Bringing Life to Life Sciences: Carl's Unconventional Tale

[00:00:00] Patrick: appreciate you doing this. I was really excited to talk to you. I took a look at your profile on LinkedIn and you have a very colorful pathway. And the reason why I named this podcast Pathways in Life Science, I wanted to highlight the fact that, it doesn't matter where you're from. You can be a part of this industry, no matter what your background is, and you obviously have a career and background so far from the life science. 

[00:00:25] Patrick: Looking at your background, you were a commercial director at Alamo Rent A Car, a city councillor at Ville de Montréal, and part of board of directors for a few organizations. So, super excited to talk to you about your past. The whole point of this is to understand, that in life, there's different pivots.

[00:00:44] Patrick: That take you to where you are now. And I'm always fascinated on how a person ended up where they ended up, but also specifically how a person ended up in the life science industry. Just tell me, how did you go from rent a car?

[00:00:56] Patrick: To even like from there to even city councilor at Villa Morial, even that's like shocking, so why don't we start there? Tell me that story.

[00:01:04] Carl Baillargeon: Well, it wasn't a tourist industry. So I started with Alamo

[00:01:08] Patrick: yeah.

[00:01:09] Carl Baillargeon: Alamo had an opening in Montreal for a commercial director for the whole province. had a bit of experience in the travel industry, so I was finishing my degree at Miguel. And then I said, you know what, full time position, it's open there. American company, very aggressive at that time. They were the leaders in their market. So I joined that company with pleasure. It was like, you know, I'm starting my career. It's a big corporation. We were opening locations everywhere in the world. And I've always been so interested to learn about the globe, so Alamo was opening a lot of locations throughout Europe South America, and we were starting to promote them with the tour operators, the airline companies.

[00:01:50] Carl Baillargeon: So for me, it was building up a lot of relationships in the industry, in the tourism industry. And then growing from there. So I just started with the Quebec market, then it became Eastern Canada, and then it became Canada. And I had that opportunity to stay for a while with Alamo before I made the switch to a retail operation, which was travel cuts which was based in Toronto, 

[00:02:14] Carl Baillargeon: they were looking for someone in marketing and communications I was doing a bit of that with Alamo because they were a US company sending us collateral. So we had to switch it for the Canadian version and then the Quebec version, they were looking to have a lot of flavor. Originality, creativity and that. So I dug a lot of marketing. Publicity, advertising and made that obvious into the market here. And then when I went to travel cuts, it was the same thing they were looking for.

[00:02:41] Carl Baillargeon: They're looking to have somebody that would be local could promote the services we had over like 100 travel agencies at that time. 

[00:02:48] Patrick: Wow.

[00:02:48] Carl Baillargeon: It was before the dot com 2000 and the air Canada dot CA or whatnot. we started a program at that time. That was like a virtual travel agency to book online so that we knew that people were going to book online.

[00:03:03] Carl Baillargeon: So we said the brick and mortar is just going to fade away. we need to specialize into adventure travel so that you want to talk to someone that's been to Peru, someone that's been to, I don't know, Mozambique or South Africa, 

[00:03:17] Patrick: is this pre Expedia?

[00:03:20] Carl Baillargeon: Expedia was starting at that point, but what. Catapulted me out of that industry was when I was driving to work one morning and I see a big billboard and it says Air Canada book online and save 10. We can't compete with that. That's it. So

[00:03:37] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:03:37] Carl Baillargeon: Stayed the brick and mortar with the individuals that were providing. 

[00:03:41] Patrick: Personal.

[00:03:42] Carl Baillargeon: experience. Yeah, personal experience in saying, you know, if you're going to Peru, you need this, you have to pack that, you have to go to this location, don't go there, be careful of that. Which, you know, we had so much fun seeing somebody that booked a flight to Sydney, Australia, but misspelled it and went to Sydney, Nova Scotia. So, we knew that there was a demand for people that, need to have, take them by the hand to travel

[00:04:07] Patrick: Sure. 

[00:04:07] Patrick: What strikes me right now is you're obviously a very charismatic guy, very smart guy, and you seem like the type of person that, you know, whatever you choose to sink your teeth in, you'll do well, and obviously looking at your career and your path, you've done so many things, I'm just interested in the fact that you ended up here in our industry, it says, okay, just reading your profile ambassador of innovation, life sciences, biopharma, and ophthalmology sectors and sites. Is this something that you consciously chose to be in, or it's just one of those things where your path kind of led you here and you're here for a while, and then you'll do like 

[00:04:40] Patrick: airlines or something later on, or is this a concerted effort for you? Cause it's your passion.

[00:04:45] Carl Baillargeon: Well, there's, your intervention made me blush with the first part. So thank you for the compliment.

[00:04:52] Patrick: That's obvious.

[00:04:54] Carl Baillargeon: It's nice to hear, but thanks. The way that it happened is that many factors, a lot of circumstances came together. 10 years of working with the ophthalmic industry with a network of clinics throughout Canada, which was a leader. They have like 25 percent of the market of thalmic and optometrist and optician also at the same time independent. So lot of experience in there that led to getting closer to the medical sector a little bit, because, you know, you're doing them, you're prescribing. so there's a doctor relationships. I was doing some trainings was the medical part. Then I went to Technopark for five years, Technopark Montréal, which is a site. And we were kind of like paramunicipal, which means like almost a municipal entity, but. We just got this, you know, the grants from the city, but we used it to promote the site to attract investors to do trade mission with different countries. So a lot of the consulates in Montreal were approached.

[00:05:55] Carl Baillargeon: So I said, you know, the consulate of Japan, the consulate of North South Korea, I was gonna say North Korea, that would have been hard to do,

[00:06:01] Patrick: That'd have been interesting. 

[00:06:03] Carl Baillargeon: And then a company called Neomed, which is now Admire BioInnovation, That you probably know as well. Neomad, they were on the Technopark and they had a need to have somebody, and this is like a tagline I like to use, is to bring life to life sciences. So they needed to go out and show who they were, what they do to attract people.

[00:06:25] Carl Baillargeon: People to come and rent space because there's many different companies renting space there. And at that time, city of Montreal had taken over the techno part, but a lot of people left, but I stayed and they wanted me to stay and they said, you're going to become a subcontractual with us. To stay with the Technopark, make sure that what you've done in the last five years continues. Neomed was saying, well, can you stay and do like one day a week for us to promote and have the communications and bring people in, investors, new companies. And I said, you know what? there's a big lack someone doing that quarterback position in the whole football team of life science in Montreal.

[00:07:05] Carl Baillargeon: So I said, I'll take that position and I'll make sure that when I have the ball, I can send it to someone that's, you know, to the touchdown area 

[00:07:16] Patrick: Okay.

[00:07:35] Carl Baillargeon: with the admiring facility in Montreal. we opened the second phase. So we had the construction going on to have a second phase with three levels of square footage of labs and offices and an accelerator.

[00:07:47] Carl Baillargeon: So there was a whole. Fun opportunity right there. I stayed with Amari said, we'll sign a contract. Said, okay, now I'm going to register my company. This is when I started to have Technopark. Then I had Amari, then several other CROs or smaller biotech. They said, you know, we like what you're doing there.

[00:08:08] Carl Baillargeon: Can you do it for us? I started to subcontract also 

[00:08:13] Patrick: So are you still doing that now then?

[00:08:15] Carl Baillargeon: Yeah. 

[00:08:16] Patrick: Okay. Yeah.

[00:08:16] Carl Baillargeon: what the ambassador position is and for life sciences

[00:08:20] Carl Baillargeon: because at the same time that I had some other contracts with different organizations, it's the association of research and innovation for Quebec.

[00:08:29] Carl Baillargeon: And I started hosting a lot of events like an MC.

[00:08:32] Patrick: Yes.

[00:08:33] Carl Baillargeon: galas 

[00:08:34] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:08:34] Carl Baillargeon: used to be on the mic and talking to people. And then after you go down from the stage, you go talk with the people and you start to interact. And

[00:08:42] Patrick: Networking.

[00:08:42] Carl Baillargeon: I saw the birth of the Conseil which was great.

[00:08:46] Carl Baillargeon: And Luc Siroy, we co hosted the Innovation Gala together. So. I was starting to get some smaller companies also saying, Hey, we need your help. We like what you're doing. You're bringing life to, well, life science, 

[00:08:57] Carl Baillargeon: but

[00:08:58] Patrick: That is awesome.

[00:08:58] Carl Baillargeon: other companies. And, uh, Thing is, if you want Patrick, it's like, I have one is your goal default.

[00:09:05] Carl Baillargeon: I have one big default

[00:09:06] Patrick: What's that?

[00:09:07] Carl Baillargeon: I like people. I like talking to people.

[00:09:11] Patrick: Yeah, it shows. 

[00:09:12] Carl Baillargeon: But I like it so much that I cannot be confined to one company. So I tried to go back to, do like a sort of a nine to five corporate Carl. It's not

[00:09:22] Patrick: Didn't work. Yeah. I hear you.

[00:09:25] Carl Baillargeon: that exchange of, you know, you're talking with one company in biotech, you're talking with one company that's doing aerospace, you're talking with one company

[00:09:32] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Carl Baillargeon: education, another one in uh, so. You're just putting a different

[00:09:39] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:09:39] Carl Baillargeon: at the same time, you know, when you do like three, four hours for one, you put a dunder hat and you do three, four hours, basically it's just trying to regroup all that people together and say, each have your own personality and your taste and, it's funny because when you spoke about Alamo and I said, Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:09:57] Carl Baillargeon: The travel industry, I loved it because every country had their own flavor. 

[00:10:02] Carl Baillargeon: If you think about Italy, the mountains and the ocean and the food's going to be like that and the people are going to talk with their head.

[00:10:09] Carl Baillargeon: So it's all got a flavor and you have to bring that to each different company to say, you have a personality, you have a DNA. And what does the strength of the DNA comes from is the people that work for you and the leadership in your company.

[00:10:23] Patrick: You've been honing those skills for a long time. Just being sensitive to, you know, each company has their own culture and to try to understand that culture and to adapt and fit into that culture, to communicate properly, to help them.

[00:10:34] Patrick: But I'm fast about that. Obviously, to generate business for Technopark and I know having covered Technopark as a sales reps, even the Technopark itself went through peaks and valleys. Right.

[00:10:45] Carl Baillargeon: mm

[00:10:45] Patrick: And so there's been a lot of changes there creating that excitement and encouraging 

[00:10:50] Patrick: I'm assuming international companies, not just Canadian or American to invest in the Technopark. How do you do that? 

[00:10:57] Carl Baillargeon: It's funny because we're talking again about travel. I figured when I positioned the techno park into the, you know, you always position yourself with the competition across North America. So yeah, you try to say, okay, where do we have strength? What's our strength?

[00:11:15] Carl Baillargeon: What's our weakness SWOT analysis basically. But you kind of say now techno park is a destination. So why am I saying that? Because if you're coming to the techno park with your company, you're going to benefit from approximately 200 different companies that are. In the same area in your sector, let's say you're into aerospace.

[00:11:39] Carl Baillargeon: You have about 25 companies which are in aerospace. Here are the names. We make a lot of events, social events, or, trainings where people can sit down and meet other. Members of different companies. So you do have that networking opportunity. Then you say, okay, well, what about people that come down here and say, oh, is there a place where I can go running at lunchtime with like a small park atmosphere?

[00:12:06] Carl Baillargeon: Yes, there is. So we had like Echo Campus section of the techno park, which was I still go sometimes with my bike

[00:12:14] Patrick: Wow.

[00:12:28] Carl Baillargeon: we have over 12 different restaurants that are open, but they're inside the buildings. know, Technopark, Place Innovation, which is where they used to be in NorCal. So we wanted to make it more like a destination that people will come and say, wow.

[00:12:42] Patrick: Okay. And obviously being in Montreal, it's also kind of exotic as well for companies. But in terms of financially, is there, an advantage of, International companies come and invest in Quebec now. Is there any uh, tax breaks specifically for the biotech life science industry?

[00:12:59] Carl Baillargeon: There is programs and there's organizations that can help out. In Quebec, I'm thinking about, the first one that comes to mind is Bio Quebec, of course, which is a great organization that's out there for the biotechs in Quebec. But we do have also Smart Quebec investment Quebec that helps. For new companies getting in Montreal International, which is another organization that will take care of the companies moving in and will take care of, to the point that they will find a school for the kids of the person that comes to

[00:13:31] Patrick: Okay. 

[00:13:31] Carl Baillargeon: So we do have different organizations that will help, you know, the smooth landing. And the number one incentive compared to Cambridge or Kendall Square area, the cost of operations and research is Way much more competitive here. And as a matter of fact, I was involved with the real estate and still am involved with real estate for labs.

[00:13:54] Carl Baillargeon: So finding lab space for companies,

[00:13:56] Patrick: hmm.

[00:13:57] Carl Baillargeon: either square footage, I can tell you we're like 25 to 30, if not sometimes 50 percent less expensive here, as far as the construction goes.

[00:14:05] Patrick: Wow.

[00:14:06] Carl Baillargeon: And the price per square footage the operation costs with, Quebec being such a rich province for hydro electricity. right off the bat, there's like 20 percent of your operation costs that are cheaper

[00:14:19] Patrick: Yeah,

[00:14:20] Patrick: sure. 

[00:14:21] Carl Baillargeon: So,

[00:14:21] Patrick: Especially now with the exchange rate, it's even more attractive probably, but an example like, you know, I think the Quebec had a like gave like heavy tax breaks to, for example, the the film and the video game industry, like that whole like art industry.

[00:14:35] Patrick: And there was like a booming industry. Was it like 10, 15 years ago? And recently, I don't know if you've heard the news that they've actually pulled, the plug on that and have a couple of friends in the industry that says just went dry. Like everyone just

[00:14:49] Carl Baillargeon: yeah,

[00:14:50] Carl Baillargeon: We are in a situation where we're not even on the market with the product. We're in the research stages. by working with another of my organizations that I worked with they were the ones that were looking at bringing the researchers from the university centers. pharmaceutical companies

[00:15:10] Patrick: Mm.

[00:15:10] Carl Baillargeon: if we could invest and promote the research with the money from the pharmas But we always needed to have monies coming from the federal or the provincial government mostly the provincial government the new style that economy novation Quebec

[00:15:25] Patrick: Right.

[00:15:26] Carl Baillargeon: The ministry has been pushing a lot because they know it's research and Once we start to have, after the phases are done, you're ready to go to market.

[00:15:36] Carl Baillargeon: You can either have an IPO. You can go in the stock market. before that you're doing research and you have no money. So how do you pay your staff? How do you make sure that your staff is. Comfortable by working at your location. if you're into the life science or biotech sector, some companies have another branch or division that has a commercial product that they can sell and get

[00:16:00] Patrick: Okay.

[00:16:00] Carl Baillargeon: out.

[00:16:01] Patrick: 

[00:16:01] Carl Baillargeon: gotta be a right balance of knowing. You can't always be, you know, owing money or begging for money. You have to make sure that you're either getting sources that are different than just the government. So the pharma, that was an example, you can have pharma sponsoring your research or have another, division that will sell service or a product.

[00:16:26] Patrick: Yeah, that makes sense 

[00:16:27] Carl Baillargeon: and the position that we have in Canada is a great benefit for that are in the U. S. Now we hear more about San Diego and the Research Triangle Park, like North Carolina area.

[00:16:38] Patrick: 

[00:16:38] Carl Baillargeon: companies here that are going into commercial missions or doing trade shows.

[00:16:43] Carl Baillargeon: They're going a lot in the U. S. to You know, say, Hey, we are providing that service for you out of either Montreal, Toronto, out of Canada with, a cost benefit, but then the exchange rate, that's another plus. I think what we should be promoting now is to have more contact with the US in the sense that we have organizations here that can help us to promote the services of the companies, the Canadian companies into the US. there should be a big push, even though the last, know, weekend was one that

[00:17:19] Patrick: A gong show.

[00:17:22] Carl Baillargeon: nail so much. 

[00:17:24] Carl Baillargeon: We're at the mercy of the biggest market in the world. So we have to be also a little bit nice, you know, to say,

[00:17:30] Patrick: yeah,

[00:17:31] Carl Baillargeon: We have people that work here, but they know that we have people that are really qualified here.

[00:17:36] Carl Baillargeon: They know that we have tremendous universities in Canada that have research centers, that we have so much bright people working there. 

[00:17:43] Patrick: Yeah, The talent pool is, very good. And I love the fact that you pinpoint all the attractions to bring the U S money into Canada.

[00:17:52] Carl Baillargeon: Yeah

[00:17:52] Patrick: What do you think, the future is looking like, what are people saying out there with machine learning and AI? Are we really going to have, personalized medicine and vaccines? And is it going to take us two months to figure it out what are you hearing out there?

[00:18:04] Carl Baillargeon: The little parallel that I can make with that

[00:18:07] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:18:07] Carl Baillargeon: is that when COVID struck, remember in 2020 February, March or so, I think we went on a lockdown in March. Everybody was depressed. What are we going to do? It's a crisis. And especially our sector was like, oh, my God, what's going to happen to our sector? And I started to publish every single morning when I wake up, I go and do a research. I get a lot of information being pushed in my email. And then I said, okay, which good news can I share? So I started to promote the encouraging news of the day. And to this day, we are what the 5th of February, 2025. I would say since February 2020.

[00:18:49] Carl Baillargeon: So it's been five years. Every morning I gather some information and I promote it to the network to say, here's an encouraging news of the day.

[00:18:59] Carl Baillargeon: Good for you. Now what I'm seeing most is that exactly what you're saying, IA. There's a lot of intelligence that's being developed with tool or single tool that we can find with either, you know, the data information that we have, and the exactitude of, you know, the research by finding the right compound, or, I would say we're going to be probably having a more sharp a drug or medication that's going to be either administered by ways that we've never thought of.

[00:19:32] Carl Baillargeon: So now we hear a lot of people putting patches on or syrups or, you know, liquids that they can ingest instead of having the syringe into their arm or the transfusion and why is that so important? It's because there's a big danger there is that are we going to be promoting. The fact that people will not be having a disease and will not die.

[00:19:53] Carl Baillargeon: That's a different subject we could discuss, you and I, with a glass of scotch or

[00:19:57] Patrick: Yeah, immortality. Isn't that what we all want? Immortality.

[00:20:01] Carl Baillargeon: Well, that's, that's what the problem is. It's like, well, are we really aiming at that and then realizing that the earth is so small that we won't be able to fit all that people on the earth, you know, if we have immortality like that?

[00:20:13] Patrick: Well, that's another conversation. That's why Elon Musk wants to go to Mars, but yeah, we can talk about that.

[00:20:17] Carl Baillargeon: That's,

[00:20:18] Patrick: some other time, 

[00:20:18] Carl Baillargeon: we'll have that over a glass of beer or scotch or something.

[00:20:21] Patrick: Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Deal 

[00:20:24] Carl Baillargeon: What we're seeing most and it's artificial intelligence, virtual reality also I'm working with one of my client on virtual labs that we can be training people. in Nunavut or in 

[00:20:37] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:20:37] Carl Baillargeon: iceland, like anywhere that, you know, we cannot reach the people that want to be into labs. So we're moving towards having a more defined and modern and precise medicine.

[00:20:50] Patrick: Did you take a look at the question I sent you? The question I say is if your career in life science were a movie, what would the title be?

[00:20:58] Carl Baillargeon: There's one movie that I like a lot and I still watch it and being moved by. It is um, Lata Life is beautiful with,

[00:21:06] Patrick: Oh, that's amazing.

[00:21:07] Carl Baillargeon: Benini. Yeah.

[00:21:08] Patrick: Yes. Amazing.

[00:21:10] Carl Baillargeon: and it's just a parallel of, you know, very. Somber and dark world and happy go lucky world that he's providing to his surrounding. And like I said, bringing life to life science would be one of those things that he brought life to his family.

[00:21:28] Carl Baillargeon: there's always ways to bring the positive out of any situation in life, even though it's a dark situation.

[00:21:36] Carl Baillargeon: It's like hopeless situation. got to be something that's positive out of it and you dwell on it so that it's easier for everybody around.

[00:21:46] Patrick: Man, I love that. I love that answer. I love that movie.

[00:21:49] Patrick: You obviously are sincere about and truly believe it because, you know, sending that one message a day since February, 

[00:21:57] Carl Baillargeon: Well 

[00:21:57] Patrick: 2000,

[00:21:58] Carl Baillargeon: Yeah.

[00:21:59] Patrick: it five years ago? You're sincere about that. That's awesome. Definitely need more people like you in the world for sure. I think I'm going to leave it at that. Let's leave it on a high note and a positive note, 

[00:22:09] Carl Baillargeon: the thumbs

[00:22:10] Patrick: the thumbs up, the two, yeah, maybe one thumbs up.

[00:22:12] Patrick: Yeah. This one, we all know he does that. So yeah, let's do this one.

[00:22:15] Carl Baillargeon: Oh, yeah, you're right. Actually, on my Twitter, it's a thumbs up after my name. 

[00:22:21] Patrick: That's awesome, Carl. I really appreciate your time.

[00:22:23] Carl Baillargeon: Thanks.