Team

Rose Goldstein

Rose Goldstein, MD, CM, FRCPC
Vice-Principal (Research & International Relations) McGill University

Dr. Rose Goldstein joined McGill University as Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) as of December 1, 2010.

Prior to returning to McGill, Dr. Goldstein held the position of Vice-President (Research) at the University of Calgary. She received her Bachelor of Science from McGill in 1975 as well as her medical degree in 1979. She trained in Internal Medicine at the Universities of Toronto and Ottawa and completed her training in Rheumatology at the University of Ottawa and the University of Texas at Houston.

Dr. Goldstein’s clinical activities include general rheumatology with an interest in osteoporosis and women’s health. She has been a Career Scientist of the Ontario Ministry of Health and an Arthritis Society Research Scholar in the area of immunogenetics. From 2003 to 2007, Dr. Goldstein served as Vice-Dean, Academic Affairs, in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. In 2001, Dr. Goldstein became the founding director of the Ottawa Academic Health Sciences Leadership Program.

As a clinician scientist, Dr. Goldstein has held a series of research grants in the area of immunogenetics of rheumatic disease and cellular basis of rheumatoid arthritis. She has served on editorial boards and scientific review panels in her area of research. She has also received grants to support her work in medical education, including exploration of gender and health topics in the training of medical students, and the study of conflict resolution in health care and medical education.

François Gauvin, Vice-President Finance

François is iNovia’s Chief Financial Officer. He is a Chartered Accountant with over twenty-five years of experience in mergers and acquisitions, international tax planning and venture capital. Prior to iNovia, François was the Investment Director at the Quebec Solidarity Fund QFL, a $7 billion Montreal-based labor-sponsored fund, where he was responsible for all of the QFL’s investments in the venture capital area. Prior to the QFL, Mr. Gauvin held senior executive positions with Steinberg, Teleglobe, and BCE, where he took part in merger and acquisition transactions. François started his career at Coopers&Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers), where he practiced as an income tax specialist. François holds a Chartered Accountant designation, a BComm from Concordia University, and a Diploma in Accountancy from McGill University.

François Gauvin is Vice-president Finance at MSBiV

Renald Mercier

With 35 years of management experience in the private and public sectors, Mr. Renald Mercier brings a strong and thorough knowledge of business and management.

Mr. Mercier began his career in the private sector and was owner of manufacturing and services companies in various fields in addition to being a shareholder in several others. He has served on numerous boards of companies, as well as in the venture capital and corporate finance sectors. He has served as director for Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Fonds de solidarité de la Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FsTQ) and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Mr. Mercier has also held senior management of two economic development corporations in Bois-Francs and Sherbrooke areas. Since 1994, he serves as senior executive at Université de Sherbrooke. As part of his current duties as director of corporate relations, he advises the management of the University in the management of its investment portfolio while representing university’s interest on various boards of directors of companies and organizations.

Mr. Mercier has a Bachelor of Science (Biology) and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Université de Sherbrooke. Since 2006, he holds the title of « Administrateur de Sociétés Certifié (ASC) ».

François Schubert, Chairman of the Board

François Schubert, B. Pharm., MHA, MPH, FASHP, FASCP, FCSHP
General Manager and Chief Administrative Officer of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre

Mr. Schubert brings 30 years of national and international experience in pharmacy, healthcare and biopharmaceutical industry. In addition to executive/senior management experience, Mr. Schubert is a researcher in Health economics and held the position of Worldwide Vice-President of the Global Health Outcomes department at Glaxo Wellcome/Glaxo Smith Kline headquarters offices in London, UK from 1995 to 2001. He holds degrees in pharmacy, health administration and public health and is a fellow of one Canadian and two American professional associations.

François Schubert is the Chairman of the Board of MSBi Valorisation

Lorne Trottier

Michèle Beaulieu

With over 25 years experience in the pharmaceutical, medical devices and biotechnology industry sectors, Michèle Beaulieu possesses a depth of understanding of the opportunities and issues in the healthcare market.

Dr. Beaulieu holds a Ph.D. in Physiology with a specialization in Endocrinology as well as a Masters of Business Administration and has post-doctoral training in Neurosciences and Biochemical Pharmacology.

Her career has covered basic medical research in Canadian and American universities followed by management, business development and executive positions in marketing in the healthcare industry in multinational and biotech companies.

Dr. Beaulieu is currently Associate Director Commercialization in the Office of Sponsored Research at McGill University and has been at McGill for the past 4 years.

She is also founding President of MBA Consultants, a marketing consulting firm specializing in health technologies and a member of the Investment Committee of MSBi Valorisation.

Josée Fortin

Josée Fortin, MBA, ASC

Since September 2008, Josée Fortin is President and Chief Executive Officer of SOCPRA inc. SOCPRA manages and commercializes all inventions created by Université de Sherbrooke and its affiliated institutions.

She held several positions within organization dedicated to the economic development, such as: General Manager and Industrial Commissioner of Corporation de Développement Économique de la MRC de Montmagny (1992-1995), Trade Commissioner of Bureau commercial du Québec à Beijing en Chine (1996-1998).

She also acted in several private companies, such as: EXFO inc. as Inside Sales Manager (1998-2000), Gealth Prévention inc. as Chief Executive Officer (2000-2005), Julien inc. as Commercial Division Manager as well as Vice-president, Sales and Operations, Industrial Division (2005-2008). Through her business and international career, she has worked to foster the Quebec economic development as well as to enhance the leading position of companies on the international arena.

She holds a Master degree in Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Laval University. She has been involved in several boards of directors of organisms that were dedicated to the economic development and innovation. She is a board member of Capital Régional et Coopératif Desjardins. She holds the title of « Administrateur de Sociétés Certifié (ASC) ».

Francine Gervais

Dr. Francine Gervais has over 25 years of scientific and management experience spanning from academic research to private and publicly traded biopharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Gervais was Senior VP of Pharmaceutical Development at PainCeptor Pharma Corp. for 4 years. Prior to this, she was VP of R&D for 9 years at Neurochem (now Bellus Health).

She was successful in establishing and managing several research & development programs which led to the identification of 4 drug candidates that advanced in clinical studies in several fields (pain, neurodegeneration, inflammatory diseases).

Prior joining the biopharmaceutical industry, Dr. Gervais was an Associate Professor in the Department of Experimental Medicine, McGill University and at the McGill Centre for the Study of Host Resistance.

Dr. Gervais received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from University of Montréal, completed her post-doctoral study work in immuno-hematology (stem cell research) at the Research Centre, Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur .

Dr. Gervais is now working as a consultant in pharmaceutical Development.

Maria Shepherd

Medical Devices & Biotech Strategic Marketing
Market Research
M&A Consulting

Maria has 20 years of leadership experience in medical device/life sciences marketing in small start-ups and Fortune 100 companies. Following an industry career including Vice President of Marketing for Oridion Medical, Director of Marketing for Philips Medical, and Group Marketing Manager for Boston Scientific, she founded Data Decision Group (DDG). She has served on the corporate board of the American Patient Safety Foundation.

Maria writes monthly columns for three medical device magazines: Medical Device Now, Medical Products Outsourcing and Orthopedic Design Technology.

Maria received her MBA, magna cum laude, from Babson College, cited by USA Today as the top US entrepreneurial program. Her BA is in Biology is from University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Lincoln, MA. She can be reached at mshepherd@ddecisiongroup.com or +1 617-548-9892. View the Data Decision Group website at www.ddecisiongroup.com.

Maria has direct experience in multiple medical/technology specialties:

Jy Bhardwaj

Jy Bhardwaj, Vice President, Research & Development, Philips Lumileds.

Jy joined Philips Lumileds in May of 2010. Prior to joining, Jy served 7 years at JDSU where he held a number of senior management positions including CTO of Optical Communications after over 6 years of business unit leadership, including most recently, Vice President and General Manager of Agile Optical Networks, which includes JDSU’s market leading optical transport product lines.

Jy joined JDSU through an acquisition of Scion Photonics; a silicon valley based optical chip start up, where he served as the CEO.

Prior to Scion, Jy served as CTO at STS, a Sumitomo Precision Products company, developing and manufacturing semiconductor capital equipment. During Jy’s tenure, STS saw over 5 years of strong growth culminating in an IPO on the AIM in London at the end of 2000.

Jy holds a Ph.D and B.Eng degrees from Liverpool University.

Richard Bordeleau

Over the last 25 years Richard Bordeleau occupied several management positions creating growth and increasing value for innovative companies. He is currently involved in a number of growing companies as an angel investor and is in charge of the Health & Well-being cell within Anges Quebec, an angel investors group located in Quebec, Canada.

While he started as a consultant helping telecom and high-tech industrial companies develop their international networks, he spent most of his professional career in the Health industry.

At the biotech company AeternaZentaris, from 1994 to 1999, he established strategic alliances with several multinationals and developed the international distribution network. He also played an active role in private and public financings raising several million dollars for the company.

From 2000 to 2007 as President of Atrium Innovations, a Health & Nutrition company, he played an active role in the company’s IPO to support the organic growth and M&A activities. During that period of time, he participated to twelve acquisitions and revenues went from 1.5 million dollars in 2000 to over 300 million in 2007.

In the fall of 2007, he became partner and Executive-Vice President of BioCad Medical; a company specializing in CADCAM technology applied to dentistry. At the end of 2008, revenues had doubled and the company was sold to Nobel Biocare, a world leader in dentistry. He left Nobel Biocare in June 2009 after an agreed six-month transition period.

Since then, he does Angel investment and coaching for emerging companies and offers consulting services to high-tech corporations, helping them with their corporate and international development strategies.

Costas Karatzas

Dr. Costas N. Karatzas is an executive professional with over 19 years of diverse experience in product strategy and development, managing research and business development programs in the Life Sciences sector.

He is currently the Director of Business Development at the Research Institute of McGill University Health Center (RI MUHC) responsible for commercialization, business development and fund raising activities.

From 1992 to 2008 he served in a range of senior management positions at Biotech companies (Gene Pharming, AgroCultures, Nexia Biotechnologies Inc., Pharmathene Inc., MMDI). As a member of Nexia’s senior management he actively participated in all rounds of financing and the successful public offering of the company on the TSX in 2000, making it the largest IPO ($42 million CND) in Life Sciences in the Canadian markets up to that time. His operational responsibilities through-out the years have included managing major R&D programs, multidisciplinary teams of scientists, setting-up, negotiating and overseeing strategic R & D collaborations and business partnerships, representations at FDA with emphasis in pre-clinical development (biologics, neutraceuticals, medical devices, recombinant proteins), strategic planning, IP strategies, licensing and business development activities. His responsibilities included to secure and manage grant funding (he spearheaded a major program-Protexia-resulting to a multi-year contract valued over $ 213 million US from the US DoD).

Dr. Karatzas attended McGill University where he earned a M.Sc., (Hon.) in Muscle Biochemistry and a Ph.D., in Molecular Biology.