Board of Directors

Pavel Hamet OQ, MD, PhD, FRCP(C),FRSM, FAHA, FCAHS, is founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer at Medpharmgene. Dr. Pavel Hamet is recognized internationally for his contribution to the field of diabetes, hypertension and genetics and is a member of the management of the largest-ever clinical trial in diabetes called ADVANCE (Lancet 2007, N Engl J Med 2008, Diabetes Care 2009) which is the source of the clinical data for Prognomix Inc. Dr. Hamet is the Canada Research Chair in Predictive Genomics. He is Professor of Medicine at the Université de Montréal, Adjunct Professor of Experimental Medicine at McGill University, and Visiting Professor at the First Faculty of Medicine at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. He founded and directed the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal’s Research Centre (CRCHUM) from 1996 to 2006. He is currently Chief of Gene Medicine services at the CHUM as well as CEO at Prognomic Inc.(CHUM et Prognomix doivent comporter un lien hypertexte vers les partenaires) Born in the Czech Republic, Dr. Hamet received his Doctorate in Medicine in 1967 from Charles University, a PhD in Experimental Medicine from McGill University in 1972, and a CSPQ in Endocrinology from Université de Montréal in 1974. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences since 2004. Dr. Hamet is the author or co-author of over 500 scientific publications and holds several international patents. His major scientific contributions are in the areas of hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, using approaches that range from bench to bedside to population health. Active in many societies, he is current President of the International Society of Pathophysiology. He was President of the Canadian and Quebec Hypertension Societies and General-Secretary of the International Society of Hypertension. He has received many honors, including the Harry Goldblatt Award from the American Heart Association (1990), Honorary Professor at the Shanghai II Medical University in China (1994), the J.E. Purkyne Golden Medal by the Czech Academy of Sciences (1994), the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation and the Achievement Award from the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (1996). the Wilder Penfield Award from the Government of Québec (2001), Honorary Member of the Czech Medical Academy, and the Michel Sarrazin Prize by the Club de recherches cliniques du Québec, the Canadian Hypertension Society Distinguished Service Award (2005). He is a member of the Academy of Great Montrealers (2006). In 2008, Dr Hamet was named as an Officer of the Ordre national du Québec and he received the Okamoto Award by the Japan Vascular Disease Research Foundation, the Masaryk Award from the Czech and Slovak Society in Canada and an award from the Russian Society of Cardiology and the Russian Antihypertensive league and received from the CHUM Fundation «le Prix Hommage» to underline his remarkable career (2009). He is associate-editor of the Journal of Hypertension and member of Collège International de Recherche Servier. Since 2010 he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Société francophone du diabète.

Dr. Jacques Turgeon, BPharm, PhD, has been appointed Director of Research at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal in 2007. From 2005-2007 he was Vice-Rector, Research, UdM and from 2000-2005, he has served as Dean of the Faculté de pharmacie, UdM. He received his Bachelor degree in Pharmacy in 1983 from Laval University in Quebec city followed by an M.Sc. degree in pharmacokinetics and a Ph.D. degree in drug metabolism from the same institution in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He completed post-doctoral studies from 1988 to 1990 in the department of Clinical Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, U.S.A., under the supervision of Dr. Dan M. Roden. From March 1999 to May 2000, he was Senior Director of the Pharmacokinetics department at Phoenix International Life Sciences. Research interests of Dr. Turgeon have always been directed towards the study of factors responsible for intersubject variability in drug response, including the role of pharmacogenetics in cardiovascular drug actions. He has published more than 100 referred articles and more than 260 abstracts. Dr. Turgeon has received numerous prizes for his research activities. He is a member of numerous societies and has been acting on the committees of several granting agencies for several years. He has been the Director of the Quebec Cardiovascular Network of the FRSQ and the Research Director of the Quebec Heart Institute, Laval Hospital.

With 30 years within the Québec health network, Mr. Jocelyn Boucher has held several executive positions and is, today the Deputy Chief Executive Officer - administration, financial affairs and economic partnerships, at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM). His main expertise is financial. He has developed an extensive network of collaborators and serves on the Board of Directors of various public and private companies (Logibec Groupe Informatique, Gale Force Petrolum, YD3, Univalor, etc.). From 2004 to 2007, he was a member of the Council of science and technology. Mr. Boucher graduated from the University of Québec at Trois-Rivières in accounting sciences and holds a master's degree in public administration from ENAP from which he received in 1988 an award of excellence.

Dr. Benoit Deslauriers, PhD, received his Doctorate from the University of Montreal in biomedical sciences. Dr. Deslauriers specializes in genetics, cardiovascular research and bioinformatics. He completed his Master’s degree in France at the INSERM-CNRS Institute of Pharmacology-Endocrinology of Montpellier. Dr. Deslauriers’ has been published in various scientific journals and he has presented his most recent work at numerous international scientific conferences. His post-doctoral studies were focused on bioinformatics. Thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit, Dr. Deslauriers assembled a team of world-renowned experts, whose unified efforts created Biogenix inc. He is co-founder and president of Biogenix inc. since its inception in February 2003.

Mr. Gosselin is president of MENODYS and has more than 20 years of experience in the health and biotechnology industries. Until recently and since 2002, he has been managing partner at CREA Group and until 2008, has also been president of Val-CHUM LLP the technology transfer organisation of CHUM (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Montréal). During different mandates at CREA, Mr. Gosselin has also acted as interim CEO for start-up companies in health sciences. From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Gosselin served as president and general manager of a business start-up company in the veterinary and agri-food industry. During his tenure there, he secured more than $16 million in financing and built the company up to more than ninety employees with operations in Canada and the United States. The company’s multinational activities generated over $10 million worth of sales per year after only five years of operation. Prior to this start-up, Mr. Gosselin has occupied many top management positions in different health science companies and from 1989 to 1992 he was portfolio director for a public venture capital firm where he participated in the start-up of eight new companies in the biomedical and biopharmaceutical industries in Quebec. Mr. Gosselin holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and an MBA from Sherbrooke University, as well as a certificate in business law from Montreal University. Mr. Gosselin sits on the board of directors of several companies within the health industry.