When you have a pan-Canadian mission, pan-Canadian leadership is everything.

Gordon McCauley was appointed President and CEO of adMare BioInnovations (previously known as CDRD) in 2017 after serving on the Board for four years. Mr. McCauley is an accomplished life science investor and executive.

He has served as President & CEO of Viable Healthworks Corp., a national healthcare service business; President and CEO of Allon Therapeutics Inc., a neuroscience biotechnology company that developed novel therapeutics from pre-clinical to global phase 3 studies before being sold; and Co-Founder and Partner of NDI Capital, an institutionally-backed life-science investment fund. Mr. McCauley has also been a senior executive of several successful health care enterprises and a senior advisor to several prominent Canadian political leaders.

Mr. McCauley has been a Director of a number of both private and publicly traded companies. Currently Mr. McCauley is a Director of adMare BioInnovations (and a number of its portfolio and subsidiary companies), BIOTECanada, Canada’s national biotech industry organization, and Chairman of the Board, CGen, Canada’s national genomics enterprise. Until recently, he was also a Director of LifeSciences British Columbia and served as its Chair from 2012 – 2015. In 2008 Mr. McCauley was the first Canadian appointed to the Board of The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in Washington D.C., where he served in leadership positions until 2013. He is Past Chair of Acetech, and was a founding Director of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Past Chair of the Toronto Rehab Foundation.

As Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Youssef Bennani is taking overall responsibility for the scientific direction of the organization and assisting Venture Partners and the Program Development and Partnership teams focus their efforts around areas of interest.

Dr. Youssef Bennani is currently Chairman of the Board of Domain Therapeutics (France & Canada), and is an independent Board member of Bellus Health (TSX:BLU). He has over 25 years experience in pharmaceutical R&D leadership and management serving most recently as Site Head and Vice President of R&D at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. Prior to this position, Dr. Bennani spent several years as Vice President Drug Innovation at Vertex’s Headquarters (Boston – MA). He has also held various positions of increasing responsibility in pharmaceutical R&D at Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Abbott Laboratories (now Abbvie) and Athersys. His experience spans multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, neurology, infection, inflammation and renal diseases.

Dr. Bennani has studied in chemistry (PhD, Université de Montréal), business (MBA, LFGSM – Chicago) and corporate governance (ICD.D, McGill-Rotman Schools of Business).

As Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Matthew Carlyle is taking responsibility for the overall leadership of the business functions including finance & accounting, legal, scale-up functions including the innovation centre and capital, operations, IT, and project management.

Mr. Carlyle brings extensive experience and relationships across global biotechnology and venture capital to adMare, having been a partner of a national venture capital firm, CFO of a publicly-traded biotech, and CFO of a number of private life sciences companies. Most recently, Mr. Carlyle was the Chief Financial Officer of Viable Healthworks Corp., and from 2004 to 2013, was Chief Financial Officer of Allon Therapeutics Inc. Previously, he served in Corporate Finance and Development roles for a number of public and private life science and technology companies and has been involved in raising approximately $200M. Mr. Carlyle is a founding Partner of NDI Capital, a private investment management company focused on investing in high potential life science and healthcare companies.

He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the Association for Investment Management and Research and the Vancouver Society of Financial Analysts.

Dr. Lana Janes is a biopharmaceutical industry veteran with over 20 years of pharmaceutical development experience that spans the full life cycle of therapeutic product development.

As Venture Partner, Dr. Lana Janes is working with adMare leadership to identify specific areas of strategic commercial opportunity, and then in partnership with other stakeholders, drive the building of a new company of scale that can develop those opportunities, and grow into a strong new anchor for Canada’s life science sector.

Most recently, Lana worked at QLT Inc. in Vancouver (now Novelion Therapeutics Inc.), where she held positions of increasing responsibility, and was a member of the executive management team for over 10 years. She most recently served as Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property and Technology Development and Chief Patent Officer, with leadership and oversight responsibilities for all R&D aspects of Novelion’s late stage ophthalmology orphan assets. Lana also has extensive experience in negotiating licensing, co-development, merger, acquisition, divestiture, and joint development transactions, and has conducted and lead extensive clinical diligence investigations into numerous technologies, devices and companies in the biotech/medical device space spanning numerous therapeutic areas.

Prior to joining QLT, Dr. Janes worked for several years as a registered patent agent (Canada and the US) in the Toronto offices of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, and Ogilvy Renault LLP (now Norton Rose Fulbright), and has also served as an in-house patent agent at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland, where her practice focused on the strategic development and protection of IP portfolios in the fields of pharmaceutical and biological products.

Lana also currently acts as Chief Operating Officer for the Seattle based biotech company, Retinagenix LLC, a privately held, clinical stage company committed to the development and commercialization of small molecule synthetic chromophore technologies discovered at the University of Washington for the treatment of progressive retinal diseases, and sits on the Boards of Directors for several entrepreneurial start-up biotechs in Vancouver, providing her with valuable experience and insight in strategically and cost-effectively advancing pre-IND stage and semi-virtual companies.

Lana received her AB in Chemistry with honours from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in organic chemistry with honours from McGill University, where she also conducted post-Doctoral work in the field of biological organic chemistry. She is an author of numerous scientific publications in the field of organic and medical chemistry and worked for several years as a synthetic organic chemist in the chemical and food industries in the US and UK.

Dr. McIntosh is a biotech R&D leader with 15+ years experience in the development and commercialization of innovative biological products and services for human health and agriculture. She has significant expertise in driving science and product development strategies, managing academic and industrial scientific collaborations, and intellectual property creation and management. Most recently, Laura was the Vice President R&D at Concentric AG where she was responsible for the science and IP strategy in the development of commercially viable microbial-based products for the soil microbiome. As Vice President, Translational Research at Caprion Biosciences, she was responsible for the scientific integrity and oversight of all client-based proteomics projects. She also co-led of a large public-private personalized medicine project in the province of Quebec. Laura has also held senior-level positions at Osprey Pharmaceuticals Ltd where she led the research and clinical trials of a platform of protein therapeutic drugs, and at ART Advanced Research Technologies where she was involved in the development and commercialization of an optical imaging device.

After completing her doctorate in human anatomy and cell biology at the University of Manitoba, Dr. McIntosh was awarded an NSERC post-doctoral fellowship at the National Research Council of Canada. Laura also holds a Master of Science in Human Anatomy and Cell Science from the University of Manitoba, and a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba. She has numerous peer reviewed publications in the fields of muscle regeneration, oncology, renal disease and biomarker identification.

As Vice President, Program Development and Partnerships, Dr. Azzi is leading adMare’s project identification and scientific and commercial evaluation process, ensuring a robust and strategically diverse pipeline for the organization.

With deep experience in corporate and business development, Dr. Azzi is working closely with adMare’s Venture Partners to build their portfolios through new program creation, asset identification and investment area development. In doing so, she is playing a key role in advancing adMare’s Mission to source therapeutically and commercially promising research from leading academic and biotech partners from across Canada to create and grow companies of scale.

Most recently Dr. Azzi was the Executive Global Vice President, Corporate Development (and previously Chief Business Officer) at Nexelis. Prior to Nexelis, Dr. Azzi was Director, Scientific Affairs at the NEOMED Institute, responsible for the identification and evaluation of new opportunities to complement NEOMED’s prospecting activities. Previously, she was Director of Programs at CQDM, where she was responsible for the evaluation and management of research projects and funding programs. She was also actively involved in business development activities with industry partners. She started her career as leader of the cellular biology group at Bellus Health (formerly Neurochem Inc.), where she was involved in the development of therapeutics targeting Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes.

Dr. Azzi holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) in Paris.

Dr. Dave Rogers joined adMare (previously known as CDRD) as its Intellectual Property Director in January, 2011.

He has been involved in biotech patent law, particularly US patent law, since completion of his graduate research work.  In 2000, he joined the San Francisco law firm of Flehr, Hohbach, Test, Albritton & Herbert LLP, which was later acquired by Dorsey and Whitney LLP. While working in San Francisco for Dorsey, he qualified as a patent agent before the US Patent and Trademark Office. In 2005, Dr. Rogers relocated to Dorsey’s Vancouver office, continuing to work closely with the San Francisco and Palo Alto offices to advise US and Canadian biotech clients on patent matters.

He has a background in biochemistry, chemistry, immunology, and neurobiology, and his IP experience includes patent drafting, patent prosecution, portfolio evaluation and development, patent analysis and opinion work (freedom to operate, invalidity, and non-infringement) and IP due diligence for licensing and financing.

Dr. Rogers received a PhD from the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University, and a JD from the University of British Columbia.

As adMare’s Vice President, People and Culture, Linda is responsible for leading the HR function, and working closely with the entire organization to continue to establish adMare as an employer of choice. She is also responsible for leading the adMare Academy, created to deliver on a critical part of the organization’s Mission: To uniquely train the next generation of highly-qualified personnel to drive the growth of Canadian companies into strong anchors.

Linda brings more than 20 years of international experience in human resources leadership (most notably throughout Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand), and has deep expertise in developing dynamic high-performing organizations, and building strong values-driven cultures. Most recently, she led human resources for a global healthcare organization where she was responsible for transforming it during a time of rapid growth (from 750 people in 6 markets to 3000 people in 40+ markets, more than 400% in six years). Throughout her career, Linda has built a track record of creating and implementing highly-successful people and culture strategies to drive high-performing, high-growth businesses with an emphasis on acquiring, developing, engaging and retaining top talent; and providing accelerated career opportunities.

Linda hold a B.A. from the University of British Columbia and an MBA in Organizational Development and Management Strategy from the Ivey Business School at Western University.

As Managing Partner, Investments, Frédéric is leading adMare’s investments and portfolio companies and brings more than 20 years experience in life sciences investment management.

He has extensive health sciences venture capital expertise through his prior involvement with Desjardins Venture Capital and CDP Capital – Technology Venture (Sofinov) where he was involved in both biopharmaceutical and medical device deals. At Sofinov, he was involved in investments such as NuVasive, Inhibitex, IntraLuminal Therapeutics, Acurian, and TransMedics. While at Desjardins, he showed significant leadership in the creation and management of a profitable early-stage health sciences investment portfolio that included, amongst others, BioAxone Therapeutics, Enobia Pharma, and Tranzyme.

In recent years, Frédéric was involved in project-based investments, as well as developing licensing and spin-off opportunities at MSBi Valorisation (now Aligo Innovation). He has served on the board of directors of many health sciences companies and has been involved on organizing committees of conferences such as MedTech North and AdvaMed.

Frédéric holds an MBA in Finance and International Management from HEC Montréal, a MSc in organic chemistry and a PhD in polymer physical chemistry, both from Université de Montréal.

As Senior Director, Communications & External Affairs, Mr. Gee brings more than 15 years of experience in public, media, government and stakeholder relations; communications and marketing; project management; and not-for-profit operations.

Prior to joining adMare, he spent 10 years as the Senior Director of Operations and Communications at LifeSciences BC, the not-for-profit industry association responsible for representing the province’s life sciences community, and for building the local, national and international partnerships it requires to flourish.

Mr. Gee began his career as a Communications Officer with the Canadian Forest Research Centre in Victoria. He subsequently joined the Science Council of British Columbia (now BCIC) administering their various funding programs for researchers and technology start-ups. He has participated on numerous advisory committees including the Executive Committee of the High Tech Communicators’ Exchange, the BIO International Steering Committee, and as a Founding Member of the Global Bioscience Partnership.

Mr. Gee completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, and he is also a graduate of the Leadership Vancouver Program, and From Lab to Leadership – Developing Scientific and Corporate Leaders. He has also been a Guest Lecturer with the University of British Columbia’s Career Services; Industry Mentor for the Student Biotechnology Network.

As Chief of Staff Ms Lonergan works closely with and supports the President and CEO in an execution capacity. Key responsibilities include supporting corporate development initiatives, strategic and organizational planning efforts, as well as developing and implementing an organizational evaluation strategy including corporate metrics/KPIs.

Kristy has 10+ years of experience in the commercialization of life sciences technologies with a demonstrated track record of success in a variety of roles across business development, strategic marketing, and product management. She is adept at conducting competitive analyses and developing business cases that enable data-driven decisions to support strategic direction, investments, partnerships, and product development opportunities, and has made significant contributions to the like at both CDRD and adMare. Prior to CDRD she held positions of increasing responsibility at STEMCELL Technologies, most recently managing a team of product marketing managers with accountabilities covering the company’s portfolio of cell culture products targeting academic, cell therapy, and drug discovery markets.

Kristy Lonergan holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Victoria, an MSc from McGill University in Neuroscience, and a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University.