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

Gordon McCauley, BA, MBA, ICD.D was appointed President and CEO of adMare BioInnovations in 2016 after serving on the Board for four years. Mr. McCauley is an accomplished life science investor and executive.

He has served as President and CEO of Viable Healthworks Corp., a national healthcare service business; Allon Therapeutics Inc., a neuroscience biotechnology company that developed novel therapeutics from pre-clinical to global phase 3 studies before being sold; and as 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 healthcare enterprises, and a senior advisor to several prominent Canadian political leaders.

Mr. McCauley has served as a Director of a number of private and publicly traded companies. Currently, he is a Director of adMare (and a number of its portfolio and subsidiary companies), BIOVECTRA a leading Canadian biotech and pharmaceutical CDMO, Chairs the Board of both BIOTECanada, Canada’s national biotechnology industry organization, and CGEn, Canada’s national genomics enterprise, and is a Director of Montréal InVivo. Mr. McCauley has previously served as Chair of Life Sciences British Columbia, Acetech, The Toronto Rehab Foundation, and was a founding Director of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. 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.

Gordon earned a BA in Political Science from McMaster University, an MBA (with Honours) from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and holds the ICD.D certification from the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto.

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.

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 leads a team that is playing a key role in advancing adMare’s mission to build the Canadian life sciences industry by partnering with and investing in technology innovators and entrepreneurs – namely academic researchers and emerging Canadian life sciences companies.

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 Vice President, People and Culture, Sarah is leading the people strategy, programs, and initiatives.  She brings a wealth of knowledge from over 20 years’ experience in leadership roles in Human Resources. Driven by curiosity and possibility, Sarah believes that an inclusive and purpose driven culture enables teams to deliver on strategic objectives while creating a positive employee experience.  She is a strong advocate for leadership and capability development programs that build talent and foster a continuous growth mindset, and is a lifelong learner, herself.

Prior to joining adMare, Sarah held leadership positions at the Vancouver Airport Authority and TELUS Communications where she had accountabilities in organizational development, diversity, inclusion & belonging, change management, labour relations, total rewards, talent acquisition and employee well-being.

Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Victoria, as well as a certificate in Labour Relations from Queens University and Executive Leadership Development from the University of Toronto.

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.