The finalists for the 2022 Bloom Burton Award are Frank Baylis, executive chairman, and Kris Shah, president of Baylis Medical Technologies; Pieter Cullis, co-founder and chairman, of Acuitas Therapeutics; and Jan Skvarka, former president and CEO of Trillium Therapeutics.
Bestowed annually, the Bloom Burton Award honors an individual who made the greatest contribution to Canada’s innovative healthcare industry in the previous year. The winner will be announced on Sept. 29, 2022.
Brian Bloom, chairman and CEO of Bloom Burton, said Mr. Baylis and Mr. Shah are being nominated for growing Baylis Medical into Canada’s largest domestic medical device manufacturer, and for monetizing its core cardiovascular business to Boston Scientific for $1.75-billion (U.S.).
Mr. Cullis developed lipid nanoparticle systems that contributed to the approval of four novel, approved drugs, in addition to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Mr. Bloom said.
And in late 2019, Mr. Skvarka joined and turned around a struggling Trillium Therapeutics, which was ultimately acquired by Pfizer for approximately $2.26- billion (U.S.), an increase of 46 times in stock price and 140 times increase in market cap during his tenure.
