CDRD and NEOMED Institute Join Forces to Create a New Pan-Canadian Enterprise adMare BioInnovations
Vancouver, BC and Montreal, QC – May 30, 2019: Two successful Canadian innovation organizations, CDRD, Canada’s national life sciences venture, and NEOMED Institute, a leading not-for-profit R&D organization building an innovation ecosystem in Montréal, are pleased to announce that effective today, they are bringing their respective capabilities and resources together under a new co-founded pan-Canadian enterprise, adMare BioInnovations.
Working from sea to sea, and reaching globally, adMare is focused on building a national life sciences industry commensurate with our research leadership. With a shared Vision to be Catalysts for Canadian life sciences leading the world, adMare’s core Mission, based on the well-established strengths of CDRD and NEOMED, is to:
Translate leading academic research into new companies of scale;
Deploy a combination of scientific and business expertise, capital, and physical infrastructure (including the NEOMED Innovation Centre, a commercialization complex in Montréal, and CDRD’s Vancouver drug development labs), to help existing Canadian life sciences companies scale-up;
Train the next generation of highly-qualified personnel to drive the growth of those companies into Canadian anchors.
With its combined strength, adMare will prioritize high-value job creation through an impactful and sustainable Canadian life sciences industry; which will directly support the advancement of the Québec Life Sciences Strategy, Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan, and the recommendations of the federal Health/Biosciences Economic Strategy Table.
“Canada is a powerhouse in innovative academic research output, and a healthy life sciences industry is starting to grow. But to compete globally, and lead the world commercially like we do in research, scale and a pan-Canadian alliance is vital”, said Gordon C. McCauley, President and CEO of adMare. “Drawing its name from Canada’s official motto ‘a Mari usque ad Mare,’ meaning ‘from sea to sea’, adMare BioInnovations brings together partners, their expertise, and resources from one side of the country to the other, to help build a sustainable industrial powerhouse.”
adMare will be driven by a single management team and a single Board of Directors – each derived from both CDRD and NEOMED. McCauley, an accomplished biotech entrepreneur and investor, has been named as adMare’s President and CEO; and together with a highly-experienced senior management team located in both Montréal and Vancouver, will be responsible for the organization’s leadership.
Governing adMare is a founding Board of Directors drawn equally from the current CDRD and NEOMED Boards; reflecting the organization’s stakeholders across academia, industry, the investment community, and government; as well as its pan-Canadian nature. The Board is Chaired by Dr. Bradley Popovich (an entrepreneur and former Chief Scientific Officer with Genome British Columbia), and includes the following additional Directors:
Rodd Budd, Partner and Leader, Life Sciences Practice, Ernst & Young (retired)
Paul Buron, Executive Vice President, Government Mandate and Programs Management, Investissement Québec
Dr. Helen Burt, Associate Vice President, Research and Innovation, University of British Columbia
Nancy Harrison, Past President, MSI Methylation Sciences and former Partner Ventures West
Dr. Kathy L. Hudson, Former Deputy Director for Science, Outreach, and Policy, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Didier Leconte, Vice President, Investments, Life Sciences, Fonds de solidarité FTQ
Gordon C. McCauley, President and CEO, adMare BioInnovations
Dr. Rémi Quiron, OC, CQ, PhD, FRSC, Chief Scientist of Québec
Dr. Laurence Rulleau, Partner, CTI Life Sciences
Dr. Michelle Savoie, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy, Université de Montréal, and President, Consilio Manuque Inc.
Dr. Laurence Rulleau, Chair of NEOMED Institute commented, “A foundation of adMare is the NEOMED Innovation Center; accelerating business and the development of our new innovation and commercialization complex, and strengthening Montréal’s life sciences and health technology ecosystem. This coalition is exciting news for the Montréal Technoparc and the entire sector across Canada.”
Dr. Bradley Popovich, adMare Chair added, “NEOMED and CDRD are both focused on translating academic discoveries, supporting the advancement of sustainable businesses, and really building our health sciences sector across the country. We are thrilled with the possibilities that will arise when we link together our strengths as adMare BioInnovations. With the combined resources of two strong Canadian organizations, adMare is proud to be leading the charge in opening a new world of opportunities for our life sciences sector – increasing investments in research and innovation, fostering the creation of innovative companies, attracting new private investments, and commercializing Canadian technology globally.”
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About adMare BioInnovations
adMare BioInnovations is a pan-Canadian enterprise with global reach, changing the landscape of the Canadian life sciences ecosystem. We do this by sourcing the most therapeutically and commercially promising research from leading academic and biotech partners to create new companies of scale, providing specialized expertise and infrastructure to help existing companies scale up, and driving the growth of those companies into Canadian anchors by training the next generation of Highly-Qualified Personnel. www.admarebio.com
Contacts:
Julia White
Senior Manager, Communications
604.827.1226
jwhite@cdrd.ca
Shirley Robinet
Communications Coordinator
514.375.3334 Ext. 111
srobinet@neomed.ca