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At Best Startup Canada we track over 100,000 Canadian startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top British Columbia based CEO’ operating in the Medical space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.ca.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Kevin Chaplin
CEO of Kardium
Kevin Chaplin is the CEO at Kardium.
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About Kardium: Kardium develops medical devices for the diagnosis and treatment of atrial fibrillation.
Ali Tehrani
President & CEO of Zymeworks
Ali Tehrani is one of Zymeworks’ co-founders and currently serves as President and CEO of the company. He has been an integral part of many of the Company’s corporate achievements including raising seed and angel financing and overseeing the Company’s technical operations and patent filings. Dr. Tehrani has served on the MITACS Industrial Advisory Board, and BIOTECanada’s Industrial and Environmental Committee. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Directors of LifeSciences British Columbia and the Student Biotechnology Network.
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About Zymeworks: Zymeworks is a computational biotechnology company focused on optimizing therapeutic antibodies and other protein-based therapeutics.
Jeffrey Bacha
President & CEO/cofounder of Kintara Therapeutics
Jeffrey Bacha, BSc, MBA co-founded DelMar Pharmaceuticals in 2010 and has served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Company’s board of directors since inception. Mr. Bacha is a seasoned executive leader with nearly twenty years of life sciences experience in the areas of operations, strategy and finance. His background includes successful public and private company building from both a start-up and turn around perspective; establishing and leading thriving management and technical teams; and raising capital in both the public and private markets. From July 2006 to August 2009, Mr. Bacha was Executive Vice President Corporate Affairs and Chief Operating Officer at Clera, Inc. From March 2005 to July 2006 Mr. Bacha was Consultant and held various positions at Clera Inc., Urigen Holdings Inc. and XBiotech, Inc. From 1999 through 2004, Mr. Bacha served as President & CEO of Inimex Pharmaceuticals, a venture-capital funded drug discovery and development company and is a former Senior Manager and Director of KPMG Health Ventures. Mr. Bacha holds an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and a degree in BioPhysics from the University of California, San Diego.
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About Kintara Therapeutics: Kintara Therapeutics is engaged in developing and commercializing therapies for the treatment of cancer patients.
Raj Gulia
Co-founder & CEO of PocketPills
Raj Gulia is a Co-Founder at PocketPills.
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About PocketPills: Pocketpills is Canada’s leading online pharmacy, delivers medication by the dose, straight to customer’s door.
Fahar Merchant
President and CEO of Medicenna Therapeutics
Fahar Merchant is a 25-year biotech veteran, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Medicenna. Previously he was President and CEO of Protox Therapeutics (TSX.V and TSX; now Sophiris Bio, Nasdaq) where he established a late clinical stage urology company. At Protox he raised more than $70M through multiple PIPEs, including a $35M investment by Warburg Pincus. In 1992 he co-founded IntelliGene Expressions, Inc., a biologics CDMO, and built it to one of the fastest growing companies in Canada. In 2000, by strategic in-licensing, he co-founded Avicenna Medica, Inc., a clinical stage oncology company that was sold a year later to KS Biomedix (LSE) for $90M. Fahar was CTO and Director of KS Biomedix until its acquisition by Xenova (Nasdaq and LSE; now Celtic Pharma). Fahar has closed several transactions valued at more than $300M. He has a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from Western University.
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About Medicenna Therapeutics: Medicenna is a clinical stage, privately held, immuno-oncology company.
Carl Hansen
CEO of AbCellera Biologics
Carl Hansen is the CEO at AbCellera.
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About AbCellera Biologics: AbCellera Biologics is a biotechnology company that develops antibody therapeutics to improve patient outcomes.
Barry Allen
Founder,CEO & President of Calgary Scientific
CEO of PureWeb Inc. (Formerly Calgary Scientific Inc.), Co-Founder and Chairman of Zolo. Prior to founding Zolo, Barry was active in the VC and Start-up community as Entrepreneur In Residence for Ventures West, Creative Destruction Labs Vancouver and Calgary, Founder of BC Excels Program and Accredited Lead Mentor for BC Innovation Council. The majority of his career was spent building high tech public companies including building VSM MedTech from 2 employees to 200 and $360mm market cap on the TSX.
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About Calgary Scientific, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Zolo Realty: Calgary Scientific develops web and mobile diagnostic medical imaging solutions and collaboration enablement technologies.
Laurent Pelissier
Chairman and CEO of Clarius Mobile Health
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About Clarius Mobile Health: Clarius is developing a novel medical imaging ecosystem.
Catherine Winckler
Founder and CEO of MindfulGarden Digital Health
Catherine Winckler currently works as Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Mindful Garden.
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About MindfulGarden Digital Health: MindfulGarden Digital Health develops a behaviour modification platform to de-escalate anxiety and aggression of patients with chronic disease.
Lukas-Karim Merhi
Founder & CEO of Tenzr Health
Lukas has four years of startup experience and is well network with VR|AR partners, R&D institutions and government funds. BIT is his second startup.
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About Tenzr Health: Technology-driven Motivation, Guidance, and Certainty for Musculoskeletal Care
Liren Tang
President & CEO of Welichem Biotech
Dr. Liren Tang has been the President and CEO of the Company since November 2009. From 2007-2009, as the Director of Clinical Development at the Company, Liren led a clinical research team to the successful completion of multiple clinical trials. With the compelling clinical data, the Company reached a successful partnering agreement for it’s lead immunology drug program (WBI-1001) with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for a total price of up to $230 million dollars in the year 2012. Prior to joining Welichem, Liren was a principal or co-principal investigator at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute for diverse scientific and clinical research projects addressing various aspects of inflammatory diseases and cancers. He is an author of over 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Liren received his PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of British Columbia.
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About Welichem Biotech: Welichem Biotech is a development stage biotechnology company, engages in the discovery and development of therapeutic drugs.
Kent Lewis
Founder & CEO of OneTeamVisi
Kent Lewis is a leader and a veteran of the direct sales industry with more than 20 years of global marketing and operations experience. He has directed successful international development strategies for major direct sales companies, which includes work in more than 30 countries. Kent has an ability to analyze international markets and identify key factors for success. He has lived in Japan and speaks, reads, and writes Japanese. Kent received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Japanese from Brigham Young University and a Global Master of Business Administration from Thunderbird, the number-one ranked international business school.
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About OneTeamVisi: Centered on the powerful benefits of Scandinavian nature including the Arctic Cloudberry.
Geof Auchinleck
Co-Founder and CEO of Claris Healthcare
Geof Auchinleck has more than 35 years of experience in the medical device field. He was part of the Vancouver-based team that built and tested the world’s first robot specifically designed to assist in surgery, then went on to develop a number of other surgical technologies, including surgical tools for laparoscopic surgery, surgical limb positioning, blood sample handling equipment, apparatus for total knee arthroplasty, and surgical drapes. In 1997, Geof cofounded Neoteric Technology Ltd. Neoteric developed and commercialized technologies for ensuring the correct storage, tracking, handling and administration of blood for transfusion in hospitals. This technology, BloodTrack®, is now in daily use in hospitals all over the world. In 2009, Neoteric Technology Ltd. was acquired by Haemonetics Corporation of Braintree, Massachusetts (NYSE:HAE). Geof left Haemonetics in 2011.
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About Claris Healthcare, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL): Claris Healthcare is medical technology company that provides SaaS Remote Patient Monitoring and Rehabilitation.
Lawrence Buchan
Chief Executive Officer of Arbutus Medical
BC Business 30under30 winner in 2020. Masters in biomed engineering from UBC. Orthopaedic research background. Held position as Director of Operations for Arbutus Medical from 2014-2018.
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About Arbutus Medical: Simple orthopaedic power tools that save cost for hospitals.
Behzad Behroozan
Founder and CEO of Agartee Technology Inc.
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About Agartee Technology Inc.: Agartee Vibe System is designed to track and monitor sleep and daily activities to ensure the user is maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
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