Leadership
Clarissa Desjardins, PhD
Chief Executive OfficerDr. Clarissa Desjardins is the CEO of Cepmed. Prior to this, Dr. Desjardins had been a serial entrepreneur, taking part in all aspects of company creation, from conception, to financing, to the marketplace.
She was the founder of Advanced Bioconcept, a research reagent and diagnostics company which was sold to NEN Life Sciences (Perkin Elmer) in 1998. She also co-founded Caprion Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology company focused on proteomic biomarker discovery and drug development where she was Executive Vice-President of Corporate Development (now Thallion, a TSX-listed company).
Dr. Desjardins received the BRIO award for outstanding contributions to the biotechnology industry from the Quebec Biotechnology Association, was nominated to Ernst&Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award and was named one of Canada’s top young Canadians likely to influence the future by the Globe and Mail. She has been a Board Member on numerous private and public companies including most recently the Populomix Cancer Research Institute. She earned a Ph.D. in Neurology and Neurosurgery from McGill’s Faculty of Medicine, and was a Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre.
Katherine Bonter
Director of Promotion and AdvocacyKatherine Bonter is the Director of Advocacy and Promotion at Cepmed. Prior to joining Cepmed she worked for 15 years in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry focusing primarily in business development and intellectual property. She has worked for four small to medium sized early stage companies in research, competitive intelligence, project management and intellectual property protection of pharmaceutical, diagnostic and research products.
Katherine’s specific areas of expertise include strategic IP portfolio management, IP licensing and corporate communications. She has drafted more than 50 patent applications relating to inventions including bioinformatics tools, diagnostic tools, biologics, pharmaceutical formulations, small molecule antiviral compounds and slow-release compositions as well as lead the national and international prosecution of large patent portfolios. Katherine has graduate studies in Neuroscience at the Centre of Excellence in Behavioural Neurobiology at Concordia University.
Anick Dubois, Ph.D.
Director, Personalized Medicine ImplementationAnick is in charge of the clinical implementation of personalized medicine at Cepmed. Prior to joining Cepmed, Anick was a manager for the GE3LS programs (ethical, environmental, economic, legal and social issues related to genomics) at Génome Québec. She was also overseeing the knowledge transfer and the socioeconomics benefits. Prior to working at Génome Québec, Anick was involved in an evaluation committee for the Conseil du médicament du Québec working on ethical and social issues of anti-cancer drugs. Furthermore, she served as Vice-Director of Research and Development for SERYX-Signature Genetics, a pharmacogenetics services company.
Anick also held a position at the Bio-Industry Management Research Chair (CGBI-UQÀM). In addition, she worked at the Institut de pharmacologie de Sherbrooke (IPS) in the cardiovascular molecular pharmacology laboratories and has many years of teaching experience. Anick holds a Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Montreal Faculty of Pharmacy.