Pierre-Yves Desbiens has more than 30 years of professional experience, including more than 20 years in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry mainly as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. As one of the key players in the creation of the NEOMED Institute, he helped raise $100M in contributions from pharma companies and government partners. Directly in charge of the NEOMED Innovation Center, he successfully converted 200,000 sqFt of research center in the Montreal region into vibrant ecosystems hosting 32 CRO/biotech companies with over 500 scientists. He is a co-founder of NEOMED-Labs, now Nexelis (sold to Ampersand, an American VC) and acted as CFO during the first 2.5 years. More recently, he raised $25M in private and public funding to finance a 50,000 sqft expansion of the Ville St-Laurent facility.
Before joining NEOMED, he offered financial consulting services as CFO and provided financial structuring. Over the years, he successfully managed business challenges related to publicly listed companies as CFO and as Director and Chairman of audit committees in both public and private companies. He also raised financing in the private sector (non-dilutive and dilutive) with venture capitalists and individuals. In addition, Pierre-Yves was the Investment Portfolio Manager, Life Sciences, at the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (FSTQ).
He is currently on the Board of Directors for Replicor Inc., a Montreal based biotech, and Chairman of the audit committee.
Pierre-Yves received a Corporate Finance (CF) qualification from the CICA and has an MBA from the Hautes Ētudes Commerciales of the Université de Montréal in addition to his credits as a CPA, and CA.
