The Accelerator program

brings early-stage ventures together to achieve essential milestones for the successful development and commercialization of therapeutics (Tx) in Canada.

Service Offerings

The Tx Accelerator focuses on early-stage biotherapeutic ventures with the potential for significant market impact.  The business plan and product development pathway are assessed for each venture to determine its particular needs through its participation in the Tx Accelerator program.  Upon agreement on the Tx Accelerator execution plan, adMare and MaRS (for Ontario ventures) will provide integrated services tailored to the business development plan needs as an investment in the venture.  Integrated services may include: 

  • Scientific and regulatory guidance for pre-clinical and clinical studies;
  • Coaching and expertise in various business development and
    IP strategy areas;
  • Access to advanced personalized trainings and team building;
  • Access to adMare community digital platform, C-suite executives, industry partners and investors;
  • Direct financial support for ventures to scale-up and complete growth-related projects;
  • Acceleration in the state-of-the-art and cost-effective facilities;
  • Access to state-of-the-art wet laboratory facilities and office space:

Eligibility

Applications for the adMare Tx Accelerator are accepted on a rolling basis, offering initial support for six months with an option to extend up to 18 months. High-priority ventures include those in therapeutics (e.g., immunology, oncology, neurology, metabolomics, etc.), Al/machine learning platforms for drug discovery and novel drug screen, discovery, and delivery platforms. Eligible ventures must be incorporated in Canada, at a pre-clinical stage, have sufficient funding, at least one dedicated team member, a patent or provisional patent, and a clear development inflection point within 24 months. adMare emphasizes equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.
 

Learn More About the Eligibility Criteria Here

Active Ventures

The adMare
Accelerator Advisors

Mounia Azzi

Mounia Azzi

Vice President, Corporate Development

As Vice President, Corporate Development, Dr. Mounia Azzi leads a team responsible for advancing adMare’s mission of building companies by developing partnerships with technology innovators and entrepreneurs⁠—namely academic researchers and emerging Canadian life sciences companies. This includes overseeing adMare’s project identification and scientific and commercial evaluation processes, as well as its public affairs and external communications functions.

Most recently, Mounia was the Executive Global Vice President, Corporate Development (and previously Chief Business Officer) at Nexelis. Prior to Nexelis, she was Director, Scientific Affairs at the NEOMED Institute, responsible for the identification and evaluation of new opportunities to complement NEOMED’s prospecting activities. Previously, Mounia 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. Mounia 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.

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

Youssef Bennani

Youssef Bennani

Chief Scientific Officer

As Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Youssef Bennani holds overall responsibility for the scientific direction of adMare, and assisting the Research and Development and Program Development and Partnership teams focus their efforts around areas of interest.

Youssef has a wealth of experience from project inception to clinical work, technology transfer, in-and-out licensing transactions with academic and corporate partners’ R&D units. His work has led to over twenty preclinical and clinical-stage NMEs, out-licensed partnerships; as well as contributions to approved medicines. His governance leadership has contributed to corporate strategy alignment, leading to corporate growth and to nine single-asset and technology spinoff companies.

In addition to his role at adMare, Youssef is currently Managing Partner, Fund III with CTI Life Sciences Fund. He previously served as Chairman of the Board of Domain Therapeutics from 2014-2023, and on the Bellus Health Board of Directors from 2017 until the company’s acquisition by GSK in 2023. 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, he spent several years as Vice President Drug Innovation at Vertex’s Headquarters (Boston – MA). Youssef 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.

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

Gordon C. McCauley

David Dean

Chief Business Development Officer, Canary Medical

David brings over 20 years of business development and company analysis experience and is currently the Chief Business Development Officer at Canary Medical, a private Vancouver based company focused on “smart” medical implants that have the potential to improve patient outcomes and clinical workflow at a lower cost to payors by using data, machine learning and AI to detect complications sooner than otherwise possible. Prior to Canary, David was the Chief Business Development Officer at Cardiome/Correvio (sold to Advanz Pharma) and prior, David spent well over a decade as a highly awarded sell-side analyst at the largest Canadian independent investment bank in Canada.

David’s experience is centered upon sourcing, identifying, analyzing, valuing, negotiating and then consummating transactions of all forms with Companies and Investors, including in and out-licensing, financings and M&A.

Gordon C. McCauley

Stephan Gauldie

Scientific Director, Managing Director, Head of Back Bay Canada

Stephan Gauldie is a founding member of Back Bay Life Science Advisors and head of Back Bay’s Canadian Operations. Dr. Gauldie helped build Back Bay’s integrated strategic advisory and investment banking offering for life science companies at every stage. Dr. Gauldie’s role emphasizes commercial assessment and forecasting, strategic franchise-building, M&A and licensing strategy, buy-side diligence, and exit planning with defensible, analysis-driven positioning for venture-backed companies. 

Dr. Gauldie is also a member of Back Bay’s investment banking team, providing forecasting, valuation, market, and scientific analytics in sell-side transactions, buy-side engagements, and financing support. 

He has more than 20 years of experience across drug development research, market analysis, and strategy consulting. Before joining Back Bay, Dr. Gauldie led the Commercial Research Group at Decision Resources. He was a Principal Analyst at Wood Mackenzie, leading teams that covered US and EU-based pharmaceutical companies, as well as CNS/Pain and Immunology therapeutic areas.

Gordon C. McCauley

Jacki Jenuth

Partner, Lumira

With over 20 years of life science, IT and business development executive-level experience, Jacki is a key member of the senior management team with responsibilities that include financial analysis, industry intelligence, proactive sourcing of deals, structuring deal terms and fund raising initiatives in North America. Jacki has a strong reputation for providing the focus, clarity and cohesion required to drive projects from efficient inception to effective completion.

Jacki focuses on early stage companies developing new therapeutic drugs in a variety of indications and also within the digital health health space. In addition to her investment activities, Jacki also directs all aspects of Lumira Ventures’ information technology initiatives having developed a world class venture capital analytics platform.

Jacki has published several scientific articles and two book chapters, and is the recipient of three major academic research awards.

Frédéric Lemaître Auger

Frédéric Lemaître Auger

Vice President, Investments

As Vice President, Investments, Dr. Frédéric Lemaître Auger leads adMare’s investments and manages its portfolio companies. He brings more than 20 years experience in life sciences investment management, including extensive health sciences venture capital expertise gained through his prior involvement with Accel-Rx, Desjardins Venture Capital, and CDP Capital – Technology Venture (Sofinov), where he was involved in both biopharmaceutical and medical device deals. In his career, Frédéric was also engaged in project-based investments, as well as developing licensing and spin-off opportunities at MSBi Valorisation (now Axelys). He currently serves on the board of directors of Find Therapeutics, KalGene and Specific Biologics. Notable exits include Inhibitex, Enobia Pharma, Tranzyme and Inversago.

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.

Joseph Mancini

Joseph Mancini

Vice President, Research 

As Vice President, Research, Dr. Joseph Mancini plays a central role in leading adMare’s R&D team and the strategic development and advancement of adMare’s pipeline of drug development projects to support the building of strong Canadian life sciences companies. Joe brings more than 30 years of experience in drug discovery to the role, and is responsible for overseeing the biology and pharmacology efforts at both adMare’s Montreal and Vancouver Innovation Centres.

Prior to joining adMare in 2020, Joe spent 20 years at Merck, a leading global biopharmaceutical company, where he was responsible for developing novel therapies to treat inflammation, diabetes, and obesity – including being key in the discovery of VioxxTM and ArcoxiaTM, and the Biology Lead for a PDE4-inhibitor for Asthma, and for four INDs and human proof-of-concept trials.

Following his tenure at Merck, Joe joined Vertex Pharmaceuticals where, as Head of Pharmacology and Biology Project Leader, he led the Pharmacology group and a team that developed a therapy to treat Crohn’s disease (licensed to Takeda), as well as initiated new programs in ADPKD and a rare muscular disease.

Joe has been an Adjunct Professor at one of Canada’s top research universities, Montreal’s McGill, since 2000, and is credited with 94 publications and seven patents. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from McGill University.

Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers

Vice President, Intellectual Property & Legal Affairs

Dr. Dave Rogers joined adMare (then 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, Dave 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.

Dave 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.

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

Gordon C. McCauley

Florence Rozen

Scientific Director, Private Equity and Impact Investing, Fonds de solidarité FTQ

Florence Rozen is the Scientific Director, Private Equity and Impact Investing with the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, a labour sponsored/development capital fund based in Montreal. There since 2009, she is responsible for scientific due diligence for all potential investment opportunities within the Fonds’ life science group. She is also responsible for monitoring the group’s biotech company portfolio, which covers areas such as oncology, rare diseases, as well as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, all in different stages of development. Prior to her 24 years in the venture capital industry (including the seed financing arm of MDS Capital where she held similar responsibilities), she has done research in the fields of endocrinology and oncology. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from McGill University.

 The Mars-adMare
Accelerator Experts

Gordon C. McCauley

Zain Kassam

Founder, ZK Consulting

Dr. Zain Kassam is an entrepreneur, investor, senior biotechnology executive, and physician-scientist at the intersection of medicine, biological engineering, and computer science. He co-founded and led a healthcare company, OpenBiome, that scaled to become a national supplier, at peak delivering life-saving treatments to over 10,000 patients per year with ~$15M annual revenue. Dr. Kassam co-founded and built a first-in-field biotechnology company, Finch Therapeutics, that resulted in an upsized IPO on the NASDAQ with peak market capitalization of $1B and secured leading pharmaceutical partnerships for AI-enabled drug discovery. He has led Phase I-III clinical trials with top-tier academic collaborators across multiple therapeutic areas. Dr. Kassam is a mentor at Creative Destruction Labs, an investment committee member of the UCeed Health and Child Health Funds, and a steering committee member of the national MaRS-adMare Therapeutic Accelerator. He has experience with diverse technologies serving on the Board or as an advisor to venture capital firms, foundations, and private healthcare companies.

Dr. Kassam received the 2020 Public Health Innovator Award from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and was named to the prestigious Top 40 under 40 Healthcare Innovator List by MedTech (2016). He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, including in leading journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, and Gastroenterology. Dr. Kassam is an inventor on over 15 patent applications or patents. He has been featured on PBS, CNN, BBC, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and numerous other media outlets. Dr. Kassam was the previous Co-Chair of the CMO Summit 360 Summit (2019-2021) which brings together 70+ CMOs from around the globe.

Gordon C. McCauley

Stefan Larson

Partner, Sectoral Asset Management

Stefan joined Sectoral in 2018 as Partner and is responsible for the company’s venture capital group. Stefan is a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Also, he serves as a director on the boards of Pipeline Therapeutics, Prilenia Therapeutics, Amolyt Pharma, Apnimed and Turnstone Biologics.

Stefan graduated in 1997 from McGill University with a B.Sc. in Biology, and in 1999 from University of Toronto with an M.Sc. in Molecular and Medical Genetics. He completed his Ph.D. in Biophysics at Stanford University in 2004.

Prior to joining Sectoral, he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and later Venture Partner with Versant Ventures, where he led the establishment of their Toronto-based Discovery Engine and was the founding CEO of Northern Biologics. He was also a cofounder of two medical device companies: Perimeter Medical Imaging, and Tornado Spectral Systems. He began his career at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco and Toronto.

Gordon C. McCauley

Parimal Nathwani

President and CEO, TIAP

Parimal Nathwani has over 15 years of experience in various aspects of the biotechnology industry including corporate finance, business development, transactions, intellectual property management, technology development and operations. He has been actively involved in forming and managing start-ups, preparing and executing on business plans, raising early-stage capital and in- and out-licensing activities.

Before joining Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners, Parimal was a healthcare analyst with a boutique investment bank, where he conducted equity research on publicly-traded biotechnology companies in Canada and the U.S. He has also led commercialization activities out of BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital as part of his role at the University of British Columbia’s Industry Liaison Office, and was a research scientist at a start-up biotechnology company involved in drug discovery targeting ABC Transporters.

Parimal received his MBA from Simon Fraser University and his M.Sc. from the University of British Columbia.  He currently sits on the boards of TRIUMF Innovations, Zucara Therapeutics, Cohesys Inc. and Vasomune Therapeutics and is an observer on the board of Encycle Therapeutics.

Gordon C. McCauley

Maura Campbell

President & CEO, OBIO®

Dr. Maura Campbell is the President and CEO of the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO®), a not-for-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to advancing health technology innovation and commercialization. Dr. Campbell has more than 30 years of experience in all key areas of biotech, including private and public companies, universities and research institutes, and government-funded public sector research organizations.

With expertise in technology transfer and commercialization of intellectual property, Dr. Campbell has held various roles in senior management, most recently as the Vice-President of Intellectual Property and Contracts for Turnstone Biologics, which recently went public on the NASDAQ. She played a significant role in the company’s seed and Series A, B, C, and D financing, as well as the execution of two large pharma-licensing deals with AbbVie Inc. and Takeda Pharmaceuticals International Co. raising over $450 million (U.S.) for Turnstone. Previously, Dr. Campbell served as Director, Intellectual Property at VBI Vaccines. Among the various roles she held in her career are Senior Research Program Manager, and Manager of Technology Transfer & Commercialization at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Director of Intellectual Property for PainCeptor Pharma Corporation, and Manager of Technology Transfer at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems National Centre of Excellence. Dr. Campbell has also served as an IP consultant to a number of Canadian start-ups including Neurochem, Conjuchem, Aonix, AMRIC and Sussex Research Labs.

Richard Bozzato

Senior Advisor for Health Ventures, MaRS Discovery District

Richard Bozzato is a Senior Advisor for Health Ventures with MaRS Discovery District focussing on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.  He has over 25 years of experience as a biopharmaceutical industry executive, having led the development of innovative drugs, biologics, medical devices and combination products in several therapeutic areas, including metabolic diseases, regenerative medicine, haematology and in addiction and substance abuse.

Holding positions of CSO and COO, Richard has overseen all aspects of the drug discovery and development process, from basic research, non-clinical safety and toxicology, and clinical research to chemistry, manufacturing and regulatory submissions in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has extensive experience in the management of intellectual property portfolios, having successfully defended against office actions and competitor interference.

Our facilities

Tx Accelerator provides office and lab spaces at two adMare locations, Montreal and Vancouver, and in partnership with MaRS in Toronto. Access to basic and specialized equipment is provided at each site.

Launched in 2020, the Pilot Accelerator Program helped six early-stage ventures succeed.

Watch the video to hear their experience.

Learn more about
the Pilot program

video-image

News from our
Tx Accelerator

June 11 2024

adMare Academy Opens Applications for Cohort VII of its Executive Institute 

May 21 2024

adMare BioInnovations Welcomes Five New Start-Ups in the National Tx Accelerator 

Get in touch today

For additional information, please contact:

Clara Ducord

Manager, National Accelerator
cducord@admarebio.com