Innovation, culture, OneLight, and what comes next for the Bionix + ADCO partnership
Earlier this year, the ADCO team had the opportunity to spend time onsite with Bionix in Ohio. We met the team, toured the facility, talked about where the partnership could go next—and even made time for a Toledo Mud Hens baseball game.
But one of the stories that stuck with us had nothing to do with products.
Chris Becker recently celebrated 25 years with Bionix. He started with the company as an intern while completing his MBA and ultimately became President and CEO. When Chris arrived at work on his 25th anniversary, the Bionix team surprised him by wearing T-shirts featuring a photo of a much younger Chris. He had no idea it was coming.
That story says quite a bit about the culture we experienced during our visit.
So, for our first ADCO Asks, we thought we'd start there.
Abby: Chris, when we visited Bionix in June, we got to meet the team, tour the facility and spend some time together outside of work at a Mud Hens game. One of my favorite stories was learning how the team surprised you for your 25th anniversary with T-shirts featuring your picture. You apparently had no idea it was coming. What was that day like?
Chris: It was a complete surprise. I walked in the front door and started talking with Leanne at the front desk, like I do most mornings, and noticed she was wearing a shirt with my face on it. I asked her what she was wearing. She just smiled and said, “What? Do you like my shirt?”
Then I walked into the lunchroom and saw two more employees wearing the same shirt. That's when I knew something was up. By the time I got to my office, I realized the entire company was in on it. Every single person was wearing a shirt with a picture of this skinny young kid on it.
It was especially meaningful because that picture represented where this journey started. I joined Bionix as an intern while I was finishing my MBA. Twenty-five years later, I was walking into the same company as CEO and seeing the entire team celebrating that milestone with me. We took a group photo in front of the company logo.
More than anything, it reminded me how fortunate I am to be part of the Bionix family and the culture we've built here.
Abby: That's one of the things that stood out to us during our visit—the culture felt very genuine. You've experienced Bionix from intern all the way to CEO. How has growing up professionally inside the company influenced the way you lead it?
Chris: I like to tell people I was born and raised by Bionix. It's always been a family-style, culture-first company. Our founders built it on a simple idea: take care of the employees, and the employees take care of each other, the organization, our customers and our partners.
A smaller company also lets you experience a lot of different things and learn along the way. You're constantly growing, but you're growing within that culture. That, and the people, is a big part of why I've stayed for more than 25 years.
Having that history gives me an appreciation for what made Bionix successful in the first place. There are things you want to change as an organization grows, and there are things you absolutely don't want to lose. For us, that's our culture and our focus on solving real problems for clinicians.
We've become more disciplined in how we operate and grow, and I want to keep raising the bar for what we can achieve as a team. But the goal isn't change for the sake of change. It's to keep that tight family atmosphere while adding a culture of success and striving for more.
Abby: One phrase that comes up frequently when Bionix talks about product development is clinician-driven innovation. What does that actually mean?
Chris: It's a foundation of how Bionix has always innovated, and it starts with identifying a problem.
One of our founders, Dr. Jim Huttner, was a practicing pediatrician in Toledo for 25 years. He had a very inventive mind. Two or three days a week, he would come into Bionix and lead our product development team, constantly bringing us procedural problems that he and the clinicians in his office ran into every day.
We built a team around that model. We take a real procedural problem, develop a solution, and test it with other clinicians to make sure it works for practices well beyond his. Sometimes we find clinicians creating their own makeshift solutions because the right tool doesn't exist. That's a strong signal.
And innovation doesn't have to mean a complicated or highly technical product. Sometimes a relatively simple innovation can have a significant impact on a procedure performed every day.
Abby: Where do those ideas come from? Is Bionix primarily developing them internally, or are clinicians bringing problems to you?
Chris: Both, and that has evolved. Over time, more and more clinicians started coming to us with ideas because they knew that's the kind of company we are. We've developed a number of those ideas alongside the clinicians who brought them and shared in the success of their original ideas.
We've also built tech transfer relationships with larger institutions, which give us access to ideas from their clinical staff. Today we evaluate five to 10 new ideas every month. Some come from inside our own team, and there's always a group coming from clinicians and customers in our markets.
Listening to the people performing these procedures helps us understand where meaningful problems still need to be solved.
Abby: That's a good transition to OneLight. When we toured the facility in June, we had an opportunity to see firsthand how Bionix thinks about product development and manufacturing. What problem were you trying to solve when OneLight began?
Chris: It started with customer feedback. Ever since we launched the Lighted Ear Curette in 2004, clinicians have told us they love it, and one request kept coming up: “I wish I could recharge it,” so they didn't have to throw away the light source once it lost power.
So we set out to build a rechargeable light source. Once we had it, the question became how to build a strategy around it that would bring the most value to our customers. Our sales leader suggested we look at what DeWalt did in the mid-'90s: one battery and charger, with a whole platform of tools built on top of it. The light bulb went off.
We made the new Rechargeable Light Source the foundation of a platform of lighted tools that bring light and magnification to procedures clinicians perform every day, from ear curettage and foreign-body removal to procedures in the nose and throat. Instead of treating illumination as a separate solution for each product, we had the foundation for a platform rather than just another individual device.
Abby: Why does that platform approach matter to the clinician?
Chris: It's really about procedural readiness. Having the right instrument is important, but that's only one part of successfully performing a procedure.
Start with training. Once your team learns the Rechargeable Light Source and understands the value of light and magnification, that applies across every product in the platform. Clinicians can move from tool to tool and procedure to procedure within a platform they already know and trust. So when they walk into the exam room, they walk in confident.
It also simplifies supply. Teams can get the tools for multiple procedures from one partner they've known for more than 40 years, backed by a robust U.S. supply chain, so the product is there when they need it.
And a common platform lets us think about visualization, tools, workflow and consistency together, instead of looking at each product on its own.
Abby: OneLight now extends into microsuction. What does integrating illumination directly into the procedure change?
Chris: That's exactly the kind of value we're trying to create with OneLight, and microsuction is a great example. Visualization is extremely important when you're working in the ear canal. With cerumen removal, foreign-body retrieval and microsuction, the clinician is trying to maintain visualization while also managing the instrument and the patient.
When light and magnification are built into the tool itself, the clinician is working under direct visualization, which allows for greater precision. It also simplifies the workflow by reducing the complexity of managing separate components, so the clinician can perform the procedure efficiently and confidently.
Abby: Should our customers think about OneLight as a product—or as an ecosystem Bionix intends to continue building?
Chris: Absolutely as an ecosystem. That's where we're taking OneLight. The common rechargeable light source is the foundation, and we're building around it to support our customers before, during and after every procedure.
Our new ReadyHub is a good example. It's a home station for a team's OneLight inventory, so there's one place to verify what's on hand and gather everything needed for a procedure. Before the procedure, anyone on the clinical team can access our clinical education there, along with Procedure Preparation Cards that show, in pictures, every component needed for a given procedure. A tray carries those devices in and out of the procedure room. After the procedure, the ReadyHub provides ICD-10 and CPT code references, so whoever handles billing has them at their fingertips.
From there, we'll keep listening to clinicians, identifying additional procedural challenges, and finding where the platform can grow next.
Abby: One of the things ADCO has been emphasizing is that introducing a new clinical solution can't simply be about selling another product. Education has to come with it. How important is training when you're asking a clinical team to consider a new approach?
Chris: It's extremely important, and that's why we built it into the OneLight platform from day one. The product is only part of the equation. Teams need to understand how the tool fits into the procedure and their existing workflow and we recently developed a quick survey to help determine how ready your team is for the next procedure.
We partnered with an audiology group to create clinical education that's built by chapter. A team can watch the chapter for the tool they're using, or the full course to be ready for any product in the platform. It covers not just how to use the products, but tips and techniques for the procedure itself. That matters with something like cerumen management, where clinicians have different techniques available and the right approach depends on the patient, the clinical situation and the team's protocols.
We hear the same thing from supply chain leaders at the system level. When they standardize on OneLight and add it to formulary, they want to know we'll be there to train clinical staff at every location. So we support them all the way through implementation at each of their physician offices.
Abby: That's exactly why we're expanding the CEU component of our partnership. Rather than starting with, “Here's a product we'd like you to buy,” we can start with, “Here's something we'd like to teach your team.”
Chris: I think that's a much stronger way to approach it.
If education helps a clinician understand a procedure, evaluate different approaches and become more confident in determining what makes sense for their practice, then we've provided value regardless of where the product discussion ultimately goes.
And when a particular Bionix solution does make sense, the team already understands the clinical context around it.
Abby: Let's talk about our partnership. Bionix has many choices when it comes to distribution partners. What makes the Bionix–ADCO relationship valuable, particularly in the federal market?
Chris: It always starts with people. In any partnership, we ask whether we have the right people sitting across from us and next to us, and we absolutely have that with ADCO. We share goals for what we're trying to accomplish, and for the kinds of products and value we want to bring to the federal marketplace.
Federal healthcare requires more than simply having a product available. ADCO has a very talented team that understands the VA and DoD environment, contracting, the purchasing pathways and many of the stakeholders involved in getting a product from clinical interest to implementation. They've helped us navigate that market and provided real leadership in it.
Combining Bionix's product and clinical expertise with ADCO's understanding of federal healthcare gives us an opportunity to provide customers with more complete support.
Abby: That's important to us because we don't want ADCO's job to end when we put something on a contract. Where can we remove friction beyond simply making the product available?
Chris: One of the challenges in healthcare is that the clinician interested in a product isn't necessarily the person responsible for purchasing it.
The clinician may need education, product information and clinical support. The purchasing team needs accurate item information, pricing and an appropriate purchasing path.
A partner that can help connect those pieces can make the process much easier for the facility.
Abby: That's probably one of the most common questions we hear from federal customers: “I want the product. How do I buy it?”
For someone at a VA or DoD facility who doesn't know which contract or purchasing pathway applies, where should they start?
Chris: Start with ADCO.
The purchasing route can depend on the facility, the product and its current contract availability. Customers shouldn't have to become government-contract experts just to determine how to obtain a clinical product.
ADCO can help identify the appropriate path.
Abby: That's also why we're careful about saying that a manufacturer is simply “on contract.” ADCO supports purchasing through routes including MSPV, DAPA, FSS and ECAT, but the individual product still has to be verified.
Chris: Exactly.
The important thing is giving the customer accurate information for the specific item they're trying to purchase.
Contract participation doesn't necessarily mean every product is available through every purchasing route. Verifying the individual item before the purchasing process begins can prevent unnecessary confusion.
Abby: What information should someone send us?
Chris: Keep it simple: your facility, the product you're interested in and, if you know it, the purchasing route your facility normally uses.
Then ADCO can help determine the next step.
Abby: I want to end with education because we're already beginning to plan ADCO's 2027 onsite CEU calendar.
If you could ask the clinicians reading this one question, what would you want to know?
Chris: I'd ask: What do you want to learn?
Where are the clinical challenges? What procedures would your team like to become more comfortable performing? Where would additional education help?
Those conversations are valuable because they tell both Bionix and ADCO where clinicians see unmet needs—and sometimes those conversations can lead to ideas that go well beyond education.
Abby: I love that, because it's exactly what we want to ask our customers.
What should ADCO teach next?
We're scheduling onsite CEU programs for 2027, and we want our customers to help shape the calendar.
Maybe it's cerumen management. Maybe there's a particular Bionix product or procedure you'd like your team to better understand. Or maybe there's another product category—or even a federal contracting topic—you think could become a useful CEU.
Tell us.
And if your question is much simpler—“How do I purchase this Bionix product?”—tell us that too.
Ask ADCO
Request a 2027 onsite CEU
Tell us what your team wants to learn.
Suggest our next CEU topic
Product, procedure, workflow or federal contracting—we want your ideas.
Ask about a Bionix product
Tell us your facility and the product. ADCO can help verify the current purchasing pathway.
ADCO Asks is a recurring conversation with the manufacturers, clinicians and industry experts helping ADCO better serve healthcare professionals and federal customers.