Board of Directors
BioDiscovery Toronto's Board of Directors is composed of outstanding leaders and entrepreneurs in the life sciences research, business development and financing.
Joyce Brinton
Former Director of Harvard University's Office for Technology and Trademark Licensing (OTTL).
Joyce Brinton was Director of the Office for Technology and Trademark Licensing at Harvard University from 1984 until mid-2005 when she retired after working at Harvard for 36 years. She continued to consult to the office on a half-time basis for the following year and now takes on occasional consulting jobs for various non-profits. The Harvard office handled the identification, protection, marketing and licensing of intellectual property arising from faculty research. In her final year as Director, the office received over $30 million in licensing revenue and granted over 50 technology licenses, including several to start-up companies founded by Harvard faculty. (http://www.techtransfer.harvard.edu/).
Kelly Holman
Co-founder and Managing Director of Genesys Capital.
Mr. Holman has extensive commercial and technical experience in the biotechnology industry. Since co-founding Genesys Capital Partners in 2000, Kelly has been actively involved in assisting the NewGen Funds raise over $125 million of venture capital. Kelly is active in deal origination and company creation; and he currently serves on the Board of Directors of Epocal Inc., Insception Biosciences Inc., and Interface Biologics Inc. In 2001, Kelly played a key role in creating two seed capital funds associated with Canada's leading research institutes. The Discovery District Biotechnology Fund was set up in partnership with leading Toronto-based research institutes (University of Toronto, University Health Network, Hospital for Sick Children, and Mount Sinai Hospital). The Ottawa Biotechnology Innovation Fund was set up in partnership with leading Ottawa-based research institutes (University of Ottawa, Ottawa Health Research Institute, and the National Research Council of Canada). Prior to co-founding Genesys Capital Partners, Kelly was a Senior Investment Manager with MDS Capital Corp. Previously, Kelly worked in the laboratory of Dr. Peter St George-Hyslop at the University of Toronto where he was a key member of the international research team that discovered several genes responsible for Alzheimer's disease. Kelly holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Biochemistry and an MBA, both from Queen's University.
Dr. Michael May
President and CEO of Rimon Therapeutics.
Dr. May completed his PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Toronto. He had always intended to start a company, and noted that there were a number of potential technologies in the lab of his PhD supervisor Michael Sefton, PhD, who would eventually become Rimon's other co-founder. Therapeutic polymers emerged from work on micro-encapsulation with polymer beads, performed in Sefton's lab. The pair founded Rimon in 1997, while May was still working on his doctorate. The name Rimon comes from the Hebrew word for pomegranate, which is a symbol of health and of springtime. May finished his PhD in 1998, and Rimon got its first round of financing in 2000, which May says was the "real starting point" for the company. His entrepreneurial ambitions were given a boost when May was awarded the Martin Walmsley Fellowship for Technological Entrepreneurship in 1996. The fellowship is intended to foster entrepreneurial spirit, and to help turn promising technologies into successful business ventures. It is awarded to a researcher associated with the Ontario Centres of Excellence to help commercialize intellectual property.
Dr. Tim McTiernan
He was President of Canadore College of Applied Arts and Technology in North Bay, Ontario, from 1997 to the start of 2002, and held a variety of positions with the Yukon Government, including Deputy Minister and Cabinet Secretary and Chief Negotiator for Land Claims, Self-Government and Devolution.
McTiernan serves on a number of boards, including MaRS, the founding board of MaRS Innovation, BioDiscovery Toronto, TBI and the Ontario Genomics Institute. He has served as a trustee of the Ontario Innovation Trust, as a member of the North Bay Economic Development Commission, on the Board of Contact North, on the Secretariat to the National Task Force on Environment and Economy and as a founding member of the Dispute Resolution Board established pursuant to the Yukon First Nations Land Claim Settlement Act.
In addition, he has served as Chair of the Committee of Presidents of the Ontario Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology.
He received a B.A. (Mod.) in philosophy and psychology from Trinity College, Dublin (1973); and an M.A. (1977), and Ph.D. (1982) in psychology from the University of British Columbia. .
Heather Nicol
Chief Financial Officer of MaRS Discovery District
Heather Nicol is the Chief Financial Officer of the MaRS Discovery District, a role she has held since October 2006. Heather has diverse experience in investment banking and across the corporate sector. She was Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer of an investment company specializing in pharmaceutical royalties. Prior to that, she was the CFO of Chapters Online, taking it public and helping it achieve national leadership. She has also worked as a senior advisor to Canadian Tire Corporation to economically restructure the financing of their stores and spent eight years as an investment banker with Canadian and international firms. She is a member of the board of Desjardins Credit Union and the Danny Grossman Dance Company. She holds an MBA from the
Dr. Christopher J. Paige
Vice-President, Research at the University Health Network
Dr. Paige earned a Ph.D. in Immunology at the Sloan-Kettering Division of Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 1979. He became a Member of the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland where he worked from 1980-1987 before joining the Ontario Cancer Institute as a Senior Scientist in 1987. In 1990, Dr. Paige became the founding Director of the Arthritis and Autoimmunity Research Centre as well as Director of Research at The Wellesley Hospital. In 1998, Dr. Paige returned to the Ontario Cancer Institute to assume the role of Vice-President, Research and, subsequently, he assumed his current position of Vice-President, Research at the University Health Network which is comprised of the Toronto General, Toronto Western and Princess Margaret Hospitals. Dr. Paige is a Professor in the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Immunology at the University of Toronto. He is an active educator in the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programs of the University's School of Medicine and is a sought after speaker at science and medical conferences worldwide. Dr. Paige is an internationally recognized leader in the area of lymphocyte development and antibody formation. He is the Principle Investigator in a Terry Fox Program Project on blood cell development. He also holds grants from the Medical Research Council and the National Cancer Institute. His original research is published in leading scientific journals including Nature, Science, Cell and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. He has served on the Research Advisory Boards of both the National Cancer Institute and the Arthritis Society of Canada. Dr. Paige is the President and founder, along with colleagues from the Wellesley Research Institute, of GEMMA Biotechnology. Its purpose is to discover and commercially develop biological response modifiers which influence the course of human disease.
Dr. John Perchorowicz
Vice President Business Development, Research Corporation Technologies Inc.
John Perchorowicz is vice president of business development for Research Corporation Technologies (RCT) in Tucson, Ariz. RCT is a technology investment and management company that provides early-stage funding and development for promising biomedical companies and technologies. RCT focuses on technology investments with origins from universities and research institutions worldwide. The company has assets of more than $300 million to advance technology development through venture investment (the RCT BioVentures program), partnerships and special licensing programs.
Dr. Perchorowicz directs RCT's new and continuing business development relationships. He represents the company to institutions and companies in the United States and Canada and has worked for RCT since 1989 (http://www.rctech.com/index.php).
Dr. Steven Xanthoudakis
Director, Licensing and External Research - Canada Merck Research Labs
Dr. Steven Xanthoudakis earned his doctoral degree from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at