The new hub will give office space to small companies looking to collaborate and discuss the challenges of selling to government health systems. Intellijoint makes cameras and sensors for measurement and observation during surgery. (The Record)

Talking point: Intellijoint is familiar with medical technology accelerators, having been a client of Canada’s largest one: MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. The MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund also invested in the firm. Kitchener-Waterloo’s medical technology subsector is a growing rival to Toronto’s, and global giants are moving in In April, my colleague Jessica reported on lab equipment maker PerkinElmer providing $2 million for testing devices at a new lab at the University of Waterloo’s Velocity Garage incubator. Local tech leaders like Murray Gamble, an investor and mentor, have called for an accelerator to allow small firms to learn how to navigate government procurement from each other. Those are hurdles Intellijoint itself has faced, and overcome—the company had $10 million in revenue in 2018. Its CEO, Armen Bakirtzian, is also a member of the Health/Bio-sciences Economic Strategy Table, which advises Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, allowing him to raise the concerns of the region’s medical technology startups that arise at the accelerator to the government.