adMare

Paul Buron

Chair of the Board, Former Executive Vice President, Government Mandate and Programs Management, Investissement Québec

Paul Buron has more than 30 years experience in financial management, risk management and business strategies, including as the Executive Vice-President, Government Mandates and Programs Management at Investissement Québec from 2017 to 2019, where he coordinated the full range of mandates, financial programs and tax measures administered by the organization on behalf of the Government of Québec through the Economic Development Fund (EDF).

From 2006 to 2017, Paul served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). Until 2016, he was also in charge of risk management for BDC. In 2011-2012, he held the post of Interim Executive Vice President, Financing and Consulting in addition to his other responsibilities.

Before joining the BDC team, Paul was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of TVA Group from 2000 to 2006. In that capacity, he was in charge of television operations and regional stations, IT services, investor relations and human resources.

He is Chairman of the Board of Oxfam-Québec, and is a member of the boards of Flying Whales inc, Kraft Nordic and Pliteq inc.

He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from HEC Montréal, and was a member of the Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec (CPA) for more than 30 years.

Theresa Firestone

Vice Chair of the Board, Director, Orion Biotechnology

Theresa Firestone is a global healthcare executive with over 35 years experience in retail, pharmaceuticals, health & wellness and government. Theresa is an accomplished business leader and has held senior leadership positions in Canada, Europe and Asia and led teams in 15 different countries.  Prior to retirement in 2021 Theresa was Senior Vice President, Health and Wellness at Shoppers Drug Mart (SDM), Canada’s largest retail pharmacy chain. Theresa was responsible for leading the company’s health and wellness initiatives including developing new growth strategies, the development and launch of the Health Clinics by Shoppers, dietitian services, pharmacy services including vaccines and the recently launched PC Health App.  Theresa was also responsible for leading several Shoppers businesses including MediSystem Pharmacies, Specialty Health Network, Sanis Health (a generic company owned and operated by SDM), 43 corporately owned Wellwise retail outlets, Medical Cannabis and the Beauty Clinic by Shoppers.  She has extensive P&L, strategy development and operations experience. 

Prior to joining Shoppers Drug Mart, Theresa was Regional President of Emerging Markets Asia with Pfizer Inc (Shanghai and HK) and had responsibility for a P&L of $1.4B and 13 countries in Asia.    

Theresa is currently a board member with Cybin Inc. (NEO:CYBN, NYSE: Cybin), , Aurora Cannabis Inc. (NASDAQ: ACB, TSX: ACB) and Orion Biotechnology.  She was a Corporate Director for Merus Labs International (TSE: MSL) from 2014-17 and has held board positions with several not-for-profit and industry organizations.     

Meena Ballantyne

Former Deputy Minister, Status of Women Canada

Meena Ballantyne has had a successful career in the federal Public Service of Canada where she held numerous senior positions, including Assistant Deputy Minister and Deputy Minister, Status of Women Canada. As the Assistant Deputy Minister of Health Products and Food Branch at Health Canada, she led the regulatory branch dealing with prescription drugs, biologics, medical devices and natural health products. She also served as Assistant Secretary for Social Development at the Privy Council of Canada where she provided advice to the Prime Minister and Clerk of the Privy Council on issues relating to health, immigration and criminal justice reforms. Meena holds a Director designation in corporate governance from the Institute of Corporate Directors and currently serves on the boards of the Renfrew Hospital, World Wildlife Fund and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Helen Burt

Professor Emeritus, UBC

A founding scientist of adMare’s predecessor, The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Dr. Helen Burt has had an esteemed career as Professor of Drug Delivery in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Between 2011 to 2021, she served as Associate Vice President, Research & Innovation and interim Vice President Research at UBC for a one-year period.

Her major research efforts have been supported by grants from CIHR and NSERC, and involve the development of polymer-based drug delivery systems for controlled and localized drug delivery. She has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers and holds eight patents.

Helen has been the recipient of several teaching prizes and research awards, including the UBC Killam Teaching Prize and Killam Faculty Research Prize, NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation, CSPS Award of Leadership in Canadian Pharmaceutical Sciences,  the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award for Science, Research and Technology, the LifeSciences British Columbia Lifetime Achievement Award and the Julia Levy Award for Innovation.

Helen is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. 

She obtained her B. Pharm. (Hons) from the University of Bath and her PhD in Pharmaceutics from UBC.

Patricia Gauthier

President and General Manager, Moderna Canada

Patricia Gauthier joined Moderna in 2020 as President, General Manager to set up and lead Moderna’s Canadian organization. Previously, Patricia Gauthier spent 12 years with GSK, where her roles included Head of Vaccines Business and Head of Government Affairs and Market Access.

Patricia Gauthier has lived in the United States, Singapore and France, and in London while working as a lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault. In addition to her legal studies, Patricia Gauthier holds an MBA from HEC Montreal and certifications in Strategic Negotiation from Harvard Business School and Leadership in Context from IMD. She is involved in rethinking innovation and inspiring leadership, including with the Creative Destruction Lab, and was a board member of NEOMED from 2015-2019, which fosters commercial opportunities for biotechnology innovations.

Nancy Harrison

Venture Partner, Amplitude Venture Capital

Nancy Harrison is former co-founder and the past President of MSI Methylation Sciences, a private venture-backed development company with a novel treatment of depression in Phase II development. She is a former Partner and Senior Vice President of Ventures West Management Inc.

During her tenure with Ventures West, the life sciences portfolio grew from 0% of the overall investment portfolio to approximately 30% of investments. The firm grew from about $90 million to about $750 million under management in eight historical funds. Nancy participated in over 30 investments over her time at the firm, and specialized in helping Canadian life sciences companies raise Series B rounds through accessing US venture capital funds. Some of these investments include companies such as Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., AnorMed, Inc, Caprion Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celator Technologies Inc., Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Salmedix Inc., Sembiosys Genetics Inc., and many other biotechnology firms while with Ventures West.

Nancy has served as Chair of Life Sciences BC, and Board member of NRC IRAP, Presentation House as well as other not-for-profit organizations. She has won The Canadian Caldwell Partners 40 Under 40 Award for outstanding young business professionals and Business in Vancouver’s Top 40 Under 40 award for young entrepreneurs, professionals, and executives.

She holds an MBA from McGill University and a BSc in Geophysical Engineering from Queen’s University.

Gordon C. McCauley

President & CEO, adMare BioInnovations

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

Gordon 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. He has also been a senior executive of several successful healthcare enterprises, and a senior advisor to several prominent Canadian political leaders.

Gordon 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. He has previously served as Chair of Life Sciences British Columbia, Acetech, The Toronto Rehab Foundation. Gordon 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.

Travis McCready

Head of Life Sciences, Industries Americas, Jones Lang LaSalle

Travis McCready is the head of life sciences markets in the Americas for JLL, one of the largest commercial real estate advisories in the world.  In this capacity, he leads a multi-country platform that includes brokerage, capital markets, project management, consulting & advisory, and valuation services for life sciences companies, developers and investors.  He is also a member of the firm's Innovation Districts Practice, helping plan, build and finance innovation districts all over North America. 

Travis has over 25 years of experience leading public, private, and nonprofit ventures with a focus on technology and innovation based economic development.  The former President & CEO of the $1.6 billion life sciences funding agency Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, Travis is passionate about supporting tech-based entrepreneurship and is a frequent speaker on the evolving role of technology-based economic development at the community and regional level.  He remains active in the life sciences community serving on the boards of the global business accelerator MassChallenge, the global life sciences business enabler Nucleate, and Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston.  He also serves in advisory capacities at Harvard University, MIT, and Johns Hopkins University.  No stranger to public service, Travis has served on the Economic Development Planning Council under three Massachusetts governors, has been appointed to state and national initiatives ranging from the arts to advanced manufacturing.  

Travis received his B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and J.D. from the University of Iowa. 

Laurence Rulleau

Managing Partner, CTI Life Sciences

Dr. Terrisse-Rulleau brings 25 years of experience in investing in life sciences and building companies in the sector. Dr Laurence Terrisse Rulleau has been a partner with the CTI Life Sciences fund since 2014 where she has played a key role in the fund's investments but more specifically in the creation of 5 new companies in Quebec: Dalcor, a spin-off of the Montreal Heart Institute; Ilkos, a spin-off of Servier, Precithera based on innovative science, Find Therapeutics, which developed a new remyelinating compound and more recently Epitopea, a spin-off of IRIC developing new cryptic antigens. 

Dr. Rulleau also led the investment in Profound Medical and was an observer on the board of Directors of Visterra, a Boston-based biotechnology company acquired in August 2018 by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals.

Prior to joining CTI LSF II, Laurence served as Vice-President Business Development at Univalor where she oversaw the licensing of 55 compounds to the industry and created 8 spin-off companies. Prior to Univalor, she served as a life sciences analyst covering the Canadian life sciences sector for more than 10 years and was involved in numerous mergers and acquisitions as well as IPOs. Dr. Rulleau was ranked Canada's leading life sciences analyst by the Starmine survey (a Thomson Reuters company) and the first independent analyst by the Brendon Wood poll. Laurence is also very active in the life science Canadian community and is a board director of AdMare Bio Innovations (formerly the Center for Drug Research and Development or CDRD in Vancouver and the Neomed Institute in Montreal). She is also a BOD director of Dalcor, Find Therapeutics, Domain Therapeutics and Epitopea. Additionally, she is a member of Women Innovating Together in Healthcare (WITH), Women in BIO (WIB) and Reseau-ELLE. Dr. Rulleau holds a Ph.D. from the University of Montreal executed at Montreal Clinical Research Institute.

Michelle Savoie

Associate Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy, Université de Montréal, and President, Consilio Manuque Inc.

Dr. Michelle Savoie has over 30 years experience in the life sciences and pharmaceutical sector including as the CEO, Montreal InVivo, the Montreal Life sciences cluster, from 2008-2015, where she was actively involved in the creation of the CQDM, the Quebec Personalized Healthcare Strategy, NEOMED, and the early phase clinical research known as Catalis Québec.  

She is an Associate Professor, practical training at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Université de Montréal, and CEO, Consilio Manuque. Until 2021, she was also CEO of the Quebec Network for Personalized Healthcare. Michelle has held strategic positions at Schering Canada, Eli Lilly Canada and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and participated on several boards including those of the Comité d’investissement – Innovation et Capital de risque du Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Advisory board for the advancement of health, iQVIA, Quebec Network for Personalized Healthcare, Montréal InVivo, Personalized Medicine Partnership for Cancer and NEOMED.

A biochemist by training, Michelle also earned an MBA from Ottawa University, a Masters in Public Health from Boston University, a PhD in biomedical sciences from Université de Montréal, a Masters in Law and Health Policy from Université de Sherbrooke and holds the ICD.D certification from the Institute of Corporate Directors.