Dr. Don Rix says he is a lab guy at heart.

But Rix, chairman of Burnaby, B.C.-based Cantest Labs Ltd., considers himself an entrepreneur rather than a scientist. His other descriptions include angel investor, philanthropist, golfer and member of the Order of Canada.

Although he recently had a tumour removed from his throat, Rix will also serve as a voice for business over the next year after becoming the first medical doctor appointed as chairman of the Vancouver Board of Trade.

"I don't believe in retirement," says Rix, 77.

Bayne Stanley, Business Edge
Cantest Labs Ltd. chairman Dr. Don Rix hasn't let throat surgery stop his drive for corporate caregiving.

Whatever his title, he knows how to incubate businesses.

He has converted Cantest - which conducts environmental, food, water, drug, and medical analysis for individuals, industry and government - from a small startup into a national company that generated $40 million in sales last year. It has been ranked in the Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies business award program.

Rix also started a medical-testing company, Metropolitan (Metro) Labs, that was the forerunner of what's now called LifeLabs Inc. While Rix maintained financial interests, Metro, founded in 1959, eventually became part of Mississauga-based global health sciences firm MDS Inc.'s diagnostics division.

In 2006, MDS sold LifeLabs to Toronto-based Borealis Infrastructure Inc. for $1.3 billion. Despite the takeover and the new name, Rix remains chairman.

Rix, who says he now has stakes in 20 to 30 firms, also backed QLT Inc.

in its early days and saw the company, which manufactures drugs designed to treat blindness in the elderly and skin disease, grow into a global firm.

His prescription for business success? A large dose of corporate caregiving.

1. What did your parents do?

"My father was a druggist in London, Ont., and I worked in our drugstore. That started my interest in medicine. My mother was a homemaker."

2. What prompted you to enter medicine?

Dr. Don Rix

"My interest in medicine was galvanized working in the drugstore, and then my first practice was with Michael Smith, the Nobel laureate. He got me interested in going back to school (to study pathology). He got me interested in the tests in labs. I'm really a lab guy at heart."

3. You grew up in Orillia. What was memorable for you about your youth?

"Our lake trips. My grandfather lived there and he used to take us out fishing. I can always remember how calm and quiet it was out there on the lake."

4. What instruments did you play?

"In pre-med, I played a tenor sax and a clarinet. I really enjoyed that.

It was a lot of fun. I had to stop in second-year medicine because we were practising and playing on the weekend, and it didn't allow much time for study. But I still have my clarinet and my tenor sax. I ended up playing baritone at the end, so I have a baritone sax, too."

5. How was your experience at med school?

"I liked sports and stuff like that. We had a professor who was into rowing. I was on the first rowing team at Western. The next year, we won a few events. That was a very memorable thing. When I went through a degree in '57, it was a small class of 56 (students). Basically, we didn't have any money. We did a lot of things together. We were all the same status. It was a great time. I was back recently for my 50th reunion. I wasn't really sure I wanted to go back, because my wife died in September. Then my daughter said, 'Let's go back,' and she came with me."

6. How did you end up coming to Vancouver?

"When I was in medical school, one of my classmates, Jimmy Collyer, was a painter and wanted to come out for a summer. I got married and stayed here."

7. Where was your first practice?

"True story - when I first started out, I was going to be a surgeon. I was going to be a urologist, actually. I did two years of surgery and I ran out of money. The head of urology arranged for me to go into general practice. I liked general practice so much that I stayed for five years. Michael Smith was part of the practice. So was Julia Levy, the founder of QLT. That led me back to school and going into life sciences and biotechnology."

8. How did you wind up heading your own companies?

"(People) were testing out technologies called mammography and xerography. So three of us went down to Seattle and did some tests. We did eight or nine cases and went over to Victoria and asked (the provincial government) for $50,000 to continue our studies. They turned us down flat. So we broke up. Basically, I wanted to make my own decisions. There was no testing for breast cancer or anything like that. I was so depressed, because I thought mammography would be the wave of the future, and here the government had turned us down. I wanted to do something where I could control my own destiny."

9. How did Metro Labs get started?

"Whereas Cantest had four or five employees when we took it over in '73, Metro started from the ground up. We had no patients, no staff or anything. We were the staff initially when we started up in 1960. We were very fortunate in our choice of wives. One had some accounting experience. One had a little bit of lab experience, Mrs. Zvarsky (wife of Dr. Syd Zvarsky), so she did that, and my wife ended up being the housecleaner. That's a true story.

"The startup partners were Dr. Zvarsky, Dr. John Nixon and Dr. Al Patterson and then it was Dr. Earl Shepherd and myself. Patterson went off to a job in Alberta and Nixon went off to a job in Ontario. A couple of other doctors joined us for small amounts of equity and, in the '80s, MDS became involved as sort of a 50-50 partner. Then it became 75-25 and the other partners sold out and I bought their interests, so I was the 25. Basically, we existed like that and then there was a change in the board in MDS in Toronto and they decided to sell it. Borealis bought them out and myself out within the last two years. They bought all the labs that MDS had, so that includes us (in B.C.), Alberta, Manitoba, Toronto - they're quite large in Ontario - and Quebec. We didn't get $1.3 billion. I just want to be clear. (I had a stake) just in B.C.

I chair the (Life) Labs still. We have mainly B.C. people on the board, like Sue Paish (president and CEO of Pharmacare) and David Podmore, who is the (president and CEO) of Concert Properties (and chairman of B.C. Pavilion Corp., which oversees BC Place Stadium and the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre) and we have two or three from Toronto. I chair some other companies too, but (Cantest and Metro) are the two main ones."

10. How did you become an angel investor?

"It sort of developed. People would call me and say, 'You've got to see these two people. They've got a great idea.' I had some spending capital and gave them $50,000 and wrote a business plan. They'd get started with that."

11. What's your approach to angel investing?

"My approach is to see the people and get an idea of what they like to do. Nothing succeeds now unless it's world-class. It's got to be people who have a passion about what they do."

12. How would you define your role as an angel investor?

"Basically, I was interested in life sciences and biotechnology. When people came around and were looking for some seed capital to start up, I was the person that gave them $25,000- $50,000. Lately, my role has become more defined. I guess I zero in on some areas that I'm interested in. I'm well aware now that there are other people like myself that have supported startup companies in life sciences and stuff like that. When I started, there weren't many other people around. There was no niche or anything like that. Now, there is a small group of people that provide funds for life sciences like I do. (Angel investing) has become more defined and more organized."

13. What have you focused on?

"I try and zero in on things like genetics, because I think that's going to be a big future, and certain companies that are doing things in antibiotics, because we're running out of antibiotics.

"We're getting hospital-resistant bugs now, and the people who come along with new antibiotics are developing (antibiotics that conquer those bugs). Probably the last thing would be (cancer-treatment drugs). I guess Protox (Therapeutics Inc.) would be an example of that.

It's a spinoff of the University of Victoria. Basically, it has developed an enzyme that kills the capsule around the cancer cells in prostatic cancer and stuff like that."

14. What was your best investment?

"In all fairness, you can say it was the first one. I think QLT, in its heydays, was probably one of the best (companies developing treatments for macular degeneration).

My first investment was $25,000. I came home and told my wife about it. She turned and looked at me and said, 'We haven't even paid off the mortgage on this house and here you are spending our money.' Luckily, I did well. Julie (Dr. Julia Levy, the founder of QLT) was one of my patients when I was in general practice. That's how I found out about QLT. When they did their first financing, they talked to me about investing, so that was my first investment - of $25,000. I paid $1 a share. It went to over $100 a share. I sold out on the way up. I don't know what the multiple was. All I know is that it did very well."

15. What is your advice to people who want to start up a technology company today?

"The science has to be good. If it's not world-class, it won't win and it won't get a patent. They've got to have a reasonable business plan and, probably most important, they've got to be very passionate about what they're doing, because it's a hard road. If they're not willing to see it through the thick and the thin, they won't make it."

16. What do you view as your major accomplishments?

"In both cases (of Cantest and Metro), we computerized our labs.

I think we were at the forefront of that. Now, (computerization) doesn't mean that much. As a small company (computerizing) was a big piece of capital. In Metro, that was an expenditure of $1.2 million. But we paid it off. We did the same thing with Cantest. I knew that was the way things were going to go."

17. What motivates you?

"As I mentioned, I was a lab guy. I'm interested in analysing things and predicting things. Anybody in this field likes to think some good will come out of their efforts. We have done that."

18. What will be your mission as chairman of the Vancouver Board of Trade?

"My mission is to talk about science and technology and corporate philanthropy. I got an honourary degree from the University of Victoria (recently). My message to the students and the people that were there was about being a volunteer and being involved in your community. Business has a lot of skills and talents. If they put them all together, with a little bit of money, they can accomplish quite a bit. I think business has an obligation to the community. I hear about all the obligations to the shareholders to make a return, but I think they also have an obligation to the community - to get involved where they have their plant and stuff, and do things. My companies, generally, are all involved in the community one way or the other. Cantest has always participated with the United Way. We have a drive once a year for them. Half goes to the United Way and half goes to one or two charities that the staff pick themselves. Metro took on palliative care before people knew exactly what palliative care was and has really donated to palliative care around the province - and still does."

19. Do you shoot below your age in golf?

"Thank you! No! Actually, I used to play a lot of golf. I don't play so much now. I was off having some throat surgery, so I haven't played much for the last six or eight months."

20. If you weren't the chairman of Cantest anymore, what would you do?

"Before I got sick, I would end up doing something. After I got sick, probably, I wouldn't be as quick to take on some of the things I'm going to. Probably, the honest answer is, if I wasn't chairman of LifeLabs or Cantest, I would be doing more in life sciences or something in music. I would balance it out. I would be doing something more in venture capital and in biotechnology.

I'm quite interested in music.

I've chaired a music festival - the Vancouver Summer Music Festival. I've been on the board for eight years. It's been quite successful.".

Dr. Don Rix

* Title: Chairman, Cantest Labs Ltd.

* Born/raised/age: Orillia/77.

* Education: Rix obtained BA (1953) and medical degrees from the University of Western Ontario. He also earned a California State Board General Practice Certificate (1962) and a certificate in general pathology from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (1968).

* Family: Widower, one daughter, Laurie Rix, who sits on the Cantest board of directors.

* Career: After graduating from medical school, Rix completed two years of surgical training and went into general private practice in Vancouver. He later completed training in pathology, first worked in hospitals as a pathologist and then began private pathology practice, which he still operates. In 1959, while continuing his pathology practice, he and a group of other doctors launched Metropolitan (Metro) Labs, which is now part of LifeLabs. In the 1970s, Rix and his partners acquired Cantest, then a small startup firm, and expanded it nationally. While leading Metro and Cantest, Rix became an angel investor and helped start several other companies, including QLT Inc. He continues to serve as chairman of both Cantest and LifeLabs.

* Moonlighting: Rix is chairman of the University of Northern British Columbia. He recently began a one-year tenure as chairman of the Vancouver Board of Trade. He serves as chairman of the Canadian Medical Association's Parliament communications committee, chairman of the B.C. Medical Association's finance committee and member of the BCMA's staffing and pension committees. He is a member of various medical associations and has served numerous business, science, technology and educational organizations.

* Awards: Rix was named to the Order of Canada in 2007 and made an honorary UBC Sauder School of Business fellow. His other honours include the Queen's Golden Jubilee Award (2002) and Biotechnology Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award (2001).

* Passions: Labs, Winston Churchill books and paintings, music.

Cantest Labs Ltd.
*Brass: Don Rix, chairman; Don Enns, president and CEO.
*Profile: Founded in 1969, Cantest conducts environmental, food, water, drug and medical testing for individuals, industry and government.
*Stats: Cantest generated approximately $40 million in sales revenue last year and employs about 450 people.
*Structure: Cantest is a private company that is owned by its employees.
*Website: www.cantest.com
*HQ: 4606 Canada Way, Burnaby, B.C.,V5G 1K5
*Phone: (604) 734-7276
(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)