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Board of Directors

Our Board

TIAP’s Board is composed of Directors with expertise from within our member institutions and with relevant industry experience. The Board provides crucial governance to TIAP  through its high degree of accountability and rigour of its governance policies. The Directors also serve on Board committees, lending their knowledge and insight to the following areas: Investment, HR and Governance, and Audit and Finance.

 

Photo of Parimal Nathwani Parimal Nathwani President & CEO

Parimal Nathwani has over 15 years of experience in various aspects of the biotechnology industry including corporate finance, business development, transactions, intellectual property management, technology development and operations. He has been actively involved in forming and managing start-ups, preparing and executing on business plans, raising early-stage capital and in- and out-licensing activities. Before joining MaRS Innovation, now Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP), Parimal was a healthcare analyst with a boutique investment bank, where he conducted equity research on publicly-traded biotechnology companies in Canada and the U.S.…

Photo of Jessica Chutter Jessica Chutter Managing Director, Chairman of Biotechnology Investment Banking, Morgan Stanley

Jessica is the managing director and chairman of Biotechnology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley. During Jessica’s 30-year career of building Morgan Stanley’s biotechnology franchise, she has been responsible for $30 billion of capital raising and $65B of strategic transactions. In 2017, transactions include leading financings for Axovant, Biohaven, Editas, Galapagos, RegenxBio and Syndax, aggregating $1Bn in proceeds. …

Photo of Dr. Ronald Cohn MD, FACMGDr. Ronald Cohn MD, FACMGPresident & CEO

Dr. Ronald Cohn has served as President and CEO of the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada since May 1st, 2019. Dr. Cohn joined SickKids in September 2012 as the Chief of the Division of Clinical and Metabolic Genetics, Co-Director of the Centre for Genetic Medicine, and Senior Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute.…

Photo of Dr. Leah CowenDr. Leah Cowen Vice-President, Research and Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives

Professor Leah Cowen is the Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics & Infectious Disease, co-Director of the CIFAR Fungal Kingdom: Threats & Opportunities program, and former Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. Until December 2021 she served as the University of Toronto’s first Associate Vice-President, Research. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia, a PhD from the University of Toronto, and pursued postdoctoral studies at the Whitehead Institute.…

Photo of Angus J. Grant PhD Angus J. Grant PhDChair of TIAP; Chief Business Officer, Beigene Ltd.

Angus Grant, Ph.D., joined BeiGene in June 2020 as Chief Business Executive, bringing in more than 25 years of experience across multiple key functions in the biotech industry, including business development, alliance management, research and development, and regulatory affairs . In this role, Dr. Grant will oversee business development and alliance management, and help drive external innovation and investment in other companies to guide BeiGene’s global growth strategy.…

Photo of Joyce Lin Joyce Lin Associate Director

Joyce Lin, CPA, CA is Associate Director, Finance at Trillium Therapeutics, a clinical stage immuno-oncology company, which develops innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer (acquired by Pfizer in 2021). At Trillium Therapeutics, Joyce leads end-to-end finance functions, including operations, budgeting, financial reporting, internal controls, financing, and compliance. Prior to joining Trillium Therapeutics in 2014, Joyce led audit engagements at Deloitte LLP with various privately held companies, not-for-profit organizations, governments, and publicly traded entities.…

Photo of Dr. Laszlo RadvanyiDr. Laszlo Radvanyi President & Scientific Director

Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi brings a strong oncology research background in academia as well as leadership experience in international pharma and biotech, making him an ideal leader for OICR. Laszlo was educated at the University of Toronto, earning a PhD in Clinical Biochemistry in 1996. Laszlo joined OICR from EMD Serono (Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), where he was Senior Vice President Global Head of the Immuno-Oncology (IO) Translational Innovation Platform (TIP) and Senior Scientific Advisor for Immunology and IO.…

Photo of Dr. Andy J. SmithDr. Andy J. Smith President & CEO, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Dr. Andy J. Smith is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre inToronto, Ontario. In this role, Dr. Smith provides leadership for one of Canada’s largest academic healthsciences centres with 11,000 staff and physicians, 1,300 beds and an annual budget of more than $1Billion. In addition, he is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto.…

Photo of Shermaine Tilley Shermaine Tilley Dr. Shermaine Tilley, Managing Partner, CTI Life Sciences Fund

Since joining CTI Life Sciences Fund (CTI LSF) at its inception in 2006, Shermaine has played a critical role in each of the investments made by the Fund, but particularly by leading investments in Medicago - acquired by Mitsubishi Tanabe for $357 M in 2013 - as well as those in IMV (IMV: Nasdaq & TSX) and Zymeworks (ZYME: NYSE & TSX).…

Photo of Dr. Michael WassermanDr. Michael Wasserman Managing Partner

Michael is a Managing Partner at Maverix Private Equity, where his focus is on all aspects of the investment process, along with firm operations and strategy.  Michael leads the firm's healthcare investment practice. Prior to joining Maverix, Michael spent 17 years at H.I.G. Capital Management, a leading global private equity investment firm with more than $44 billion of equity capital under management. …

Photo of Dr. Bradly G. WoutersDr. Bradly G. Wouters Executive Vice President, Science & Research

Dr. Bradly Wouters is an internationally recognized leader and cancer researcher. He became Executive Vice President of Science and Research at UHN in 2016 and prior to that served as the Interim Director of Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre since 2014. He joined UHN in 2008 as Senior Scientist and Director of the Princess Margaret Hypoxia Program, and has held faculty appointments at the University of Toronto in the Department of Medical Biophysics and the Department of Radiation Oncology since that time.…

Photo of Yung Wu Yung Wu CEO

Yung Wu is CEO of the MaRS Discovery District, one of the world's largest innovation hubs and Canada’s premiere science and technology innovation ecosystem. MaRS’s innovation community have raised over $8.2B in capital and generated over $5.6B in net revenues since inception, currently employing over 20,400 people in the Health, CleanTech, FinTech and Platform Technologies sectors.…