Barbara Campbell finds it interesting that when she worked in Vancouver, she was often flown to Halifax to talk about commercializing medical technology. Now that she lives in Halifax, she is rarely asked to speak.

The medical technologies entrepreneur is CEO of Hammock Facilitation and co-founder of two medical device startups, OrthoMX, of which she is CEO, and EnginuityMed, of which she’s president.

Before moving to Halifax in 2008, Campbell was a frequent speaker in the city and the region.

“I was in Vancouver for 14 years, and almost every year I was flown back to the Maritimes to speak on commercialization and teach technology transfer,” she said.

“I was from away. Now I have even more experience, but I’m no longer from away and I’m rarely asked to speak locally, although I am in Ottawa twice a year to act as a reviewer for federal commercialization competitions.”

Campbell said Maritimers need to recognize local talent and tap it.

“I’m not saying we don’t need external talent. I use my U.S. and West Coast network all the time … but you don’t have to go away for everything.”

Through her various roles, Campbell works to advance commercialization of the region’s medical technology sector, the excellence of which she believes sometimes goes unappreciated.

At Hammock, she helps clients bring their ideas to market, assisting with everything from proof of concept to negotiating multinational partnerships.

As a founder and president at EnginuityMED, she is working on commercializing FIVA, a device that helps medical staff manage intravenous fluid levels by signalling when a gravity-fed fluid bag needs to be changed.

OrthoMX is developing prognostic and diagnostic tools for improved pre- and post-operative orthopedic patient care.

Campbell’s busy patchwork of a life is not what she expected when she graduated from Mount Allison University in her hometown of Sackville, N.B., with degrees in biochemistry and French.

After completing her master’s in biochemistry and immunology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, she went straight into biotechnology. She had intended to do a PhD in biochemistry and become a professor but got sidetracked.

“It was a wonderful time for biotech in Vancouver. There was the opportunity to marry business and science. I got straight into industry in 1997.”

She worked with small companies before joining the university industry liaison office at UBC, tasked with clearing the backlog of technology evaluations. She stayed for eight years, kept busy by the quantity of innovation being generated.

While at UBC in 2007, she was the architect of the Global Access Initiative. It meant that UBC technologies that were licensed to multi-nationals were also made available at cost to developing nations.

“That was a proud moment,” she said. “UBC was one of the first universities in the world to do it.”

In 2008, Campbell and her husband, Jason Hicks, who is also from Sackville, returned to the Maritimes. Hicks works for the Atlantic Path, a cancer research study project.

Campbell joined Dalhousie University’s industry liaison office, where she stayed for three years. Then she realized the technologies she’d been fostering at Dalhousie were ready to become companies.

“I didn’t want to let them go so I started Hammock in June 2012. Within six months, I was working seven days a week. I’ve co-founded three companies in the last three years.”

The Atlantic medtech sector is less developed than Vancouver’s. Still, companies are maturing. Many of Campbell’s clients are working on obtaining ISO 13485, the international compliance standard for medical devices.

“Working with clinicians and engineers inspires me. The clinicians articulate the medical need, and the engineers say what can and can’t be done.

“I provide the overlay of commercialization. I didn’t do the same variety of work in Vancouver. My horizons have broadened in Halifax.”