Montreal, November 29, 2019 – The Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board, Daniel Hétu, and the President and CEO of CQDM, Diane Gosselin, are pleased to announce the appointment of two new members to CQDM’s governance. Bernard Massie, former Director General, Human Health Therapeutics at the NRC, and Cameron Black, Executive Vice President, Discovery at Repare Therapeutics will be joining CQDM’s Scientific Advisory Board.
During his career, Bernard Massie spent over 30 years developing bioprocesses to manufacture targeted and groundbreaking drugs for the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). His work on DNA delivery to cells made him a pioneer in gene therapy in Canada. He has published over 138 peer-reviewed papers and has 12 issued patents. Dr. Massie holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in biology and a Ph.D. in microbiology from Université de Montréal.
Cameron Black has led drug discovery efforts at Repare Therapeutics since 2016. He spent 18 years at Merck Frosst in various positions where he contributed to the discovery of seven drug candidates and was Team Lead on the odanacatib program. Dr. Black co-founded two biopharmaceutical companies: Kaneq Pharma, focusing on metabolic disorders, and Kanyr Pharma, focusing on immuno-oncology. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University.
“Dr. Massie’s and Dr. Black’s expertise in biologics development and medicinal chemistry, respectively, will bring a new dimension to CQDM’s governance,” said Daniel Hétu, Chair of CQDM’s Scientific Advisory Board.
“We are delighted to welcome these two new members to our Scientific Advisory Board, as they bring complementary expertise that strengthens the range of expertise of our members,” said Diane Gosselin, President and CEO of CQDM.
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About CQDM
CQDM is a biopharma-based research consortium created in 2008 with the mission to fund the development of innovative technologies to accelerate drug discovery and development. Its business model is based on a collaborative approach bringing together world-leading pharmaceutical organizations, Canadian biotech companies as well as the Canadian and Quebec governments who share the costs of the research. CQDM uses this leverage to reduce the risks inherent to early-stage biopharmaceutical research. In doing so, CQDM bridges the funding gap needed to drive innovation across the academic and private sectors, especially where early-stage research is concerned. Over the last 10 years, CQDM has benefited from the contribution of 13 industrial members: that includes Merck, Pfizer, AstraZeneca as founding members as well as Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly Canada, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Novartis Pharma Canada, Roche, Sanofi Canada, Servier, Takeda and now Amgen. CQDM also received contributions from Quebec’s Ministry of Economy and Innovation (MEI) and from the Government of Canada under the Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence Program (BL-NCE). Since 2008, CQDM has supported the development of 77 outstanding innovative technologies totaling $93 M in funding. These R&D projects carried out by 1,200 scientists from 83 different research institutions (40 public and 43 private) across Canada, have generated numerous economic benefits for all the stakeholders of the life science ecosystem. For more information: https://cqdm.orgen.
Source:
Diane Gosselin
President and CEO
dgosselin@cqdm.org
+1 514-594-7286
www.cqdm.org
