Our Team
Leadership
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Youssef L. Bennani, PhD, MBA, ICD.D
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Bennani brings over 25 years pharmaceutical R&D, and corporate governance experience. He most recently served as Site Head and Vice President-R&D at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. Prior to this position, he was Vice President Drug Innovation at Vertex's Headquarters (Boston, MA). He has also held various positions of increasing responsibility in pharmaceutical R&D at Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Abbott Laboratories (now Abbvie) and Athersys. His experience spans multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, neurology, infection, inflammatory and renal diseases. Over the years, he and his teams have produced 25 new molecular entities, reaching various clinical stages. He has studied chemistry (PhD, U. de Montréal), business (MBA, LFGSM – Chicago) and Corporate Governance (ICD.D, McGill-Rotman Schools of Business). He is concomitantly CSO at adMare BioInnovations, Canada's Global Life Sciences Venture, building the Canadian life sciences industry from sea to sea. Dr. Youssef Bennani is currently Chairman of the Board of Domain Therapeutics (France & Canada), and is an independent Board member of Bellus Health (Nasdaq & TSX:BLU).
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Laurence Rulleau, PhD
President
Dr. Laurence Terrisse Rulleau is a partner at CTI Life Sciences Fund a Montreal-based venture capital fund investing across Canada as well as in the U.S. CTI LSF currently has $245 M under management, comprised of 2014 vintage Fund II that is open for investment as well as a 2006 vintage Fund I. Since joining CTI LSF in 2014, Dr. Rulleau has played a critical role in each of the investment made by the fund but in particularly in the creation of 3 new companies in Quebec: Dalcor, a spin-off of Montreal Heart Institute; Ilkos a spin-off from Servier and Precithera based on innovative science. Dr. Rulleau also lead the investment made in Profound Medical and is a board observer in Visterra, a Boston-based biotechnology company. Dr. Rulleau is very active in the life science Canadian community and is a board director of Liphorus a spin-off from Montreal clinical Institute, formerly board member of The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) in Vancouver as well as being acting chairwomen of Neomed Institute and Neomed Labs, now board memeber of adMare BioInnovations. Prior to joining CTI LSF in 2014, Dr Rulleau served as a life sciences analyst covering the Canadian life sciences sector for more than 10 years and in her experience as an analyst, she researched over 100 life sciences companies with scientific due diligence on these companies as well as market analysis and competition assessment. Dr. Rulleau was ranked the number one Canadian life sciences analyst by the Starmine survey (a Thomson Reuters Company) and number one independent analyst by Brendon Wood survey. Dr. Rulleau was involved in numerous mergers and acquisitions as well as IPOs. Dr. Rulleau was also CEO of HLA-G Technologies a biotechnology start-up based in France and more recently she served as Vice-President Business Development of Univalor, the technology transfer office of Montreal's university and affiliated schools. Under her responsibility at Univalor in the last 3 years, more than 55 licenses with the industry were signed and 8 companies started.
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Dr. Rulleau has a master's in biology from The Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM) and a Ph.D. from Montreal University executed at Montreal Clinical Research Institute.
Board of Directors
Youssef L. Bennani,
PhD, MBA, ICD.D
Laurence Rulleau, PhD
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Pascal Neuville, PhD
Pascal Neuville, PhD is currently CEO at Domain Therapeutics. Pascal has a PhD in molecular biology from University of Strasbourg, France. He spent five years at the University of Geneva as a post doc and then as Assistant Professor. Pascal then joined Transgene SA as an R&D project leader. From 2002 to 2008, he was CSO of Faust Pharmaceuticals SA, a drug discovery and development company in CNS. He founded Domain Therapeutics in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, Pascal was President of Alsace BioValley's Board of Directors, the life science competitiveness cluster of Alsace, and continued as a board member from 2010 to 2014. He is also a member of the investment committee of SATT CONECTUS, the private TTO of the University of Strasbourg and regional research institutions, and sits on the boards of Axilum Robotics and Defymed.
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Frédéric Lemaître Auger, MSc, PhD, MBA
Frédéric is Managing Partner, Investments, at adMare BioInnovations. He has extensive health sciences venture capital expertise through prior involvement with Accel-Rx, MSBiV, Desjardins Venture Capital and CDP Capital – Technology Venture (Sofinov), where he was involved in both biopharmaceutical and medical device deals. At Sofinov, he was involved in investments such as NuVasive, Inhibitex, IntraLuminal Therapeutics, Acurian, and TransMedics. While at Desjardins, he showed significant leadership in the creation and management of a profitable early-stage health sciences investment portfolio that included, amongst others, BioAxone Therapeutics, Enobia Pharma, and Tranzyme. At MSBiV, he was involved in project-based investments, as well as developing licensing and spin-off opportunities. In recent years, Frédéric led investment activities at Accel-Rx where he built a solid portfolio of early-stage health sciences companies, that notably includes Inversago Pharma, KisoJi Biotechnology and SoundBite Medical Solutions.
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Frédéric holds an MBA in Finance and International Management from HEC Montréal, a M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Polymer Physical Chemistry, both from Université de Montréal. -
Marjorie Sidhoum, PhD
Marjorie Sidhoum has a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from University of Strasbourg, France. In 2005, she trained in the design and management of clinical trials and worked with leading KOLs in the Onco-Hematology area until 2007. From 2008 to 2013, Marjorie led the incorporation of a spin-off of the University of Strasbourg, Almetis, co-founded and managed the corporate and business development activities of this company dedicated to the discovery of innovative medicines in oncology. Marjorie is graduated from HEC Challenge Plus, a program for the management of innovative projects. She joined Domain Therapeutics to strengthen Business Development activity in January 2013. She's now heading business development and coordinates negotiation on collaboration and licensing deals with pharma partners. She participates to joint steering committees as Alliance management in key collaboration. In 2015, Marjorie led the incorporation of PeptiMimesis, a technology-based company co-founded by Domain Therapeutics and academic researchers from University of Strasbourg, dedicated to the discovery and development of transmembrane peptides. Marjorie led the fund raising and as CEO, managed the strategy and business development of PeptiMimesis. She led the negotiation with CTI leading to the incorporation and funding of Find Therapeutics. Marjorie represents PeptiMimesis in the board of Find Therapeutics.
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