22:37):
And we need to, you know, with staffing shortages and, you
know, increasing expenses and, and budget restrictions.
So with with all that to say, what we have done is built a
digital marketplace and an ecosystem where you can procure
once and then we can bring best of breed innovations and
technologies into that marketplace.
(22:59):
And what can health is ultimately ultimately trying to
do as well is is kind of standardized that procurement
process across the country. And they've made good head
roads. There's still lots of work to
do, but so that if Nova Scotia goes through a validated public
procurement process, why does every other healthcare
organization, what the country have to do it?
Yeah. It's, I mean, you know, you've
probably heard our premier certainly we have Margaret that
(23:21):
basically, you know a very simple mantra starting with
positions, you know, good enoughfor British Columbia, good
enough for Nova Scotia, good enough for for UK, good enough
for Nova Scotia. And so we are continuing that
when it comes to interprovincialprocurement and procurement of
(23:42):
medtech like you know either thebarriers come down or or why
not. And I think that the recent
impetus, certainly even yesterday, I guess the our
Premier and also Premier Ford signing like a free trade
agreement, you know, with with New Brunswick and PEII mean
(24:04):
that's great and more to come. But you can't do it in one
sector. Like it's not just about beer as
an example, because that's always talked about.
But you know, when it when it comes to what you're talking
about this, it should be very easy.
It's just not right yet yet. OK, let's let's come back to
(24:25):
some of these examples. The 1 I loved you had an you had
a story not too long ago. Hasn't been on LinkedIn, but
there was a story about a scan to print cast.
So. Oh, you got it.
Yeah. Can you tell us about this?
I love this. How did this all come about?
(24:45):
What's the material and what areyou doing about that particular
product? Yeah.
I mean, Mark, Mark can say the technical things, but yeah, we
partnered with a company that's figured out how to scan it to a
file really, really easily. So now we can do it with a
simple iPhone. So this is my turn.
We we're doing this with all of our staff so they can wear it
(25:06):
all the time and talk about it cuz it's a conversation we
should get. One I want one, yeah.
We should get one too. Yeah, yeah.
Next time we're there. Sorry.
Leaving that aside, yeah, go ahead.
Sorry. And then it's a 6 to 8 hour
print and we have a customized solution for you.
So this thing is really easy to do.
(25:27):
It's the workflow that we got tofigure out for whoever we
because there's a window of timewith the, with the if a child
breaks their arm to cut the castto, to get the scan done and to
put it back on and then to avoidthe swelling and whatnot.
But it's as a alternative to plaster and fiberglass like this
(25:47):
is the way to go. You can shower with it.
You can play sports with it, Youcan work the the doctor can
assess the wound better, you cantake it off and on easily, and
it's it's just as good or betterthan a fiberglass or plaster
cast. So not ideal for every use case,
but for some this is a better treatment option for sure.
(26:09):
So Jacqueline, great. So you've done that.
That's amazing. How does Paul Unity, how do you
how do we, how do you how do youscale that right?
Like what are you actually selling in the marketplace?
I think you're selling a serviceis one thing.
(26:30):
I heard Mark say that and I wrote that down because I
actually, it's a different way of looking at the company.
But what are you actually selling?
And then how do you scale that? So yeah, I want your casts.
I want those where they're applicable.
So. So what do we do to get from
this conversation to actually buying those casts, so to speak?
(26:53):
Well, that's the whole concept of what I guess I just went
through with the digital marketplace and you know, the
platform. This is a technology actually
that the scanning technology originates from the US, but it's
not present in Canadian healthcare, public health care
anywhere. And So what we've done, this is
1 product and one service amongst others that are
available now through the marketplace.
(27:14):
So basically a subscription to the service and so there.
Is so it's a subscription based.It is.
And so that's kind of 1 component to it.
When you get access to the platform and it gets integrated,
but then ultimately, it's just consumption.
So like how many of these are you producing and you're paying
per item kind of as you're consuming them.
So it's very, you can start very, very small, you know, kind
(27:37):
of out of the gate and then as you grow and on board.
So you'll probably want to startthis in, you know, one
orthopedic center, get it integrated, understand how it
works, and then roll it out across your organization.
And the same goes with, you know, what we did with clinical
engineering through our, you know, clinical.
Yeah, we had, we had some of ourtechnicians, you know, go from
(28:00):
Yarmouth to Cape Breton and and all the centers in between.
We started in, you know, in the Halifax area.
But ultimately then we were ableto go out and engage, you know,
people across the whole province.
And so that's the beauty part. The platform is web-based, it's
secure, it's easy to access and you don't need to be a
specialist to get access to these technologies.
(28:21):
You can literally point and click request service and it
gets manufactured and. The.
Old part about these tariffs, right, Is, is that this is Yeah.
Let's talk about these tariffs. So, you know, disaster or
opportunity. Opportunity.
Let's talk about it. Yep, talk about the opportunity.
(28:43):
Well, I mean, this, what I've been advocating for for five
years on how to fix Canadian innovation and healthcare
together is now part of everydayconversation.
So folks I could not get meetings with are now excited to
talk about it and the nonpartisan conversations that
are happening and how to breakdown barriers and buy
(29:03):
Canadian. Like it's shocking that this had
to happen to have that be a priority, but here we are.
So we had a wake up call with the pandemic 4 years ago about
how fragile our supply chains are and how dependent we are in
foreign markets. And we shifted and pivoted and
did some incredible partnershipswith private and public sector
(29:25):
and then we forgot it all and here we are again.
So. It's, I find it really
interesting that you say that Jacqueline, because like to me,
you know, I just see massive opportunity for you.
It's like massive opportunity and you know, done properly, the
issue is going to be getting thecapital quickly enough to grow
(29:48):
fast enough to meet demand. So I think.
That's going to be a. Pardon.
Yeah, we just came out of a conference in Germany, a world
fair, one of the largest technology industry shows on the
planet, 140,000 participants, and we got to do a tour with
Accenture. You know, they're an 800
thousand person technology consulting company and their
(30:10):
projection out to 2040 right nowshows that, you know, the world
is going to an advanced distributed manufacturing
sector. So you don't need these monsters
plants in one location and then you just ship things all over
the world. And the whole concept of digital
inventory means we can move those electrons at the speed of
light and we can then put them into a specialized advanced
(30:33):
manufacturing center and in thiscase throughout Canada at or
where or near the point of consumption.
And so then we can pull in real time as we need.
And what they're saying is that that automation, distributed
manufacturing, AI is going to allow the world like this is
where the world is headed. And.
So this is all. Polyunity is building into our
(30:54):
model and what we've seen Karen and and it's been amazing like
the circular economy once we canget more advanced manufacturing
of these technologies integratedinto our local environments.
We've seen two instances now where Polyunity has worked with
other health tech organizations and the ability for them to come
to us and get products prototyped and get ready for
(31:18):
mass production has speed up their time to market, I would
say by months at a minimum. And ultimately it's reduced
their cost, it's got them out the market, it's made them more
competitive. And that's because a company
like Polyunity is, is here. And then, you know, so those
things snowball on top of each other.
And, and we really do believe, you know, you asked the question
(31:39):
and Jacqueline and I answered opportunity simultaneously.
But we we're seeing it first hand daily.
So good to hear. I mean, I love the story, always
have. You know, your company and the
two of you, Jacqueline, whom I met before, before you, Mark.
But, you know, you caught my imagination from day one because
(32:01):
there's just so much potential and I'm I'm really glad that we
were able to find a way to work together.
And I I don't see that changing.I see that accelerating.
So again, you know, I make sure that Ioffer any help that I can
personally and, and with Nova Scotia help.
And back to you, Margaret, because we're kind of coming to
(32:21):
time here, but you know, thoughts on what we've talked
about here today and, and what are your next steps would you
say with respect to the company?We're keeping him busy as always
for next steps. Proper thing, proper thing.
Absolutely. Well, big success of the test
and try that we've included and are now in the evaluation phase
of, again, I mentioned Alan Spurway, he's been an incredible
(32:42):
champion internally with incredible support from Leila
McLean behind him. And I believe Mark and
Jacqueline, he's going to be speaking at a national
conference with two of you coming up to speak about that
experience with Paul Unity. And via the Can Health Network,
we're also going to be sharing, So CAN Health is a network of
numerous hospitals across Canadaand they financially offset some
(33:03):
costs for us to do some of thesetest and try projects.
And then they provide the platform for us to share with
all of those other hospitals what success we had, what that
looked like. And so we're going to be doing
that presentation alongside PaulUnity later this month.
Now Margaret, you know, we've, we've wrapped up I guess phase
one, if you like, of our work with Paul Unity.
Now we got to do some evaluationand figure out where to from
(33:25):
here. But that doesn't mean progress
should stop. So, you know, an entrepreneur or
a healthcare worker with a greatidea, what can they do if
they're here in Nova Scotia vis A vis the hub, What's, what's
the next step for them if they wake up in the middle of the
night and say, Oh my gosh, we should do this or what about
(33:45):
this? We want to hear from them.
We want to hear from them right away.
And so we do have an inquiry form for any new ideas.
So whether that's something related to 3D printing and an
interest aligned with the, the chat zone change today with Paul
Unity or it's something else. You're a problem solver and you,
you, you think you've got an idea of how to solve it or
you've come across an innovativesolution that you would love to
(34:06):
access and want to try to figureout how to do that.
We're the group to come talk to.And so we do have an intake form
on our website at the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub
website. And you can also e-mail us.
And so we have a an e-mail inboxthat we monitor every single day
for everything coming in, which is SPO at Nova Scotia Health dot
at nshealth.ca. You know, I it occurs to me that
(34:31):
I was talking earlier today. I am as your as your new head
of. Oh my gosh, Newfoundland Health.
I'm sorry, it just got out of myhead.
But Doctor. Yeah.
Doctor Palfrey? No, I knew his name.
But what are we from? N laboratory health services.
Health services, yes. NLHS.
(34:53):
NLHSI mean there's so many NH s s and NLHS.
OK. Anyway, Doctor Palfrey and I
both are involved with Healthcare Can, and I think
Healthcare can is a national organization, you know, like can
Health, but in a slightly different context.
But you know, they're talking about health tech and Med tech.
(35:17):
And making sure that every one of the board of directors and
the members of that organizationare aware is a small thing that
we can do to, you know, help you.
I'm sure you don't need that much help, but I think word of
mouth is always good. And you know, we certainly have
had excellent experience and I really wish you all the best as
(35:39):
we go through, you know, meet opportunity together.
So thanks a lot guys, really appreciate your time and nice to
see you both again you. Too.
All right, talk soon. Bye.
Bye. Thanks.
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